Then I look at Corrine again.
And the look on her face tells me everything.
She thinks I pushed her.
She doesn’t have to say it. It’s in her eyes. Wide and glassy and full of something worse than horror—belief.
Belief that I killed her.
“Corrine, I?—”
I didn’t.
I can’t even speak. I can barely breathe as tears burn hot in my eyes, and I blink to try and clear them.
I didn’t push her. But I might as well have.
If she hadn’t walked in—if she hadn’t seen what she did, the shame of it, the panic—if I’d just locked the door, or waited another hour, or?—
She wouldn’t have run.
She wouldn’t have fallen.
She wouldn’t be down there with her skull cracked open, and my dad sobbing in a puddle of her blood.
I didn’t lay a finger on her, but I still killed her.
And I don’t know how I’m going to live with that.
Fuck.
He finally told me.
And it’s not even close to the story I imagined. Not even in the same stratosphere. I thought I knew what happened that day—thought I had all the pieces, just not the right order. But this? The way his voice cracks when he says, “I killed her”—it guts me.
He’s sitting on the edge of my bed, his shoulders curved forward, lounge pants low on his hips. His skin catches the amber light from my fireplace—the kind of light that makes everything look softer than it really is. Like it can’t possibly hold the weight of what he’s about to say.
“When my mom died,” he says slowly, “I didn’t just lose her. I lost the version of me I thought she saw.”
My chest tightens. But I stay quiet.
“I blamed myself. Still do.” He swallows hard. “Not because I pushed her. I didn’t. But... if she hadn’t seen me like that. If I’d just locked the fucking door. Or waited.”
He trails off. I watch his hands flex where they rest on his thighs.
“I’ll never forget her eyes. The way she looked at me.” His voice cracks. “Not angry. Just... confused. Like she didn’t recognize me at all.”
I want to pull him into me. I want to tell him she was wrong. That he didn’t do anything but exist in a way he wasn’t ready to show the world. But I don’t interrupt. Because there’s more. I can feel it.
He takes a long, shaky breath.
“And then,” he says, almost whispering now, “when Corrine walked in on us... it was like it was happening all over again.”
I frown. That moment being one of the darkest nights of my life.
“I didn’t see her, Dante. Not really. I saw my mom. Standing in that doorway again. Watching me.” His jaw clenches. “And I panicked.”
The pieces start falling together—slow, then all at once.
