And I didn’t listen.I didn’t even try.
I let my anger drown out everything else.I turned my heartbreak into silence and punishment instead of questions.Instead of truth.
I let him walk away thinking I hated him.
“Oh, my God,” I whisper.“He was just a boy.”I mean, nineteen is a boy still, right?And who knows how long he was doing that for my dad?
Barret nods.“Yeah.A boy who was being used.A boy who was being sold for the image Connor wanted the world to see.That’s what he did with us, but Wilder ...he exploited him more.”
Tears burn the corners of my eyes, but I won’t let them fall.Not yet.I don’t deserve that release.Not until I face the fact that I didn’t see it.I didn’t see him.I saw betrayal and scandal and humiliation, and I made him the villain.I didn’t listen to him.
“He begged me not to believe what I saw,” I say, the words barely audible.“And I didn’t believe him.I didn’t even ask.I walked out.”
“You weren’t supposed to believe him,” Barret says, softly now.“That was probably Connor’s plan all along.”
I stare down at my hands.They’re trembling.
My father didn’t just ruin Roderick’s life.He shattered him—and me.
He didn’t need a wrecking ball.Just control, access.
I inhale—slow, jagged.“How many times did he do it?”My voice breaks around the question.“How many times did he push him?”
Barret’s eyes dim.“Enough until it was a habit.”
A cold rush moves through me, like something inside has cracked wide open.A wall I didn’t even realize I’d built—built to survive, to justify, to keep loving a man who was never worthy of it—crumbles in silence.Guilt pours in like a flood, I can’t hold back.
“Fuck,” I whisper, dragging a hand down my face, as if I could erase the years I spent believing the wrong version of everything.“I didn’t protect him.”
Barret’s voice is soft.Not gentle—just true.“You were a kid too, Kit.Who protected you from your father?”
I don’t answer.I don’t have to.
Because the truth is a fist in my throat: no one did.
I let him convince me that love looked like sacrifice.That loyalty meant silence.That pain was a price you paid for proximity.
Now, all I feel is rage.
White-hot.Bone-deep.Personal.
I hate him.
Not with disappointment.Not with bitterness.But with the kind of hate that’s rooted in betrayal, in the violation of something sacred.I hate him for what he did to Roderick.For what he did to Barret.For what he did to me.For the pieces I still have to pick up all these years later.
And maybe I’m ready to stop pretending that hate has no place in healing.Some truths demand fire before they can be forgiven.
ChapterEighty-Nine
Kit
August 12th, 1997
After Barret helps me move the boxes to the back room, I ask him to give me a ride.
Driving to my dad’s place feels like time forgot how to move.Every mile stretches out, thick and reluctant, like the road doesn’t want me to get there any more than I do.
There’s too much inside me for sound.No conversation, no music, just the churn of thoughts I can’t pin down.Grief tangled with rage.Guilt laced with clarity.Everything hurts in colors I don’t have names for.
