Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Emilia
As soon as the door shuts behind me, I freeze.
Zac’s on the armchair, elbows braced on his knees, staring across the room and out the window, his expression blank. There’s something off about him; his eyes are unseeing, his hands still, his posture rigid.
Silence settles like an undetonated bomb.
“Hi?” I say carefully.
His head snaps towards me, eyes sharpening. “Hi,” he replies roughly.
“You didn’t come home last night.”
“I was busy.”
“Busy where?”
He glowers at me—a cold, emotionless glare—and I huff, lifting my hands in surrender.
“Fucking hell, alright. Back to keeping secrets. Fine.”
A flicker of something flashes in his eyes. Guilt, maybe. Anger, definitely. His jaw stiffens, teeth no doubt grinding, before he suddenly stands and strides into the kitchen. I curse under my breath before following, irritation prickling beneath my skin.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Fine.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say, crossing my arms and flinching as he slams a pan down on the hob. All the while, he doesn’t even spare me a glance.
“Just leave it, Emilia.”
“Why? We might not like one another, but I thought we were past this. Thought that maybe—just maybe—we could be civil. Respect one another—”
“I don’t want to fucking talk about it.”
“You can’t just shut down if you’re in a pissy mood—”
“I said, fucking leave it!” His voice explodes through the kitchen, raw and sharp.
He slams the cupboard door so hard it rattles, then his fist hammers against it.
My heart lurches at the sound. He stays there, hand pressed to the wood, shoulders heaving.
Then, quieter, almost fractured, he mutters, “Please.”
The thick emotion laced through the word sucks all the anger from my limbs. My shoulders drop at the sound, my heart clenches. I don’t understand what’s behind it… but it’s enough to stop me in my tracks.
For a moment, neither of us moves. The only sound is the low hum of the simmering water.
Before today, I’d almost let myself believe we were finding our footing. That, maybe, we could finally be civil. Maybe even something like friends.
But this feels like we’ve slammed right back into a goddamn wall.
I don’t know why, and it’s clear he isn’t about to tell me.
“Of course,” I mutter, voice dry. Slowly, I turn and leave, my footsteps loud in the quiet house. Upstairs, I shut the bedroom door and press my spine against it, trying to breathe through the ache of disappointment that shouldn’t hurt this much.
My day was long and tiring, but it couldn’t have been worse than Kayla’s. She looked terrible as we planted, green in the face despite it being over thirty hours since the party. She avoided my eyes all day, and she was long gone by the time I managed to ditch the overalls and ugly trainers.
I change into my lilac leggings and cream hoodie before heading back downstairs. There’s a steaming bowl of pasta waiting for me; Zac eats his own on the sofa, eyes fixed on his food, and only his food.
I sit at the kitchen table and eat alone, and when I’m done, I wash up, collecting Zac’s from his hand as well. He doesn’t protest, just stares blankly at the wall, the muscle in his jaw ticking. I want to know what’s going on inside his head… but he doesn’t want me there, and it’s not my business.
So I don’t press.
The hours drag.
The house is uncomfortably quiet. When the moon is high in the sky, I step out to sit on the back step, legs folded as the cold of the night surrounds me.
“Emilia?” Zac’s voice breaks through the quiet. I turn to see him standing in the doorway, the dull kitchen light casting him in shadow. For a moment, he just watches me, and I don’t answer, just fold my arms tighter around my legs. “What are you looking at?” he asks.
“The sky,” I say, glancing back at him. He looks up, the tension in his shoulders easing. “It’s the one good thing about the war,” I murmur. “Most of the light pollution has gone. You can actually see all the stars now.”
He lowers to the step beside me, and my eyes widen.
He’s close enough that I feel the heat of him, smell the stench of oil that tends to cling to his top after a day of work.
He gives me a small, apologetic smile before tipping his head towards the sky.
His brown eyes sweep across the glittering constellations, and my pulse stutters at how his expression softens; it’s the polar opposite to how it looked four hours ago.
I’m almost frozen in place, eyes pinned to the rugged, dark beauty of him.
