Chapter Forty
HEARTbrEAK PROTOCOL
Cole
My apartment is quiet for once. No Netflix humming in the background. No visitors coming in and out with casseroles or check-ins I didn’t ask for. Just me, a heating pad, and my mom rearranging my bookshelf for the third time this week.
“I liked the hockey books on the top shelf,” I say without looking up.
“I like them where I can reach,” she says, not missing a beat.
My ribs still ache, but not as sharp as they did last week. I’m off the heavy meds, walking more, breathing easier. But everything still hurts in that weird, slow, under-the-skin way. Like my body’s made of bruises and scar tissue and quiet landmines.
And under all of it? The ache for Brennan hasn’t dulled at all. And the space where Andi used to be? That feels just as raw.
I glance at the photo on the coffee table—one of the crew from last year’s station holiday party. Brennan’s in the middle, holding a cookie shaped like a fire hydrant, grinning like an idiot.
I swallow hard.
Mom finally sits, mug in hand, eyes on me. “How’s your pain level today?”
“Manageable,” I lie.
She gives me a look.
“Fine. It sucks. But less than it did.”
“Progress,” she says. “And the other thing?”
“What other thing?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Don’t be dense, Cole. The girl.”
I lean my head back against the couch. “I don’t know.”
“Have you called her?”
“She left.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No, I haven’t called her.” I scrub a hand over my face. “I texted a few times. But I don’t want to beg someone to stay when I’m still trying to remember how to keep standing.”
She takes a slow sip of her tea. “Sometimes people run because they’re scared, not because they don’t care.”
“She is scared,” I say quietly. “And I get it. Hell, I scared myself. But it doesn’t make it hurt less.”
“No,” she says. “It doesn’t.”
I nod. “And it’s not like I can promise her nothing bad will ever happen. Maybe she can’t handle it—who the hell knows.”
We sit there for a minute. Just breathing. The kind of silence you can only share with family.
“I miss him,” I say finally, nodding toward the photo. “I keep waiting for a dumb text or him to show up with that awful gas station candy he loved. And every time he doesn’t… it’s like losing him all over again.”
She reaches over and squeezes my knee.
“I know you do. I’m so sorry, Cole.”
I nod, blinking faster than I want to.
“Let yourself grieve. It’s okay. Healing’s going to take time, and you don’t have to figure it all out today.”
“I know.” I pause. “But I really thought she’d be part of the figuring-it-out.”
Mom smiles, sad and fond. “Then maybe she still will be.”