Halley: The Re-Direction

The car was silent.

The only sound was the tick-tick-tick of the engine cooling in the school parking lot.

It’s just armor, and it looks heavy.

Paige’s words weren’t an echo. They were truth.

Halley didn’t drive home. Not right away. She drove to Mira’s. It was an instinct. A pull, a “force” that had always led her to the person she protected most.

She sat in the driveway of the house Rowan had built, the one with the warm wood.

Tonight, though, the lights were off.

Mira was still at the fundraiser, laughing with Rowan, surrounded by a foundation of people. But Halley could feel the idea of the house from her car. The tender, steady life Mira had created.

She couldn’t bring this wreckage into it.

The force was meant to protect Mira from things like this. Not drag them to her doorstep.

So Halley went home. To her own apartment. Her bunker.

For three days, the force went quiet.
There was no sharp tongue.
No “unbothered”.

There was just… Halley.
Raw, unshelled, and shaking.

The echo wasn’t a ringing anymore; it was a dull, heavy, suffocating silence that pressed into her bones.

She’d finally met the girl she’d been running from, the small one. The scared one.

She had no idea what to do with her.

On the fourth day, there was a knock.

It was Mira.

She wasn’t asking; she was entering. She used the key Halley had bequeathed to her after she’d locked herself out for the third time.

“Hey,” Mira said, her voice was soft, but not with pity. It was that gently-folded warmth that she did better than anyone.

Halley stood in sweats, hair unwashed, and no red armor lipstick in sight.

“I’m not…” Halley’s voice was rough. “I’m not good, Mira.”

“I know,” Mira said.

Halley let out a humorless snort. “Great. Love that for me.”

She lifted a grocery bag.
“Tess called. She was worried. I was worried.”

“I didn’t want to…”

Burden you. Ruin your happy. Bring the dark.

Mira just walked past her, into the kitchen.

“You don’t get to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Be the strong friend and then disappear when you need one. That’s not how this works, Hal.”

She unpacked tea, soup, bread. Simple grounding things.

Halley wrapped her arms around herself, feeling small in a way that frightened her.

And then she broke.

The kind she hadn’t let herself cry since she was 18.
Quiet, tired sobs.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered, and the admission felt like it was ripping her throat. “I don’t know how to… be… if I’m not… that.”

Mira didn’t try to fix her. She didn’t offer advice. She just walked over and put her arms around her best friend.

“I know,” Mira said, her own voice thick. “You don’t have to. Not alone. You’ve held me for ten years, Halley. It’s my turn. Just… let me hold you now.”

Halley leaned on her, awkwardly at first—her body unpracticed in surrender. Mira held space until she remembered how to breathe.

“Well, this is humiliating,” she muttered into Mira’s sweater. “Ten out of ten, do not recommend. If you tell anyone I cried, I swear to God I’ll move to Idaho.”

“I love potatoes,” Mira said, smile audible.

“Good,” Halley said, voice muffled. “At least someone’s enjoying themselves.”

The “work” was not glamorous.
Her “Year of Yes” wasn’t about dating.
It was about saying yes to herself.

She found a therapist.

She hated it.

She tried to perform for the first two sessions, be the “sharp, insightful” patient that charmed her way out of being known. Her therapist, a woman with eyes as kind as Mira’s and a spine as strong as Paige’s, just… waited.

“Who taught you that your only value is in your force?”

Halley tried to deflect. “You mean besides the entire patriarchy?”

The therapist didn’t smile. “Who was the first?”

Flash.
A kitchen that wasn’t hers.
A disappointed sigh.
Pressure dressed up as “please”.
Affection withheld until she was small.

She was that 18-year-old girl again being crushed and managed by her ex-husband.

Halley cried. Again. She was so tired of crying. And she was so, so tired.

But she kept going.

She re-entered her own life. Slowly.

She met Tess and Samara for coffee.
“I’m sorry I pushed you away. I was… scared,” and as tears began to fill her eyes she slammed down the spoon she’d been using to stir her tea. “I don’t need to be this dramatic. Jesus. I’m turning into a cautionary tale.”

