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I mean to sound thoughtful, but as soon as the words leave my lips, I can tell they only sound unsure. Insecure.

“Which one is it, Chase?” Amelia sighs, her eyes closing. “Are you going to retreat into yourself or are you going to tell me what’s best? Which is most convenient in Chase’s world right now?”

These words shift something in me, like plates scraping.

“Do you have a problem?” I ask. “Because I’ve only tried to support you this entire trip.”

“Support me or manage me? I can make my own decisions, you know.”

“Yes,” I spit, a crater opening in my chest. “We can see where that’s gotten us.”

Amelia takes my words like a bullet. I hate myself even more for it.

“Well, I’m sorry I know what I want and go for it without apology,” Amelia then fires. “But maybe if you got out of your own head for two minutes, Logan wouldn’t have left either.”

Hearing this, my brain cracks. It’s like a tree trunk snapping in half, buckling under the weight of my collected thoughts. Then, for a furious moment, it’s not just myself I hate.

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“Well, maybe I wouldn’t need to consider everything or make myself small if my best friend didn’t always take up all the air.”

The second I unleash these words, I regret them. I don’t even mean them, not really. At least I don’t think I do. But Amelia doesn’t deserve this, especially with her panic stuff. The last thing I want is to add to her anxiety or push her into an attack. I just feel so… everything, all at once. It’s too much.

“Amelia, I didn’t mean that,” I say quickly. “Really, I just… I’m so messed up over Logan, I can’t see straight.”

“I didn’t mean what I said either,” Amelia offers, her eyes on the floor.

“Well, I was about to tell you both to stop projecting, but it sounds like I don’t need to,” Cleo adds. “The enemy isn’t in this room, that’s for sure. And honestly, I changed my mind. I think Chase has a point.”

Cleo places a hand on Amelia’s shoulder. “We can’t quit now, not when we’ve come this far. So let’s just pack up and get the hell out of here.”

Without thinking, I stand up and hug Cleo. Coming from them, this means the world. Amelia then stands and hugs me, too. We both know we just got caught in the crossfire because we’re the ones here, the ones who showed up, the ones who stayed. I know we took it out on each other because we love each other, not the other way around.

Still, our hug feels a little stiff. Maybe because I don’t think what either Amelia or I said was completely wrong? I don’t know what that means for us moving forward, but moving forward is all I can think to do right now. So once Amelia releases me, I run up to my room.