“With his arm around her.”
“I know. And you will not give either of them the gift of your emotion before you secure your position.”
Her voice was firm enough to hold me upright.
“You’ll want to scream,” she said. “Don’t. You document, protect your accounts, secure your home, and let them discover the new rules by running into them.”
I looked toward my house. From the street, it looked peaceful. Dark upstairs windows. Wreath on the door. Blue porch camera light blinking.
“You make it sound simple.”
“It isn’t simple. It’s procedural.”
“I don’t know if I can do procedural right now.”
“You can,” Maya said. “You do procedural for a living. Tonight you treat your life like intake. Facts first. Emotional care after stabilization.”
That was the first thing that cut through the shock enough to make me breathe.
Facts first.
Stabilization.
Words I knew.