Behind the gruffness, behind the clipped words and the rigid way he held himself, there was something raw flickering there.Grief, sharp and jagged, tangled up with anger that seemed to have nowhere left to go.I couldn’t name it exactly, but I knew it when I saw it.The way people look when they’ve carried too much for too long.
And in that instant, I understood.
Whatever had happened between him and my father—it wasn’t just history.It was a wound.One that had never healed, maybe one that never could.And I was brushing against it with every question, every hopeful glance.No wonder he bristled.No wonder he wanted me gone.
I tightened my fingers around the edge of the book and forced myself to breathe.Instead of pressing, instead of demanding what he couldn’t give, I let it go.For now.I gave him the quiet he clearly needed, the space he was fighting to protect.
But inside, I made myself a promise.
I’ll find out the truth.
Not to hurt him.Not to prove anything.But because I needed to understand who my father really was, and why this scarred, haunted man reacted to his name like it was a blade against his throat.
So I turned back to the shelves, letting the silence settle again.Out loud, I said nothing.But in my heart, I vowed I wouldn’t stop until I uncovered the story buried in these walls—and in him.
The air between us grew heavy after his words, thick enough that even my humming died away.I bent my head and returned to the shelves, pretending to lose myself in the work.But inside, my thoughts churned.
Every book I touched felt different now.The cracked spines and faded covers weren’t just objects to be catalogued—they were keepsakes, markers of lives and moments I couldn’t yet see.Each title whispered of a story beyond the story it held, and I found myself aching to know them all.Who had given them?What had they meant?And how many of those voices were tied to him—and to my father?
I smoothed my hand over a particularly battered volume; the leather worn soft, the gold lettering nearly rubbed away.My heart squeezed.These weren’t just books.They were memories.They were pieces of him, whether he wanted me to realize it or not.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught him watching me.He leaned in the doorway, jaw tight, shoulders rigid, like he was bracing against some unseen storm.The scars on his face were stark in the afternoon light, but what struck me most wasn’t the hardness—it was the flicker.A shadow of something else.
For a heartbeat, I thought I saw regret there.Regret for snapping.For shutting me down so coldly.But if it was, he buried it fast.His mouth stayed closed, his arms crossed, his silence a wall I couldn’t climb.
Still, I held on to that flicker.Because it told me one thing he’d never admit aloud: the story wasn’t over.
Not for him.
Not for me.
Not for the ghosts that lived on these shelves.
By the time I closed my notebook and tucked my pen away, the light outside had faded into the indigo blue of early evening.The snow had started again, fat flakes drifting past the windows, and the library seemed even quieter than usual.I gathered my things slowly, reluctant to leave the shelves and the stories that felt like they’d only just started opening themselves to me.
I slung my scarf around my neck and made my way to the door, boots in one hand.But something tugged at me before I stepped out.I turned, just for a moment, to look back.
He was still there.
Charlie stood at the far end of the room, his broad shoulders outlined by the weak glow of the lamp, the shelves rising behind him like solemn sentinels.He looked almost like part of the library itself—carved from shadows, solitary, unyielding.Not a man, but a monument to grief and silence.My chest tightened at the sight.
The town painted him as a monster.Dangerous, bitter, best avoided.And maybe, to them, that was easier.Maybe fear was simpler than compassion.But standing there, watching him framed by his books, I couldn’t see a monster.I saw loneliness wrapped in scars.I saw a man who’d locked the world out, not because he hated it, but because it had hurt him too much to let it back in.
I whispered before I could stop myself, the words barely louder than the brush of snow against the window, “You know, you’re not the monster they say you are.”
Of course, he didn’t hear me.Or if he did, he gave no sign.He stayed rooted in the shadows, head bent, as though the weight of the library was enough to keep him there forever.
But as I pulled the door open and stepped into the cold, a spark of resolve burned in my chest.I wasn’t going to be another person who whispered from a distance.I wasn’t going to let his growls or his scars push me away.
No matter how many walls he built, I was going to reach him.
And maybe, just maybe, I’d help him believe he wasn’t a monster at all.
Chapter6
Charlie
Days had passed since that damn moment in the library, and still I couldn’t shake her.I’d tried.God knows I’d tried.Pushed her out of my head the same way I shoved back the memories that gnawed at me when the nights stretched too long.Usually, it worked.I’d bury myself in a book, drown myself in the firelight, let the silence wrap around me until even the ghosts went quiet.
