JAE
I'm still in my car, engine idling, parked a few yards from her house.
I should've left already. I dropped Laura off.
But I don't move.
The afternoon is too quiet—the kind of quiet that presses against your ears, like the world's waiting for something to break.
Then the front door opens.
Laura steps out, shoulders tight, jaw set. She looks… wrecked.
Angry in that way that means she's already gone ten rounds with something and lost every one.
She doesn't look at my car.
Doesn't slow down.
Just takes off down the street like she's trying to outrun whatever's inside that house.
What the hell?
I grab my phone without thinking.
Me: You okay?
A second passes. Then—
Laura: I don't know…
My chest tightens.
Me: What happened?
No answer.
I try again.
Me: You alright?
Three dots appear. Disappear. Then—
Laura: I found something.
My stomach drops.
I don't know what she found, but I know that feeling.
The one where the ground shifts under your feet and you already know you're about to fall.
I've been careful. Too careful.
Making sure everything stayed buried.
Making sure she never followed the trail back to me.
Or worse—to him.
What if she connected it all?
What if she knows the truth about my father?
Guilt crawls up my spine, hot and suffocating.
My palms sweat against the steering wheel. I never wanted this for her. I thought I could handle it alone.
Fix it quietly. Contain the damage.
But now she knows something.
I force myself to breathe and type.
Me: Do you want to talk?
I stare at the screen before sending it, like I can will the words to protect me.
Laura: Yeah.
I don't hesitate. I hit call.
She answers on the second ring. No warmth. No softness. Just tension, stretched tight.
"Hey," I say, keeping my voice even.
There's a pause. Heavy. Loaded.
Then she says it.
"We've been getting money. Since the accident. Every month. No name."
My heart slams against my ribs.
I want to lie. I want to give her something clean and easy—some anonymous good deed, some story that lets her breathe again.
But she won't believe it.
I can hear it in her voice. The way each word scrapes its way out.
"Laura, I—"
"It feels disgusting, Jae."
I stare out at the street, shadows stretching long and sharp across the pavement.
"Like someone's paying to feel better about what they did."
That one hits.
Because it's true.
I'm the one paying. I'm the one trying to live with it. Trying to keep the past from bleeding into her life.
I don't want her to hate me.
But I won't let her drown in it either.
I steady my voice. Keep it firm.
"Money doesn't erase anything. But it can stop the damage from spreading." I say.
The words sound clean. Controlled.
They don't sound like what they really are.
"That sounds like an excuse," she says.
I flinch.
Maybe it is.
Maybe it's just me trying to hold the world together with cash and guilt and promises I don't know how to keep.
I wait a beat, letting the silence stretch.
"I don't want it," she says. Her voice cracks. "I never agreed to it."
"You don't have to," I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I expect. "But your grandma didn't take it to betray you. She took it to protect you."
She exhales sharply.
That one landed.
"That's not protection," she says. "That's letting someone off the hook."
I clench my jaw.
She's not wrong.
But the person who deserves to pay—the one who will—isn't done yet.
"I'm not saying it fixes anything," I say. "But sometimes survival matters more than principle."
Silence.
I keep going, because stopping feels like losing her.
"Sometimes strength is letting yourself stay afloat long enough to stand again."
Her voice is quieter when she speaks.
"You sound like you've thought about this a lot."
I lean my head back against the seat and close my eyes.
"I've seen what happens when people confuse suffering with accountability," I say. "It doesn't heal anything. It just creates more wreckage."
The words hang between us.
"I don't forgive people who think money makes them clean," she says, breaking on the last word.
My chest tightens.
"Neither do I," I say. And I mean it.
Her silence is brutal.
Time stretches.
"I know," she says.
A pause. "Sorry. I shouldn't have gone off on you."
"It's okay," I reply. "I'm here."
Her breath catches.
Then, softly—
"Thank you," she whispers. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"Yeah," I say. "Tomorrow."
The call ends.
I don't know how long I can keep doing this.
But I can't give her the truth yet.
Not when everything she's standing on is already breaking.