“I used to look at the stars with Gia,” Zac says, voice low.
I glance at him, brow lifting.
“She always said it was the most beautiful thing left in the world.” He continues, eyes fixed above. “That we could see what was beyond our tiny, insignificant selves.” He laughs faintly, and when his gaze drops to mine, something inside me knots.
“Gia?” I murmur.
“She was my sister.”
“Oh.” I smile softly. “She was right.” I look at the black and swirling blue haze above us. “It’s… humbling.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then, in a low, rough voice, he says, “I’m sorry about earlier.” Surprised, I glance at him. His muscles are taut, his eyes fixed on some distant point in the sky. “I was… thinking about her,” he admits, the words gruff. “Shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”
The apology sounds forced, almost unnatural, but it’s the realest thing I’m going to get from Zac. And it’s more than I’ve ever gotten before.
My lips quirk at the edges.
“Our favourite was always Cassiopeia,” he says, the tension easing slightly as his arm lifts. Leaning closer, his shoulder brushes mine as he points towards the familiar ‘W’ that paints the darkness.
I try to follow his gesture—even though I don’t need to—but my focus keeps slipping to the sharpness of his jaw, the light in his eyes, the way starlight reflects off his high cheekbones.
“My dad’s favourite was Lyra,” I tell him, eyes drifting across the sky until I find it. “And the really bright star on the end? That’s Vega.”
Zac squints, brow furrowed. “Where?”
“There,” I whisper, leaning towards him, close enough to smell the summer scent on his skin, beneath the oil of his workday.
I reach across his chest, hand brushing his sleeve as I guide his wrist up.
“Follow those three stars up… the bottom two are part of a wonky sort of square. And the bright star there? On the right? That’s Vega. ”
He tilts his head, searching for it, and the space between us disappears, our cheeks only an inch apart.
“Vega,” he echoes quietly.
Zac’s eyes flick towards me instead of the stars.
The space between us tightens as his gaze lingers, tracing the curve of my cheeks, then dropping, slow and deliberate, to my mouth.
Something hot coils low in my stomach and my heart begins to pound.
There’s a warm pull within my chest, and for a moment the rest of the world disappears: the war, the State, the marriage.
There’s just the night sky, Vega and Cassiopeia burning bright above us, and the raw ache of how close we are.
Fire crawls under my skin, dangerous and dizzying.
“I’m sorry she died,” I murmur before I can stop myself.
Zac’s body stiffens. His shoulders lift, and his eyes tear back to the sky. Drawing back, he rests his spine against the curve of the step above.
“She didn’t,” he says, hands resting on his knees.
“She… Oh?”
He exhales slowly, eyes meeting mine. “The night the bombs fell, we were waiting for a train.” His hands ball into fists, knuckles whitening.
“I dragged her under the railway bridge, protected her with my body, and somehow, we fucking survived.” He gives a short, bitter laugh, then stares down at his fists.
“She disappeared years later after trespassing on State territory.”
Slowly, he unclenches his hands, stretching out his fingers. On his right hand, I note the ink near the knuckles of three of them. The middle one holds a ‘G’.
Deep in my chest, my heart clenches painfully.
“They took her. They must have,” Zac says hoarsely. The smirk that follows doesn’t match the fury that simmers in his eyes. The expression’s an attempt to mask his heartbreak, but the armour has already cracked.
“Maybe you’ll find her one day?” I say softly, offering hope that even I don’t believe.
“No.” Zac shakes his head, staring at the dirt beneath us. “I won’t.”
“You don’t know that,” I protest. “Maybe she left you a sign? At your old home, maybe. Did you check there? I went back to mine so many times—”
“No,” he cuts me off, hard gaze snapping to mine. That faint twang threads through his voice again, stronger now. “My home isn’t here, Emilia.”
My breath catches before I can stop it, and I frown. “What?”
He holds my stare for a moment, eyes dark, unreadable. Then he explains, “I’m not from the North, Emilia.” He pauses. “I’m from the South.”