1. JAMIE #3
The door slams open.
Jackson fills the doorframe. Has to duck to clear it, shoulders nearly spanning the width. His eyes find me—shirtless, crying, hands on my breasts—and his face does something I can't read. Brow pulling together, mouth flattening, gaze moving from my face to my chest and back again.
Not the way Greg looked at me. Not hungry. Not calculating. Just—seeing. Seeing me hurt.
"What the hell is going on?"
I try to speak. My throat closes on the first attempt. I force it open, push the words through.
"It's a condition. From the stress—Greg, all of it—my body started producing milk. Spontaneous lactation. I take medication and I pump every four hours, but the pump is in my bag and I didn't want you to?—"
I stop. Hear how this sounds. I'm twenty years old, standing topless in front of my forty-one-year-old stepfather, explaining that my breasts produce milk because a man terrorized me for two years. The absurdity of it wants to strangle me.
"You're not pregnant?"
"Of course I'm not pregnant. I'm a virgin."
The words land flat. Matter-of-fact. Just data, like flour absorbs liquid and yeast needs warmth to activate.
"Where's the pump?"
"Front pocket of my bag. The big, heavy plastic thing."
He leaves. Comes back thirty seconds later, black case in hand. Holds it out.
My hands shake as I take it. Fingers fumbling with the zipper, trembling so badly I can't get purchase. The plastic is slippery, or my grip is too weak, or shock is finally catching up with my nervous system.
I try to position the flange. It slips.
Hits the tile.
Cracks.
A piece of plastic breaks off and skitters across the floor, spinning to a stop near the base of the toilet.
I stare at it.
The broken pump. The piece on the floor. The only tool I had to manage this nightmare on my own.
Something in me fractures.
I sob.
Not pretty crying. Not cinematic tears that make me look vulnerable and delicate. Ugly, full-body sobbing that shakes my shoulders and clogs my throat and makes my breath come in wet, jagged gasps.
I cry for my mother—for the sound of dishes clinking in the background while I told her Greg was harassing me, for the pause that stretched too long before she said "Are you sure you're not overreacting?", for the text with Jackson's number and zero follow-up questions.
I cry for Greg's wet smile after the instructors left his office, for the smell of him in that enclosed space, for his hand turning my face and his breath on my mouth.
I cry for Morales's jaw tightening and his eyes dropping and the way he asked if I was okay like checking a box on a form.
I cry for my body that betrayed me, that started producing milk without my permission, that turned harassment into a physical condition I have to manage every four hours for the foreseeable future.
I cry for the pump in pieces on the tile.
Then arms close around me.
Jackson pulls me against his chest. Doesn't speak. Doesn't shush me. Just holds me.
His chest is solid, warm through his uniform shirt. My face presses into the fabric. His arms engulf me—one around my shoulders, one around my waist—and there's so much of him that I feel small. Safe-small, not scared-small. Protected instead of trapped.
This makes me cry harder. Because this man—this near-stranger—heard my voice crack on a phone call and said he'd come. No interrogation. No conditions. No "are you sure it's that bad" or "maybe you misunderstood." He just came.
He's the first person who's ever stood between me and the thing hurting me. Not my mother. Not Morales or Patterson. Not a single classmate who saw and said nothing. Him.
I wrap my arms around his neck. Have to reach because he's so tall, and he's bending slightly to accommodate my height. My bare chest presses against his uniform, wet with milk and tears, and he doesn't flinch.
Time passes. I don't track it.
Eventually, the sobs taper. Turn into hiccups, then shaky breathing, then nothing.
I pull back.
Reality arrives. I've been half-naked, pressed against his chest, for—minutes? Longer? The embarrassment and the fact that I didn't think about it until this second both register at once.
"Tell me how I can help."
His voice is steady. Practical. Eyes on my face, not my body.
"I can do it myself."
"Your hands are shaking."
I look at them. They are. I make fists to stop it. Doesn't work.
"I just need the milk expressed manually. I can manage."
"So use my hands. I can do that."
I stare at him. At his hands. They're enormous—thick fingers, broad palms, the kind of hands that could palm a basketball without trying. Then back at his face.
"This is wrong. You're my stepfather."
"One—we're not related by blood. Two—you're in pain."
His voice hasn't changed. Still that same low, unhurried tone. He's not asking for anything. Not making this weird. Just a man offering his hands because mine don't work and I'm in pain and he can fix that.
The pain is screaming. My hands are useless. He showed up. He's steady. He's here.
The wrongness is real. The pain is more real.
"Okay."