Morning light had barely reached my tiny Portland apartment when

The knocking came again, louder this time, shaking the flimsy wooden frame of my apartment door.

"Logan! Open up, I know you're in there!"

The voice belonged to Marcus, the afternoon shift manager at Juniper Street Café, and someone whose aggressive, caffeine-fueled impatience I usually went out of my way to avoid. But hearing his familiar tone was like cold water thrown on a panic fire; whoever was out there wasn't a hit squad or a shadowy pursuer from Rebecca’s past. It was just my annoying coworker wondering why I hadn't shown up to open the shop at 6:00 AM.

I glanced over my shoulder. Rebecca had pressed herself flat against the corner of the couch, dragging a decorative throw pillow across her lap as if it could somehow render her invisible. Her breathing was shallow and fast, her chest rising and falling beneath my oversized Trail Blazers sweatshirt.

"It's just my manager," I murmured, keeping my voice low. "Stay here. I'll get rid of him."

I crossed the narrow living room, stepping over a stray magazine, and pulled the door open a crack.

Marcus was standing there in his puffy neon-blue puffer jacket, holding a soggy clipboard under one arm and looking like a man ready to commit a felony for an espresso. He squinted through the narrow gap of the door, his gaze dropping to my rumpled clothes and the messy state of my hair.

"Are you kidding me right now?" Marcus barked, pushing the door open another inch with his shoulder before I could stop him. "The morning rush started twenty minutes ago! The college kids are lined up down the block, and the register is throwing an error code because you forgot to clear the daily cache—"

"Marcus, keep your voice down," I hissed, stepping out into the hallway and pulling the door half-closed behind me to shield the interior of the apartment from his view. "I overslept. Personal emergency. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Personal emergency?" Marcus scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "Logan, you live alone, your cat died six months ago, and your idea of a wild Friday night is reorganizing your spice rack. What emergency?"

"I had a flood," I lied smoothly, feeling a slight twinge of guilt at the effortless deception. "A pipe burst under the sink. I spent the whole night mopping. Just... tell the opening crew to handle the register and I'll comp the lost hours out of my own paycheck."

Marcus rolled his eyes, blowing out a long breath of frosty air. He muttered something under his breath about independent contractors lacking basic operational discipline, but the mention of free labor seemed to appease him.

"Twenty minutes, Logan. If you're not behind that counter by six-thirty, I'm calling the health inspector just to ruin your day."

With that, he turned on his heel and stomped down the metal stairs, his boots clanging against the steps until the front exterior door slammed shut below.

I let out a long breath I hadn't realized I was holding, rubbing the back of my neck. When I pushed the apartment door back open, Rebecca was standing by the kitchen counter, gripping the edge of the laminate so hard her knuckles were white.

"Was that...?" She couldn't even finish the sentence, her voice trembling.

"Just my boss," I said, walking over and offering a reassuring smile that I didn't entirely feel. "He's an idiot who thinks the world ends when the espresso machine loses pressure. You're safe here."

Rebecca let out a shaky exhale, her knees seeming to buckle slightly before she caught herself against the counter. She sank into one of the mismatched wooden chairs, burying her face in her hands.

"You're lying to protect me," she muffled through her fingers. "You don't even know who I am, or what I might have brought into your home. Why are you being like this?"

"Like what?"

"So... relentlessly decent." She looked up, her amber eyes shining with unshed tears. "People don't do that. Not anymore. Especially not to strangers they pull out of the gutter."

I pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down, the smell of burnt coffee and cold rain still lingering faintly in the air between us.

"My dad used to say that cynicism is just a lazy way of giving up before the game even starts," I said quietly, tracing the grain of the table with my thumb. "He wasn't always right. In fact, he was wrong about a lot of things. We spent the last two years of his life barely speaking because we were both too stubborn to admit when we messed up."

Rebecca tilted her head, her defensive posture softening just a fraction. "Is that why you didn't answer his calls?"

The question hit me like a physical blow. I hadn't told her about Frank calling me twice that morning. I hadn't mentioned the argument we'd had over the phone the night before—about my reluctance to take over the failing café, about my desire to pack up and move down to San Francisco like I'd been planning for three years.

"How did you know about that?" I asked, my voice tightening.

"You muttered it in your sleep," Rebecca said softly, looking down at her empty coffee mug. "Or... well, you were talking while you sat in the armchair last night. You kept saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't know there wouldn't be a third time.' Over and over again."

The kitchen grew deathly quiet. The mini fridge hummed its steady, unfeeling tune, and somewhere down on the street, a delivery truck shifted gears with a heavy, metallic groan.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, feeling the familiar, hollow ache behind my ribs that always arrived whenever Frank's absence cast its shadow over the room.

"He called at seven-fifteen," I whispered, staring out the window toward the gray Portland sky. "And then again at eight-thirty. I was sitting right here, looking at the screen, and I let it go to voicemail because I didn't want to hear him lecture me about the café's failing accounts receivable. At ten o'clock, the hospital called."

"That's not your fault," Rebecca said fiercely. Her voice carried an unexpected weight, a sharp edge of conviction that made me look up. "Parents... they carry expectations that can suffocate you. Sometimes you have to put up walls just to breathe."

"Maybe," I murmured. "But the walls don't stop you from feeling like a coward when the walls come down."

Rebecca pushed her chair back, standing up with a sudden, restless energy. She walked over to the small window overlooking the street, pulling the curtain back an inch to peer down at the wet pavement below.

"I need to make a call," she said, her back to me. "A real call. Not from your phone—not yet. I need to know if the coast is clear. If they're still looking for me."

"Who is 'they'?" I asked, standing up as well.