Emma
I didn’t remember standing up.
Or gathering Avery into my arms.
Or following Kaden out the firehouse door.
Everything after “Let me take you both home” felt dreamlike — slow, hushed, wrapped in that fragile trust that threaded itself between us.
The night air was cold, but not the shivering kind. The quiet kind. The kind that made the world feel small and private, like the three of us were moving through a moment nobody else had the right to witness.
Kaden walked beside me, close enough that if I swayed, his arm would catch me. He didn’t touch me — I don’t think he trusted himself to — but every time I glanced at him, the same thought flickered through my mind:
He’s watching us the way people watch miracles.
The drive was short. Barely ten minutes. Avery slept the entire way,
