Chapter 103 CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THREE

Chapter 103 CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THREE

 AVERY

Jace was home.
The house felt different because of it… softer somehowz Morning light filtered through the curtains in his room, catching on the edge of his dinosaur shelf and the blanket twisted around his legs. No beeping monitors. No antiseptic. Just home.
I had already decided not to go to school. One day off wouldn’t ruin my life, and after everything, leaving him felt impossible. Ms. Rosa had understood immediately. So I stayed in the chair beside his bed in old shorts and a worn T-shirt, hair unbrushed, phone in my lap, watching him exist in the safest place I could give him.
Skyler called around midmorning.
“Please tell me you’re not dead,” she said the second I answered. “Because if I have to mourn you and also be mad at you for scaring me, I’m going to be very busy.”
“I’m not dead.”
“Good. Status on the tiny chaos gremlin?”
Before I could answer, another voice came through the background.
“Is she okay?” Leo asked. “You’re on speaker, by the way.”
Of course she was with Leo.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Jace is home. He’s recovering by becoming a problem again.”
As if on cue, Jace perked up against his pillows. “I was strong. I didn’t cry.”
Skyler immediately seized on that. “Congratulations. Do you want a medal or a snack?”
“Snacks,” Jace said.
“Obviously.”
Leo cleared his throat. “Maybe don’t encourage the competitive trauma narrative.”
“Don’t be boring,” Skyler told him.
“I’m being responsible.”
“You’re being Leo.”
“That’s not an insult.”
“It is the way I say it.”
I rubbed my temple as the two of them went back and forth, Jace occasionally inserting himself like he was part of the official panel. For a few minutes, the normalcy of it eased something in my chest. Skyler dramatic. Leo dry. Jace delighted to have an audience.
Eventually I cut in. “Alright, enough. He needs actual rest.”
“I am resting,” Jace protested.
“Resting quietly.”
Skyler sighed. “Fine. Call me later. And eat, Emery.”
“Please do,” Leo added. “Your body is not fueled by stress alone, despite your commitment to the lifestyle.”
“Bye,” I said, and hung up before either of them could start again.
I dropped the phone into my lap.
When I looked back at the bed, Jace had already gone still. All the excitement of talking to Skyler and Leo had drained out of him at once. His head rested deep in the pillow, one arm curled under his cheek, mouth slightly open. The little bandage on his hand looked too stark against his skin. His curls were a soft mess against the pillowcase.
Asleep.
Just like that.
I smiled before I could help it.
He looked so cute it almost hurt. So small. So completely innocent. There was nothing guarded in his face when he slept…no fear, no effort, no trying to be brave. Just peace. The kind that made the rest of the world feel unnecessarily cruel by comparison.
And somehow, without warning, he made me think of Emery.
Not the fire. Not the worst memories. Just her.
The softness she used to carry so easily. The way she could look gentle even when she was teasing me. Emery had always been our parents’ little good girl…the one who made sense to people. Sweet without trying. Bright without demanding space. Teachers trusted her on sight. Relatives softened around her. She was the daughter who didn’t leave sharp edges behind when she left a room. The easy one. The good one. The one who made our family look whole just by standing in the middle of it.
I used to roll my eyes at that.
Now I would have given anything to have her sitting on the other side of this bed.
God, I missed her.
I missed her voice in the hallway. I missed the way she would’ve made last night sound less terrifying for Jace, turning hospital details into something lighter with one easy smile. I missed having someone who loved him the way I did. Someone who understood that when something happened to him, the whole shape of the world tilted. Some days the missing was loud enough to knock the air from my lungs. Today it was quieter than that…a deep, steady ache beneath my ribs as I watched our little brother sleep in the light.
I reached over and brushed a curl from his forehead.
He didn’t stir.
“I miss you,” I whispered into the empty room, soft enough that it barely counted as sound. “I miss you so much it still doesn’t make sense.”
Jace sighed in his sleep and shifted closer to the warmth of the blanket.
I stayed where I was, grief and tenderness tangled so tightly in my chest I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began, and let myself miss my sister without forcing the feeling away.
Eventually, my stomach interrupted the moment with a low, unimpressed growl.
Right.
Food.
I eased out of the chair as quietly as I could and left Jace’s door cracked open before heading down the hall. The kitchen was bright with late-morning light, ordinary and a little too normal after the last twenty-four hours. I opened the fridge. Closed it. Opened a cabinet. Closed that too. Toast felt pointless. Cereal felt sad. Leftovers felt like a commitment I didn’t have the emotional range for.
Nothing looked good.
Except one thing.
No.
No, no, no.
The cookies.
And not just any cookies… the cookies Asher got me last night. The ridiculous, life-ruining, possibly gated-from-the-public cookies that had destroyed my dignity in a hospital chair before I even realized I’d finished the box.
Crazy, I know.
What was slightly less crazy, and significantly more incriminating, was the fact that I had kept the little label from the bag. The one with the bakery name and address printed on it in clean black letters. I definitely had not planned on visiting later.
Or maybe now.
I stared at the scrap of paper on the counter like it had appeared there through witchcraft and poor decision-making.
I could already hear how pathetic it would sound out loud. Yes, I rejected the boy, the apology, the softness, and the entire emotional complication of last night… but I would like another box of his cookies.
I know.
I should have just called Asher.
Apologized for the way I spoke to him in the hospital room. Told him Jace was home. Maybe even admitted that the cookies had, unfortunately, lived up to every smug word of his recommendation.
But my ego would not let me.
It sat there in my chest like a locked door, stubborn and exhausted and still trying to protect me from the version of Asher who brought fries for my brother and looked at me like I was someone worth being gentle with.
Calling him would make all of that real again.
Buying the cookies in silence felt safer.
Which was how I found myself standing in the kitchen, phone in one hand, bakery address in the other, seriously considering whether I was about to romanticize a chocolate chip cookie run as emotional self-care.
I glanced back toward the hallway.
Jace was asleep.
Ms. Rosa was home.
And the craving was getting louder by the second.
“This is so stupid,” I whispered.
Then I grabbed my keys anyway.