So Winnie nods at him. “I’ll find you later,” she murmurs, shifting her weight so she can follow Marcus as he shuffles like a revenant toward the hospital doors. But where she expects to see a matching nod from Jay, she instead finds he is staring at her. Just staring, still as the boy she sketched onto paper three nights ago. The winds change. From south to north, they shift. Or maybe it’s just that they intensify, like the forest is giving a final okay. A physical nudge at Jay’s back that says, I release you for the moment, human. Do not waste this time.
