Chapter 4 The One Rule He Should Keep

Eli POV

Eli had a list of rules he lived by.

Not written down anywhere. Just things he knew. Things that kept everything running smoothly when nothing else would.

Rule one: take care of Naomi. Rule two: do not make things harder for Dad, even when Dad was making everything harder for everyone. Rule three: keep it together. Always. No matter what.

He had followed every single one of them without breaking for three years.

Then he sat on the floor outside Professor Harding's office for forty minutes on a Tuesday morning and could not get up.

He did not know what had happened exactly. One moment, he was walking down the hall with his assignment folder, the next,t his back was against the wall, and his hands were shaking, and the ceiling felt too low, and the air felt too thick, and his brain was just gone. Somewhere else. Somewhere dark and very far away.

A student walked past and gave him a look. He stared straight ahead.

When he could finally stand up, he walked out of the building. He did not turn in the assignment. He drove home, not to his apartment, but to the blue house with the broken mailbox, and he sat in the driveway for eleven minutes before going inside.

He had not told his dad. His dad would turn it into a conversation about focus and strength and the future, and Eli did not have the energy to survive that conversation right now.

He had not told Naomi. Naomi would worry, and watching her worry was somehow worse than the thing itself.

He came home to breathe. That was all. Just breathe. A week, maybe two. Get steady. Go back.

He did not plan on Zara.

He could not sleep.

That was nothing new. Sleep had been a problem for months. He would lie down, and his brain would start running, and it would not stop until three or four in the morning. He had gotten good at waiting it out. Reading. Staring at the ceiling. Counting things.

Toni,ght the ceiling was not working.

He got up at half past midnight and went to the roof the way he always did when the house felt too small. He had found it when he was fifteen and had never told anyone about it. Private places were important when you lived in a house full of other people's feelings.

He pushed open the window.

And there she was.

Zara. Sitting against the shingles with her knees pulled up, holding an envelope in both hands like it might go somewhere if she loosened her grip. She turned around fast when she heard him.

They looked at each other.

She was not okay. He could see that from six feet away. Her eyes were too bright, and her jaw was too tight, and she was holding that envelope the way a person holds something they want to throw away but cannot.

He sat down anyway.

He did not ask about the letter. He did not make conversation. He just stayed because leaving felt wrong and staying felt right, and he was going with that for now.

When she started crying quietly, the way people cry when they have had a lot of practice doing it alone, he did not move closer or say anything soft and useless. He stayed where he was and let her have it. She was not the kind of girl who wanted to be rescued. He had known that from the first morning in the kitchen. She had eaten every bite of those eggs without once admitting she was hungry.

He respected that. He understood it.

When it was over, she said sorry, and he told her not to be. They sat on the roof for another half hour and talked about nothing important: ant the loose shingle, the oak tree, the way the street looked different at this hour. Small things. Safe things.

Eventually, she went back inside.

He stayed a little longer.

Then he went to the kitchen,d put the kettle on, and stood there in the dark thinking about his list of rules.

Rule one. Rule two. Rule three.

And the new one,e he had added the moment he climbed through that window and saw her sitting there. The most important one.

Naomi's best friend. Off-limits. Completely. End of sentence.

He repeated it while the kettle heated. He repeated it while he found the mug with the chip on the handle, her mug, which he had noticed her using twice already, dropped in the tea bag, and let it steep exactly long enough.

He carried it upstairs.

He stood outside her door.

He did not knock. Knocking would make it a thing. Knocking would make her open the door and look at him and say thank you, and then they would be standing in a hallway at one in the morning,g and none of that was a good idea.

He set the mug down. Quietly. Carefully. And walked back to his room.

He was very good at rules. He had always been very good at rules.

He lay down on his b, nd stared at the ceiling, and thought about the way she had pressed her hand over her mouth when the crying started, like she was apologizing for it before it even happened. Like she had learned somewhere that falling apart was something to hide.

He thought about the envelope.

He thought about the way she said he left when I was ten in that flat, practiced voice. The voice of someone who had explained a painful thing so many times that they had sanded all the feeling off it.

He lasted four minutes.

Then he picked up his phone.

He told himself he was just curious. That was allowed. Curiosity was not against any rule.

He typed her name.

The results came up fast. A few social media pages he did not click on. And then, third from the top, a link to the Glenbrook High School newsletter from two years ago.

He clicked it.

The article was short. Academic Excellence Award. Zara Cole, junior year, highest overall average in her grade. There was a quote from a teacher saying she was exceptional. There was a quote from Zara that said simply: I just work hard.

And there was a photo.

She was younger in it. Smaller somehow. Standing at the edge of the frame, like she had not been sure she was allowed to be in the picture at all. She was looking directly at the camera, but her shoulders were slightly turned away. Li, a part of her wanted to step out of the shot.

Like she was hoping no one would notice her, even while being recognized.

Eli stared at that photo for a long time.

He thought about the girl on the roof who cried silently so no one would hear. Who ate eggs, she said she didn't want. He picked up his plate without being asked and carried it to the sink, as if taking care of people was just something her hands did automatically.

He thought about the way she had looked at him this morning, like you understand, and how the right answer had been to tell her to stop.

He put his phone down.

He looked at the ceiling.

He was very good at rules.

He was in serious trouble.

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