Chapter 17 Harlow
HARLOW
Kai drives like the road personally offended him.
One hand on the wheel. The other clenched so tight around nothing that his knuckles are pale. His jaw is locked in that way that tells me he’s not calm—he’s containing.
I sit in the passenger seat with my arms folded across my stomach like I can hold myself together if I squeeze hard enough.
The cab smells like my brother—laundry detergent and coffee, mixed with a faint trace of his cologne.
And still, I feel like I’m vibrating.
Kai’s voice slices through the silence. “You want to tell me why you were at the rink alone?”
Not a question. A demand disguised as concern.
My throat tightens. “I left the hockey house and just needed somewhere quiet for a bit. I didn’t want to bother you.”
His grip tightens on the wheel. “You don’t bother me.”
I stare out the window, watching campus lights streak past. “You say that. But you also look like you’re about to explode.”
Kai exhales through his nose. “I’m not exploding.”
He is. He’s just doing it internally, where no one can see.
I swallow. “My brain was loud, and the rink was close. I didn’t think anyone would be there.”
Kai goes quiet for a second—the kind of quiet that means he’s swallowing instinct before it turns into control.
“Were you…thinking about hurting yourself?” His voice drops, rough around the edges.
My chest tightens painfully, because even though I know I’m beyond my darkest days, he still worries that I’m in the same mind frame that I was four years ago.
“No,” I say immediately. “No. Kai. No.”
His shoulders drop a fraction—relief leaking out before he shoves it back down like it’s weakness.
“Then why didn’t you call me when you left?” he demands, and it isn’t angry so much as scared.
Because the last time I didn’t call him, everything went bad. The last time I kept things to myself, he almost lost me.
I press my forehead against the cold glass. “Because I didn’t want you to look at me like I’m breaking.”
Kai’s jaw flexes. “Harlow.”
“It’s exhausting,” I whisper. “Being someone’s emergency.”
Silence swells in the cab. Kai doesn’t answer right away. I can feel him fighting the urge to argue. To correct me. To tell me he has to watch because if he doesn’t—
Finally, he says, quieter, “I hate that you feel like that.”
My throat tightens. It’s the closest thing to an apology Kai knows how to offer.
The cab turns onto his street. Not “our” street, technically—his and Grayson’s.
But it’s close enough that it feels like a second campus of hockey boys and noise and too many eyes.
Kai parks hard. The engine shuts off. The silence is immediate and thick.
He doesn’t look at me. Just stares forward, breathing too slowly like he’s trying not to unravel.
Then, without turning his head, he says, “Did Coleson bother you?”
My stomach twists. Not because it’s a stupid question. It’s just Kai’s version of what happened to you that you’re not telling me.
“No,” I say. “But I don’t think he’s a good guy, Kai. There’s just something off…and there was this girl with him when he came out of the locker room, and she basically ran out the door.”
His jaw ticks, like he wants to ask the real question. The one he’s afraid of.
“He shouldn’t have been there, especially with a girl, and definitely not in the locker rooms,” he says finally.
“I’ll have to see what was up with that and let Coach Graves know.
No one has really gotten along with him since he transferred.
I’ve been trying to make them, but shit, he’s not the easiest guy to put up with. ”
“That seems like the understatement of the century.”
Kai turns his head then, eyes scanning my face like he’s trying to read what I’m not saying. “Did you recognize the girl by chance?”
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t. But she didn’t seem really happy. Her mascara was a mess, and she didn’t even pause to say bye to him on her way out.”
I swallow. “He saw me sitting there.”
“And then what?”
“He ran his mouth, but it was nothing I couldn’t handle. Then you showed up.”
Kai’s expression makes it clear he hates that answer—not because he thinks I’m lying, but because he hates that I was in a potentially vulnerable position.
He opens his door. “Get inside.”
His tone leaves no room for negotiation.
My stomach sinks.
We climb the stairs in silence. Kai unlocks the door, steps aside to let me in first—always, instinctive—and then closes it behind us with a careful softness that doesn’t match his mood. The warm light inside feels too normal for what just happened.
The living room is quiet, and there’s no sign of Grayson, which makes me feel two warring emotions: both relief that I don’t have to see anyone else tonight and also disappointment that I won’t be seeing him.
Kai tosses his keys on the counter and turns to me like he’s about to keep going.
“Okay,” he says, whether he’s trying to calm me or himself down, I’m not entirely sure. “Go—go shower. Take my bed tonight. I have some shorts out here, and I’ll sleep on the couch. You’ve had a long day, I’ve had a long day, just crash here. Get some sleep, and we’ll talk tomorrow.”
My chest loosens a fraction. “Okay.”
Kai nods once, stiff, like he’s forcing himself to accept it.
I move down the hall toward Kai’s room and shut the door softly behind me. The second I’m alone, I pull my phone out, seeing a text from Weston.
Weston: helloooooo over there!
I close my eyes and exhale slowly. It’s not that I don’t like Weston, but I just don’t have it in me to even pretend I want to be social anymore tonight.
Then another notification slides across the top of my screen.
A forum ping.
My stomach flips, even though I told myself I wouldn’t do this tonight.
I open it anyway.
Not because I’m desperate.
Because my brain is tired, and it knows this place is quiet.
NumberEleven: you awake?
LittleTooMuch: Yeah. Rough night.
NumberEleven: you want to talk about it?
My eyes sting instantly, the tears begging to be let out.
I wipe at them angrily, offended by my own feelings, especially the ones I can’t seem to control.
LittleTooMuch: No, I really think I just need to sit and calm down.
A pause.
NumberEleven: ok. breathe with me then.
NumberEleven: in for four. hold. out for six.
I do it.
Then again, and again.
My shoulders relax just a fraction, but the urge to cry is subsiding.
