#Chapter 10: Aftershocks

Amelia I checked the time on my phone again. Jenny was over an hour late—no text, no call, nothing. Typical. She asked to meet up, then vanished like it wasn’t a big deal. I wasn’t even annoyed—just resigned. That was how she operated. On her own schedule, with the world expected to wait. When she finally did show up, her steps were slow and her eyes distracted. She slid into the seat across from me, looking like someone who hadn’t slept in days. “Sorry,” she said, barely meeting my eyes. “Things ran long.” “You don’t have to apologize,” I replied, though this time—unlike every other time she’d thrown out a careless sorry—there was something about it that felt almost... real. A faint trace of actual remorse I wasn’t used to seeing from Jenny. It caught me off guard. We sat in silence for a minute. She tapped her nails on her cup, eyes fixed on nothing. “I didn’t know,” she finally said, voice low. I looked up. “Didn’t know what?” “That something happened to you at the m