Chapter Text
Lucy’s POV
It was the kind of night that shouldn’t have felt heavy.
The house was quiet. Peaceful. Too peaceful, maybe, in hindsight.
I was curled up on the couch with my laptop open, half-paying attention to paperwork and half-listening to a podcast I wasn’t really processing. I kept thinking about what Tim said earlier that afternoon about how Tamara had been quieter lately, distant even. He wasn’t judging, just… noticing. The way he does.
“She’s pulling away again,” I had admitted over the phone, voice low. “And I don’t know if it’s me, or if she’s just scared that it’s too good to be true.”
Tim had tried to reassure me. Said it wasn’t about me. That she’d figure it out.
But that didn’t stop the ache in my chest.
I told him I felt like I was failing her. Like maybe I’d reached the edge of what I could offer. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but once I did, it felt too true to take back.
At some point, I must’ve dozed off. I woke up around 1:15 a.m. with a crick in my neck and the sense that something was… off.
I stood up, stretched, and walked down the hall to check on Tamara.
Her door was closed, like always. But when I opened it—
The bed was perfectly made.
Untouched.
Her window was shut, her curtains still drawn, but she was gone.
My stomach dropped.
At first, I tried to be logical. Maybe she was in the bathroom. I checked. Nothing. Kitchen? Empty. I called out her name once, then again, louder.
No answer.
Then I saw the hook by the door where she usually hung her hoodie. It was bare.
And that’s when I knew.
She’d left.
Panic exploded in my chest like a dam breaking loose.
I grabbed my phone and called her. Straight to voicemail.
I texted her. “Tamara, please. Are you okay? Just tell me you’re okay.”
I tried again. And again. Still nothing.
I paced the kitchen. Called Nolan. No answer. Tried Celina. Checked the location app we installed for emergencies, but her phone must’ve been off.
My hands were shaking so hard I nearly dropped the phone.
By the time I called Tim, I couldn’t keep the tremble out of my voice.
“She’s gone,” I told him. “She’s just gone. She didn’t take everything, but the bag, her emergency cash... it’s not here. I think she heard what I said earlier. I think I pushed her away.”
“Lucy,” Tim said, calm like he always is, “this isn’t your fault.”
But it felt like it was.
I was supposed to make her feel safe. Wanted. Permanent.
And somehow, I hadn’t.
I drove aimlessly for a while, checking the usual spots. The park she used to hang out at. The shelter near the rec center. The bench by the bodega where she used to charge her phone.
I kept replaying the worst-case scenarios in my head. That she was hurt. That she was cold. That she was back on the street somewhere, convinced she didn’t deserve anything more.
It gutted me.
She wasn’t just some teenager I took in. She was my family.
And now she was gone.
When I finally saw her curled up on the steps of an old laundromat, hoodie pulled low over her face my breath caught.
For a second, I just sat in the car, watching her. She looked so small. Like the girl I met that first day in the precinct. Guarded. Alone.
I got out quietly. Walked over. Sat beside her on the step.
She didn’t look at me. But she didn’t run either.
“You scared the hell out of me,” I said.
Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I heard what you said. That maybe I don’t think this is permanent.”
I closed my eyes, heart breaking. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
She gave a little laugh bitter and tired. “I always hear things I’m not supposed to.”
God, I wanted to wrap her up in something soft and warm and permanent and say all the right things. But there’s no script for this.
“I don’t know how to stay,” she said. “I never had a place that felt like mine.”
It took everything in me not to cry.
So I pulled the key out of my pocket the one I’d had made just for her. I'd been meaning to give it to her officially, ceremoniously. But now felt like the only time that mattered.
“This is your house key,” I said. “Because this is your home. You don’t have to earn it. You don’t have to prove anything. You belong.”
That’s when she broke.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a quiet, trembling sort of unraveling as she leaned into me and let the tears fall.
And I held her.
Like she was mine. Because she is.
That night, she crawled into bed beside me without saying a word. Just curled up like she used to when the nights were especially hard, like she needed to remember she wasn’t alone.
I stayed awake for a long time, just watching her breathe.
And in the morning, when I found her unpacking the bag she’d taken, I didn’t say anything.
I just smiled.
Because I knew that, even if she wasn’t ready to say it out loud, she was choosing to stay.
She was choosing us.
And that was everything.