I type the truth of what I’m feeling before I can talk myself out of it.
LittleTooMuch: I hate being someone’s emergency.
Three dots.
Then:
NumberEleven: you’re not an emergency. you’re just having a hard night.
My chest tightens hard enough that it hurts. Because that’s the thing no one says out loud. They either panic, or fix, or hover. They don’t just…name it.
Hard night. Not the end of the world.
Just a night.
I swallow and set my phone down like if I keep talking, I’ll start crying, and I refuse.
I take a shower so hot it fogs the mirror, letting the water beat against my shoulders until my muscles unclench. I change into one of Kai’s old T-shirts, because it’s soft and familiar, then I finally crawl into bed and try to make my brain stop replaying everything.
I fall asleep thinking about choice, which is a cruel thing to fall asleep thinking about, because choice is what my brain likes to punish me for.
The next morning, I wake up with a stiff neck and that post-spiral hangover that feels like you ran a marathon in your sleep. I don’t touch my phone. If I do, the night becomes real again. Instead, I listen.
I hear one of the boys moving around the apartment, and my mind is at war with who it wants it to be.
I get up slowly, pull on a hoodie, and pad down the hall. Kai is at the counter making eggs, movements sharp and clipped. He looks up when I enter, and relief flashes in his eyes so fast it’s almost invisible. Then he masks it with irritation.
“You hungry?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I lie, because I’m tired of being looked at like a fragile thing.
Kai watches me carefully. “Sit. Grayson is already gone, so it’s just us.”
I sit. He slides a plate in front of me.
Eggs, scrambled of course, some toast, and fruit that actually looks delicious.
I pick up my fork and take a couple of bites.
Kai leans against the counter, arms crossed. “We’re talking.”
I swallow. “Okay.”
Kai’s gaze is sharp. “Why didn’t you call me?”
I stare at my plate. “Because you would’ve come.”
“Yes,” he says, like that’s the point.
“And you would’ve looked at me like I was breaking,” I whisper.
Kai’s jaw flexes. “You were not okay.”
“I was not okay,” I agree softly. “But I wasn’t…dying. I just needed quiet.”
Kai stares at me, expression tight with frustration. “Then come here.”
“I didn’t want to come here,” I whisper, and it feels like stepping off a cliff. “Because…”
Hurt flickers across his face.
I inhale shakily. “Kai, I love you, but you watch me like you’re waiting for me to disappear.”
His throat bobs.
Silence stretches.
Then, quieter, Kai says, “I almost lost you.”
My chest tightens. “I know,” I whisper.
His eyes go glassy. He blinks hard like he refuses to cry. “So I don’t know how to do this without watching.”
It’s honest.
It’s human.
And it makes my throat tighten because it means he’s trapped too.
I look down at my plate and force myself to take a bite of egg. It tastes like nothing. Still, I chew. Kai watches, something easing in his face as I swallow.
His jaw ticks. “I don’t trust the world. I don’t trust Tyler. I don’t trust anyone who thinks your body is something they get to manage.”
The name doesn’t hit like a jump scare as it did in the bookstore. It hits like a bruise you forgot you had until someone presses it.
My fingers tighten around my fork. The metal bites my skin.
Kai watches the movement. He always does.
“I’m not saying this to make you—” He stops and rubs a hand over the back of his neck like the words get stuck there. “I’m saying it because sometimes I need you to understand why my brain is a little fucked up.”
We sit in silence for a while, and Kai is the first to break the silence.
“I remember,” he says, and now his voice is the one shaking. “I remember Mom calling me. I remember thinking—” He stops, swallows hard. “I remember thinking I was going to get home and you wouldn’t be there.”
The kitchen suddenly feels far too small for the two of us.
“I tore him apart.”
A flash—Kai in our hallway that night, shoulders tight, eyes furious, not even asking permission before he left the house. My mom trying to stop him, but not getting through to him in his rage.
I nod, throat tight.
“I know,” I add quietly. “And I know you did it because you love me.”
Kai’s eyes soften by a fraction. “I would do it again.”
“I know that too,” I whisper. Then, because it’s the part I never say, “But experiencing that also taught you that loving me means watching me.”
Kai’s throat bobs, and he stares at the floor like it might give him a different answer.
Finally, he says, quietly, “It taught me that if I blink, I miss them. I miss the signs that you need me.”
My chest aches.
“Kai,” I say, and my voice comes out softer than I planned, “I’m not asking you to not care.”
He looks up.
“I’m asking you to learn how to care without putting your hands around my throat.” I swallow. “Not literally. Just…sometimes it feels like that.”
Kai’s face twists.
“I don’t know how,” he admits, and it sounds like it costs him something to say it. “Because following your lead last time meant I got paged at school, and the principal told me you hit the floor, and they had called an ambulance.”
My lungs seize.
He exhales hard. “I can try to do better. To give you more space. But only if you tell me what you need.”
The word try lands like a gift. It’s honest. It means he’s going to put in the effort, even if it’s not something he can truly promise me in this moment.
I stare at my plate. Then I pick up my fork and take another bite.
Chew. Swallow. Not for him.
For me.
When I look up again, Kai’s eyes are on my mouth like he’s watching the proof. I don’t get angry. Not this time. Because I understand what he’s really watching for. The sign that I’m still here.
I set my fork down, needing a hug from my brother. I walk around the counter and wrap my arms around him. It takes him a minute, but his arms come around me, hugging me tightly to his chest.
“You can still ask me if I’m okay, and if I say I’m fine,” I add, throat tight, “you can ask again. But…once. Not ten times.”
A small twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Only once.”
“Only once,” I confirm.
He exhales slowly, like he’s letting himself unclench.
“Okay,” he says again, and this time it sounds less like surrender and more like agreement. “I can do that.”