32. April 4, Monday #4
“Aha,” Kayla said, smiling faintly. “If you can make jokes, you’re starting to come back up.”
Silence fell for a moment. Thick, but not hostile.
“So, what now?” Zoey asked. “I just…wait for the phone to ring? Sit here until someone decides I’ve passed the invisible test?”
“Or,” Kayla offered, “you keep building the life you said you wanted. With or without Ilya. With or without this Cyclones job. With or without a specific placement. You keep doing the next right thing.”
She was so damn tired of feeling like her life was spent waiting on a judge, a boss, and a social worker to stamp her approved.
“The next right thing?” Zoey repeated skeptically.
“Rent is still due,” Kayla reminded her. “Kids at the group home still need someone to hand them trading cards and good pizza. Nina still needs someone to challenge her worldview. You’re good at all of that.”
Zoey sniffed. “And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, you’re allowed to be sad.” Kayla gave her a dry look. “Deeply uncool, I know.”
Zoey huffed, a half-laugh. “Just ask the teens I work with. I’m very uncool.”
“Same,” Kayla said. “At least we match. Just…keep working toward that life you want and one day, you’ll realize that you’re living it.”
They sat like that awhile longer, warmth and quiet and chocolate doing what they could.
Right now, her life looked like a woman waiting for other people to tell her if she qualified.
A judge. A boss. A social worker. A captain with fear where his courage should have been.
But what did Zoey want her life to look like? What did she want to build, separate from anyone else’s fear?
The answer didn’t come clean or immediate.
It came in flashes: kids laughing and lighting up when they saw her, the sharp, bright pride in her chest when the clinic worked, Kayla’s sleepy grin from the couch after a Shark Week marathon, Kira’s chaos texts, and, yes, the memory of Ilya’s steady hand at her back.
She could not fix Jayden’s case by sheer force of wanting. She could not wish his mother’s progress to disappear because it complicated Zoey’s dream.
She could not fix Ilya’s belief that he was too dangerous to build a life with.
She could not make Nina see her as anything but a risk right now.
But she could decide what she did next.
A little later, after Zoey showered and Kayla forced another decaf coffee and half a croissant into her with minimal homicide threats, exhaustion dragged her under for a brief, ugly nap on the couch.
She woke dry-eyed, with a headache and a group text from Nina about a rescheduled sponsor meeting.
Kira also sent another plea for Zoey to give her brother another chance…while also chewing her out for not telling her about the relationship in the first place.
And a text from Babs: Just connected with Hanna. Oh, babe. I’m so sorry.
The ache flared again, immediate and sharp.
Jayden.
Not hers.
Maybe never hers.
She could grieve that hope without turning him into a symbol. Without making him responsible for healing a wound he hadn’t created.
This afternoon was the Little Cyclones victory tour at the group home. Some of the marketing interns made player trading cards for all the kids, complete with deeply scientific stats ranging from “goals scored against Teemu” to “most dramatic celebration” to “burps in a row, unverified.”
The videographers compiled a highlight reel from the clinics and final games, fully narrated and dissected by the Cyclones’ own Thea Sharpe, Zoey’s fairy godmother of flirting and brutal truths.
Zoey wanted to see their faces when they watched themselves on screen.
She wanted to clap for Jayden without making her longing his burden.
She wanted to show up because it mattered, even when the outcome wasn’t hers to control.
She typed back to Babs: I’m okay. Or I will be. Will be there shortly.
The Little Cyclones victory party at the group home wasn’t about her future. It was about theirs.
About theirs…and about showing up, no matter what the paperwork said. Like she tried to tell Ilya.
After showering and making herself look much more presentable, Zoey grabbed her bag, her keys, and a jacket heavy enough to survive April, even if it was unseasonably warm.
Gotta love New England.
The temperamental bitch.
On the way out the door, her stomach grumbled.
She’d eaten two chocolate bars, half a croissant, and cried out approximately a gallon of water. The only thing left in her system was cortisol. Not a sustainable ratio.
She needed something warm and carb-heavy. She needed her comfort coffee.
Victor’s Diner lived halfway between her apartment and the group home.
Which was all the rationale she needed.
And if there was a part of her that was desperate to go back to a place where she and Ilya had spent a lot of nights over the last few months, so she could almost imagine he was with her—telling her that she was enough, that she was exquisite, that she was capable of achieving all her dreams, including allaying his ridiculous fears—well. She was staunchly denying it.
A person could only handle so much heartache without completely falling apart.