Chapter 125 Needing Someone Isn't Weak

Chapter 125 Needing Someone Isn't Weak
Penny POV

I'm pressed flat against the wall by the window, phone gripped so tight my knuckles ache, watching a dark car idle across the street with its headlights off.

"Mom." My voice comes out barely a whisper. "It's still there. It hasn't moved in ten minutes."

My mom's already dialed down the lights in the apartment, standing beside me now, peering carefully through a gap in the blinds. "I don't recognize the car. You said Jake's on his way?"

"He's calling me right now," I answer the phone with shaking hands, putting it on speaker so my mom can hear too. "Jake, it's still out there. Nobody's gotten out. It's just sitting there."

"I'm four minutes away," Jake's voice comes through fast, breathless, like he's already driving faster than he should. "Penny, listen to me, don't go outside, don't confront it, just stay where you are. I'm calling the police the second I hang up with you."

"Okay." My heart's hammering so hard I can feel it in my throat. "Okay, just hurry."

I stay glued to that window the whole time, watching the car, waiting for movement, my mom's hand steady on my shoulder even though I can feel her own fear trembling underneath it. Four minutes stretch into something that feels like forty, every second crawling by, until finally headlights sweep into the lot and Jake's car pulls up fast, parking crooked, and he's out the door before it even fully stops.

The moment he's out, the dark car's engine turns over, and it pulls away smooth and unhurried, disappearing around the corner before Jake can even get a good look at it.

"Did you see the plate?" I ask the second I open the door, pulling him inside.

"No, it was too dark; it moved too fast." He's breathing hard, hands shaking slightly as he pulls me into a hug right there in the doorway, holding on tighter than he probably means to. "Are you okay? Did it move at all before I got here? Did anyone try to?"

"I'm okay," I say against his shoulder, and I mean it, even though my heart's still racing. "It just sat there. Watching, I think. But it never came closer."

My mom quietly excuses herself to the kitchen, giving us space, and Jake and I end up sitting on the small couch, close but not quite touching, both of us still catching our breath from a night that keeps refusing to slow down.

"Penny." His voice comes out rough. "I'm so sorry. For tonight, in the kitchen. Everything I said, it came out completely wrong."

"I know you were scared," I say softly, some of my own hurt from earlier already dissolving under the weight of everything that's happened since. "I was scared too. I shouldn't have said that thing about you being like your dad. That was cruel, Jake, and I didn't mean it the way it sounded."

"Maybe you weren't entirely wrong." He rubs his face, exhausted in a way that goes deeper than just tonight. "I've spent two years being the one who takes care of everyone else. Lily, the house, even my dad in a weird way, covering for him without even realizing that's what I was doing. And somewhere in there I think I convinced myself that's the only version of me anybody actually wants. The strong one. The one who handles things." His voice cracks slightly. "And tonight, with everything spiraling- the house, my dad's hearing, Daniel Ford showing up, your birth certificate, I felt myself becoming the person who needs to be taken care of instead of the one doing it. And I panicked. I pushed you away because some stupid part of me thought needing you that much made me weak. Made me exactly like my dad, running from things instead of facing them."

I reach over and take his hand, lacing my fingers through his. "Jake, needing people isn't weakness. I used to believe the same thing you're describing right now. I spent years thinking if I just stayed small enough, quiet enough, needed nobody enough, nobody could ever hurt me the way Brianna and everyone else did. I thought needing help made me pathetic instead of human."

"What changed?" he asks quietly.

"You did," I say honestly. "The night you made me realize it's okay to let someone see you falling apart. Remember the kitchen table, two cups of tea? You didn't perform strength for me that night. You just let me see you exactly as broken as you actually were, and I didn't run. I think that's the moment I actually started to fall for you, if I'm being honest. Not because you were the perfect quarterback with the perfect life. Because you let me see you needing something."

Jake's eyes go glassy, and he pulls me closer, resting his forehead against mine. "I don't want to be someone who pushes you away every time things get hard, Penny. I want to be someone who lets you in, even when it's terrifying."

"Then let's practice that," I whisper. "Starting now. What's actually going on? Maren's text made it sound like Daniel Ford said something huge."

Jake tells me everything then: Daniel showing up, the theory that someone close to the family has been feeding information the whole time, someone with real access. My stomach turns cold listening to it, thinking about Detective Reyes in that grainy security footage, thinking about how fast information keeps leaking straight to unknown numbers texting both of us.

We're still talking it through, heads bent close together, when my phone buzzes on the coffee table between us. I glance down automatically, and the second I see the notification, every bit of warmth from the last twenty minutes drains straight out of the room.

It's an email. From Detective Reyes's official department address, sent at this exact late hour, subject line four words long that make my whole body go rigid.

We need to talk. Alone.

I turn the phone toward Jake slowly, watching his face go pale to match mine, both of us staring at the same impossible question neither of us can answer.

Why would the detective investigating his mother's death want to meet with me, alone, at nearly midnight?