#Chapter 64: Making Ends Meet

Agnes Elijah pulled the car into the parking lot, and the moment I recognized the neon sign above the diner entrance, my stomach twisted. The lights buzzing over the glass door were the same ones that used to flicker every night at the end of my shift, casting dim halos across the cracked pavement. I hadn’t been back here in what felt like forever, even though it hadn’t really been that long at all. “You alright?” Elijah asked, his gaze cutting toward me as he pulled into a parking spot and shifted the car into park. Thea had already unbuckled herself in the backseat and was chattering on about how hungry she was, oblivious to the way my face had suddenly gone pale as death. “Yeah,” I said quickly, forcing a smile onto my face that didn’t quite reach my eyes. “I’m fine.” It was just a diner. Nothing to get worked up over. I had walked out of here months ago to enter the Mate Trial and the rest had been history. It wasn’t as if I had left on bad terms or a