Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Sophie
The door closes behind me, and I move quickly across the annex toward my room with my phone still clenched in my hand. My pulse has not settled since I left Julian, but the message from Emma has shoved everything else to the side.
I unlock the screen again and reread it as I reach my door.
Emma: Theo got sick at school. He threw up twice and said his stomach hurt. He got dizzy when they tried to stand him up, so I’m taking him to urgent care now. I’ll call as soon as I know anything.
Another message sits beneath it.
Emma: He’s awake and talking. Don’t panic. I’m with him.
I step inside, drop my phone onto the bed, and pull my suitcase from beside the dresser. My hands move faster than my thoughts as I gather what I can, folding nothing properly, shoving clothes, shoes, toiletries, and chargers into the case while I pull up the airline app on my phone.
There is a commercial flight to Los Angeles leaving in just under two hours.
I book it without hesitating.
If I leave now, I can make the airport, get on the plane, and be home by early evening. I can replace anything I forget. I can deal with the rest later.
For one brief moment, my mind drifts backward to the night I just left behind.
The storm. Julian. The way everything between us broke open after years of silence.
The way I stopped guarding every thought and every instinct and let myself fall into something I had spent years pretending was finished.
I close my eyes for a second, then force them open.
There is no room to unravel over that now.
The harder truth is that whatever happened between Julian and me last night did not change the one thing I still have not told him.
It only makes that omission heavier, more immediate, and much more difficult to keep compartmentalized.
My phone starts ringing.
Emma.
I answer at once. “What happened?”
“He’s okay,” Emma says.
“We’re still waiting to be seen, but he hasn’t gotten sick again.”
“Is he still dizzy?”
“A little, but not like before.”
“I’m coming home.”
“You don’t have to rush back before we know what this is.”
“I already booked a flight.”
Emma exhales. “Sophie.”
“I’m coming.”
“I know you are.”
I sit on the edge of the bed long enough to pull on my shoes.
Emma lowers her voice.
“He’s scared, but he’s okay. I promise.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound like you know,” she say.
“I’ll calm down when I see him.”
Emma is quiet for a beat.
“That sounds more like you.”
I reach for my coat.
“I’ll text you when I get to the airport,” I tell her.
“Okay. I’ll keep you updated.”
We hang up.
I close the suitcase and look once around the room, making sure I have what I need. My thoughts are still racing, but now they have somewhere to go.
Theo first.
Everything else can wait.
I pull the suitcase into the hallway and head for the elevator.
By the time the plane levels out, Emma has sent another update telling me that Theo is fine.
The doctors think it is a stomach bug complicated by mild dehydration.
They have checked him over, given him fluids, and released him.
He is tired, but he is alert, talking, and already asking for crackers.
I read the message twice before some of the pressure in my chest finally eases.
I type back immediately, telling Emma that I saw the update and that I am on my way.
She responds a minute later to say she is taking Theo back to my townhouse and will stay with him until I get there.
I keep the phone in my hand for a while after that, even though there is nothing else I can do from thirty thousand feet.
The rest of the flight gives me too much time to think.
Once the fear over Theo starts to ease, everything else rushes back in.
The night with Julian. The conversation before it.
The realization that he tried to reach me after the article, just as I tried to reach him, and that both of us spent years believing the other had chosen silence.
For so long, I have lived inside one version of what happened because it was the only version I knew. Now that version has cracked open, and I do not know what replaces it.
The problem is that the past is not the only thing sitting between us anymore. There is still a part of my life Julian knows nothing about, and after last night, that omission feels heavier than it ever has.
Once the plane lands at LAX, I make it through the terminal as quickly as I can and slide into the back seat of the car waiting outside. I call Emma before the driver has even pulled away from the curb.
She answers on the first ring.
“Hey.”
“How is he?” I ask.
“He’s okay,” Emma says.
“A little wiped out, but he’s talking and asking for food, so I’m taking that as a good sign.”
“Thank God,” I say, closing my eyes for a moment.
Emma tells me, “They want him hydrated, on bland food, and resting for the rest of the day. We’re already back at your place.”
“I’m on my way now,” I tell her.
“I figured you would be,” Emma says.
“Just breathe. He’s fine.”
