His gaze sharpens. “Can we not?”
“Not what?” I step off the bunk and face him. Up close, I can see it—the faint tremor in his hands. “Not notice you’re grinding your teeth in your sleep? Not notice you’re standing in a room and not actually in it?”
“Cast.”
“Am I not supposed to notice you’re avoiding everyone?” My voice edges up. “You want me to pretend I haven’t watched you go through three phones in two weeks? Pretend I don’t hear you arguing every time you disappear to take a call? Oh, my mistake—am I supposed to act like none of that is happening?”
He exhales hard through his nose. “I said drop it.”
I just look at him. Shoulders tight. Jaw locked. The kind of tension that doesn’t come from being tired. The kind that comes from holding onto something that’s already cutting you.
I loop a strand of toilet paper around my wrist like a bracelet. “You know I could help, Vince. You could tell me what’s wrong.”
“What’s wrong,” he mutters, bitterness seeping in, “is that you’re always looking for something to fight about.”
“Fight about?” I laugh under my breath. “That’s rich coming from you.” I gesture around us, white streamers everywhere. “Look at this. This is our life now. And you can’t even stand in it without checking out halfway through.”
“Then drop it, and they won’t hear me,” he snaps, voice low but edged.
“Then stop giving me reasons to keep pushing,” I snap back.
For a minute we work in silence. We peel toilet paper off the dresser handles, unwind it from the rocking horse legs. The Elf keeps grinning from the window like it’s the king of something.
“You know,” I say finally, “if you’re going to keep a secret this badly, you may as well share it. Easier on your face.”
“I’m not?—”
“You are.” I retie a bow under the Elf’s chin, then untie it again. “You won’t look at me. You skip dinner. You ‘go for a drive’ and don’t say where.
“Cast.” Warning again. But this time it just sounds tired. Bone-tired.
I stop moving. “If you think I’m going to watch you pull yourself apart through Christmas and into the New Year and do nothing, you’ve read me wrong.”
He drags a hand through his hair. “And if you think I owe you an explanation for every damn thing I don’t say?—”
“You don’t owe me,” I cut in, sharp. “That’s the point. I shouldn’t have to drag it out of you like a confession. I’m here. I’ve always been here. So has Damien. So has Willow.” I jerk my chin toward the fairy lights Damien hung over the bookshelf because Rose wanted “stars.” “We are your home. You don’t get to lock the door from the inside and call it privacy.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“Correct,” I say flatly, yanking a curl of toilet paper off the closet knob. “I’m dramatic when our family’s not okay.”
“We’re okay.”
“You’re lying.”
He shakes his head once, voice low and controlled. “You don’t need to know what’s going on, Cast. I’m doing my best to keep all of you safe.”
I go still. “From what?”
His eyes finally lift to mine, and for a second I see it—fear. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I have it handled.”
I scoff. “Yeah. Looks real handled.”
His mouth flattens. “You are fucking annoying, Cast?—”
“Stop saying my name like that.”
He exhales, ragged and hot. He glances up at the fan blades — mostly clear now, harmless again.
