The air in the room thickened as she stared at Vincenzo’s smile.
She thought about the chaotic nightmare of her last move. She thought about Chase, healthy and singing Bon Jovi for a blackmailed “bonding day” while she struggled with insanity.
Then she thought about the strangers. El Viento’s relocation experts touching her books, sliding her manga and anime into uniform boxes, and organizing her mismatched socks by color.
The kindness felt heavy.
“I…” Amelia started, her voice wavering.
Chase’s expression shifted instantly, moving closer. “Amelia?”
“I need a second,” she said, clutching her purse as she stood. “The coffee… I just need to use the restroom.”
Vincenzo gestured toward the hallway. “Down the hall, second left. Take your time, Amelia. We’re just haggling over the boring stuff.”
“I trust you,” Amelia said to Chase, and she realized it was the truest thing she’d said all day. She didn’t trust herself not to scream if she stayed for another second.
“Finish it,” she whispered to him. “I’ll meet you after.”
She made it to the restroom before her breath hitched. It was a cathedral of marble and light, with faint music. Amelia gripped the edge of the cold counter and looked at her reflection.
She looked frantic. Her hair was escaping its clip in messy, rebellious strands, and her cardigan was buttoned wrong at the bottom. Her eyes were wide and glossy, mirroring the room’s clinical perfection.
Her pulse hammered in her ears, a frantic beat. She focused on it, trying to force the panic into a rhythm. Her fingers began to tap the counter, locking into the complex cadence of “Overcompensate.” It was the beat she’d looped all through college.
“Pull it together,” she whispered to her reflection. “This is just what people mean when they say ‘terms and conditions.’”
But the silence of the room offered no comfort. It made the absence of her old life louder. In moments like this back at Orangeside, she wouldn’t have been alone. Sharon would have been there, pulling a “crisis cookie” out of her purse, or Christina would have been leaning against the door, judging the world for her.
The memory of Christina hit her with a sharp warmth. She remembered the first day they’d met. Amelia had been spiraling, hyperventilating over a lost color-coded syllabus. Christina had marched over, her combat boots loud on the linoleum, terrifying in a leather jacket covered in anarchy patches.
“Breathe,” Christina had said, slamming a boot onto the chair next to her. “It’s a syllabus, not a death sentence. Here. I snatched an extra one from Starmer’s office. Take it.”
It was aggressive kindness. It was snark used as a shield to protect someone else’s peace.
Amelia realized why she kept going back to Summers Brew. It wasn’t the lemon scones or the caffeine. It was because Tabitha—with her jagged eyeliner and her “SMILES TOO MUCH” labels—felt like a ghost of Christina. She was the same kind of armor, the same “I don’t care” attitude that was clearly terrified of caring too much.
Amelia checked her reflection one last time. She didn’t fix the cardigan. She didn’t want to be “ABeeWin” right now. She wanted to be the girl who understood that armor was just a fashion choice, and sometimes you had to run toward the noise.
She pulled out her phone and texted Chase: I can’t stay at VIM right now. Too much. I’m going to Uber to Summers Brew to clear my head. I’ll e-sign whatever whenever. Let him move the boxes. I just need to breathe.
Her hands shook as she typed. She hurried out of the bathroom, bypassed the elevators, and took the stairs, needing to feel the impact of her feet on something solid.
She needed noise.
She needed drums.
She needed to go see the girl who wrote judgments on cups.
Turning her collar up against the damp atmosphere, Amelia thumbed open the rideshare app, and started walking toward the corner. Her phone buzzed as she reached it, a breath of confused relief leaving her lungs as she read the reply from Chase.
Signed my part. e-Sign when you’re ready.