“I’ll breathe when I see him.”
Emma is quiet for a second before asking, “Sophie, are you okay? You sound exhausted.”
“I am exhausted,” I say.
“That all?”
I turn my head toward the window as the airport traffic crawls past us.
“No.”
Emma does not push.
“Okay. We’ll talk when you get home.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“Just get here safely.”
We hang up, and by the time the car clears the airport, the adrenaline has burned off enough to leave me feeling hollowed out. I rest my head against the seat and watch Los Angeles move past the window, trying to separate what happened with Julian from everything waiting for me at home. I cannot.
When the car finally pulls up in front of the townhouse, I am out almost immediately.
I unlock the door and step inside to find Theo on the living room floor with a blanket around his shoulders and several plastic pieces scattered across the rug.
Emma is sitting on the sofa beside him, watching him sort through them.
Theo looks up the second he hears me.
“Mom.”
The sound of his voice breaks through the last of the panic I have been carrying.
I drop my things near the door and cross the room.
“Hey, baby.”
Theo gives me a tired smile.
“I threw up.”
“I heard,” I say as I crouch beside him.
“Twice,” he adds.
“I heard that too.”
Emma looks at me and says, “He’s very proud of the numbers.”
Theo leans back against the sofa and says, “The second time was worse.”
“Theo,” I say, but the faint grin on his face tells me he is already feeling more like himself.
I press my hand against his forehead, then study his face anyway.
“Are you still dizzy?”
“No,” Theo says.
“Does your stomach still hurt?”
“A little.”
Emma tells me, “They checked everything. He’s fine.”
“I know,” I say, smoothing Theo’s hair back from his forehead.
He leans into my hand, and I stay there for a moment, letting the simple fact that he is home and safe settle me.
Emma watches me closely before saying, “You look terrible.”
I glance at her.
“Thank you.”
“I mean exhausted,” she says.
“I know what you meant.”
She studies me for another second.
“Something happened.”
I look down at Theo before answering.
“Not now.”
Emma follows my gaze and nods.
“Later.”
I sit down beside Theo and pull the blanket more securely around his shoulders while he goes back to arranging the pieces in front of him. For the first time since leaving the facility, I let myself focus on the room I am actually in.
***
By the next morning, Theo is well enough to complain about being kept home from school, which I take as a good sign. I make him scrambled eggs and toast while he sits at the kitchen table with a glass of water, a box of markers, and the half-finished model he refused to put away the night before.
“You know you’re supposed to be resting,” I tell him as I set his plate down.
Theo looks up at me.
“I am resting.”
“You’re building something.”
“I’m sitting down while I build it,” he says.
I give him a look, and Theo smiles before reaching for a piece of toast.
“That still counts,” he says.
I shake my head and turn back toward the counter, relieved enough to let him have the argument.
The townhouse feels normal again. Sunlight comes through the kitchen windows, Theo’s markers are scattered across the table, and the low hum of the dishwasher fills the room. After yesterday, the ordinary rhythm of home feels almost unreal.
Once Theo finishes eating, I carry my coffee into the living room and spread the printed Blackwell notes I brought home across the desk near the windows.
My main laptop is still somewhere at the facility with the leather work bag I left behind in my rush to get to the airport, which means I am working from my phone, a few printed interview pages, and the files I can reach through Vanguard’s cloud system on my tablet.
I read the same interview passage three times before giving up.
The retrospective was difficult enough when Julian was simply a subject I had history with. Now I am supposed to take everything that happened at the facility, put it somewhere outside the work, and continue writing about Blackwell with the same distance I had before.
I do not know if that distance exists anymore.
The pages in front of me are filled with notes from the research campus, technical observations from the engineering teams, and pieces of Julian’s interviews.
I should be thinking about structure, sourcing, and how the California facility fits into the future-facing section of the retrospective.
Instead, my mind keeps returning to the conversation before the storm and everything it changed.
Julian tried to reach me.
I tried to reach him.
Somewhere between those two facts, everything went wrong.
For years, I have lived with one version of what happened because it was the only version I had. Now that version no longer holds together as cleanly as it once did, and I do not know what to replace it with.
Theo looks over from the table.
“Are you working?”
“I’m trying,” I tell him.