“You’re not a cautionary tale,” Samara responded.

“I don’t know, Samara. I have all the early symptoms.”

Of course they accepted her apology as if they’d been saving a seat for her.

She met Paige at a neutral cafe. Awkward at first, Paige had to adjust the napkins and silverware.

God, she’s so polished it stresses my pores. Halley thought to herself.

“I, uh…” Halley started, starring into her matcha. “At the fundraiser. You were right.”

Paige just nodded, no I told you so. Just… respect.

“It was heavy,” Halley admitted.

“It still is, sometimes,” Paige admitted, surprising herself. “You just learn to put it down. Turns out you don’t need it to hold you up.”

Halley snorted. “I can spot everyone’s patterns except my own. Rude, honestly.”

They weren’t “friends.”
But they were two women who had seen each other’s “cage.”
And that was its own kind of foundation.

Months passed.
The old force didn’t come back.

Halley did.

Still blunt.
Still loyal.
Still the first one to make a sharp joke.
But her sharp tongue wasn’t a blade anymore; it was just… clear.

She was at dinner with the group. Cora vented about a new guy.

Old Halley would’ve said, “Dump him. He’s underqualified.”

New Halley listened first.
Then she asked, “But how do you want to feel?”

Mira, across the table, squeezed Rowan’s hand under the table and smiled at her best friend, already seeing the new Halley.

The quiet in her apartment wasn’t “hollow” anymore.

It was just… quiet. She could rest in it.

Things with Evie softened too. Slow trust. Gentle repairs. An inside joke shared in the kitchen. A bedroom door left open instead of locked.

And there were the days she spent with herself. Wandering, thinking and just allowing herself to be.

She was at the farmers’ market on a Saturday, alone, and okay with being alone.

She was in her element, playfully arguing with a farmer about the price of basil, making him laugh until he flirted. She flirted back.

Not because she needed the attention, but because she wanted to.
A small difference.
A massive difference.

Healing, in public. Revolting.

This was a new kind of force, a kind that wasn’t her armor anymore. It just… light.

“Hey, Halley.”

She turned, basil in hand.

Theo.

A canvas tote hung from his shoulder emblazoned with “Keep Portland Weird”. It hung lopsided, like he never remembered to adjust the strap. Something about it made him look approachable.

He wasn’t shiny or performative.
Just steady.
Here.

“Hey, Theo.”

He held her gaze. He wasn’t analyzing her. He was just… seeing her.

“You look different,” he said. Simple. Honest. “Good. But… different.”

“I feel different,” she said.

“How so?”

She thought about it. She could have made a blunt joke, but gave him truth instead.

“Well, for starters, I’m not starring in a one-woman play about how ‘unbothered’ I am.” She huffed a small laugh, and it was real. “No, I just feel… quiet. Which I’m pretty sure has never happened in the history of me.”

His laugh was warm and reached his eyes.
“Quiet’s not bad. It’s where the good stuff grows.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Halley responded with a wink.

An easy silence settled between them. It was easy and open.

“I, uh…” He gestured with his chin. “I was just heading to get a coffee. If you… want to walk with me?”

She looked at him. Really looked.

Not a trap.
Not a fix.
Not a project.

Just as a man.
A steady man.

A foundation.

And she didn’t feel the urge to run.
She just felt her feet on the ground.

Halley arched a brow, the corner of her mouth ticking up.
The quiet part of her whispered, maybe steady isn’t boring. Maybe steady is safe.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice clear, her own. “Yeah, I’d like that… but if your coffee order is pretentious, I’m leaving.”

He laughed.

“Noted.”

She smirked, “Good. Because I’m a delight, but I’m still discerning.”

Theo shook his head, smiling.
“You’re something else.”

“I know,” Halley said. “I’m working on being the good kind.”

As Halley fell into step with Theo she wasn’t that old force.
She wasn’t a cage.
She wasn’t a disco ball.

She was just… Halley.