“Transport’ll be a nightmare with this many volumes,” he said next, shifting like he hadn’t just caught me holding pieces of my father’s past.“We’ll need crates, inventory tags, sturdy gloves.Don’t use the cotton ones—the fibers catch on older bindings.”
My chest tightened.He was throwing me scraps, the kind of neutral, practical words that had nothing to do with what we’d just unearthed.Anything to pull me away from the wound he refused to let bleed in the open.
But I couldn’t look at the letters without seeing the tremor in his jaw, the glassy sheen over his eyes.Not fury.Not really.Pain.Anger was just the mask he reached for.
I tried again, softer this time, testing the ground he wanted to keep barricaded.
“Were they… together?”My voice cracked a little, but I didn’t take it back.
He froze.Then, flat as stone: “It’s old business.”
“It’s my family.”
His hand tightened on the envelope like he could crush it into silence.He wouldn’t look at me.“It’s a scar.You don’t pick at scars.”
The words hit with a finality that stole my breath.Gavel dropped.End of discussion.
I swallowed hard; the protest lodged in my throat.There was no breaking through him now—not when the air between us was jagged with things he refused to say.
On legs that felt unsteady, I turned back to the desk.The fragments still lay there, half-burned truths whispering louder than his silence.
Doubt unfurled inside me, creeping like smoke.
If he protected my father’s lie, what else was he protecting?
Had he kept me in the dark to spare me—or to spare himself?
If my father wasn’t dead—not the way I was told—then who decided I should grow up believing he was?My mother?Charlie?Both?
The questions pressed too hard, too urgent.My fingers trembled as I slid open my notebook, pretending to flip to a clean page.Quickly, furtively, I copied down the fragments I could still piece together—the loops of my father’s hand, the initials at the bottom of her note, the phrase that had lodged like glass in my chest:Tell Belle I did one decent thing.
My stomach churned.I hated the secrecy.Hated the furtive glance I cast at Charlie, making sure his eyes weren’t on me.But I hated something else more: the thought of leaving without a trace of these words, of letting him lock them away forever.
When I closed the notebook, guilt burned hot in my chest.But beneath it was something steadier, harder.
I needed to know.Even if it meant going where he wouldn’t follow.
Chapter14
Charlie
Ileaned against the doorway, arms crossed tight over my chest, telling myself I was just checking the draft by the heater vent.Truth was, I wasn’t fooling anybody—not even me.I was watching her.
Belle sat hunched over the desk, hair falling forward, pen scratching across her notebook.Cataloguing, same as always.But something was different today.Every movement had an edge to it.She flipped pages like they’d offended her, jabbed at the paper with her pen like the words might bruise if she pressed any harder.
She was upset.And I didn’t need to guess why.
A man with sense would’ve left her to it.Let her cool down, let her hate me in peace.God knew I’d earned it.But standing there, seeing that furrow in her brow, the way her shoulders tensed like she was carrying the weight of the whole damned town—it gnawed at me.I’d seen enough people worn down by burdens too heavy for them.Watching her look that way gutted me worse than any memory.
I cleared my throat, shifted my stance, told myself to walk away.But instead, I drifted over to the old stack of records gathering dust by the wall.My fingers shuffled through them, the sleeves brittle with age, until one half-faded cover caught my eye.I pulled it out, set it on the player, and dropped the needle.
The first tinny notes of a Christmas classic crackled through the library.
Belle’s head snapped up.Her eyes widened like she’d just caught me doing something scandalous.
“You… own Christmas music?"
“Didn’t you put one of my records on the other day?”
