The words hit me like a stone to the chest.I felt myself reel, dizzy as pieces I’d never been able to fit together suddenly locked in place—the bitterness in Charlie’s eyes, the way he shut down whenever the past got too close, the silence that wrapped around him whenever my father’s name was spoken.It wasn’t indifference.It was guilt.Heavy, bone-deep guilt he had been dragging behind him for years.
My throat ached as I forced the question out.“So all this time… he carried their betrayal like it was his fault?”The thought made my stomach churn.All those nights in the library, the moments where his tenderness almost slipped through, the way he looked at me like he didn’t deserve even a sliver of light—suddenly, I saw it for what it was.He had built his fortress out of shame.
Mom nodded right away, broken and raw.Tears streamed down her cheeks, her voice trembling with the effort of pushing the truth past them.“He thought protecting you from the truth was the only decent thing he had left to give.”She pressed her hand to her lips as though the words themselves were too heavy.“He lost his wife.He lost his friend.He didn’t want that to touch you.”
I sank hard into my chair, heart pounding.I wanted to scream, to rage at them for twisting my whole life into lies and half-truths.But beneath the anger was something else, sharper and more painful: sorrow for him.For Charlie, who had carried their mistakes like his own sins.Who had chosen silence and solitude like punishment, all so I could grow up under a story that wasn’t real.
My eyes flicked to the burned letters scattered on the table, the ash-stained fragments that had ripped everything open.I wanted answers, yes—but more than that, I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to carry this alone anymore.Still, the sting of betrayal wrapped tight around my ribs, reminding me that he had shut me out too.
My voice came out jagged, trembling with pain.“And no one thought maybe I deserved the truth?That maybe what I needed wasn’t some fairy tale, but a chance to understand?”
Neither of them answered.Mom only wept harder, Grandma bowed her head.
My emotions churned like a storm—anger, grief, compassion.I gripped the table edge until my knuckles ached.“You thought lies would keep me safe, but they just broke me twice—once then, and once now.”
Grandma reached for me, voice low, pleading.“You don’t understand the burden he’s carried.It’s eaten him alive.He thought this was the only way to protect you.”
I snapped my head up, tears burning hot in my eyes.“I understand better than you think,” I said, fierce despite the break in my voice.The truth I’d been holding back spilled out before I could stop it.“Because I love him.”
The room froze.Mom’s breath caught; Grandma’s hand stilled.The confession hung between us like a fragile glass ornament—bright, dangerous, impossible to take back.
I swallowed hard, blinking through tears.“And maybe that’s why it hurts so much.Because I know him—the man he is now, not just the shadows you buried me under.And I love him, scars and all.”
Silence swallowed everything.For the first time, neither of them had an answer.And I realized, with aching clarity, that what I felt for Charlie wasn’t rebellion or defiance.It was truth.A truth I could never lock away again.
Mom’s voice cracked through the silence, sharp with fear.“He’s too old for you.Too broken.Too tangled up in what your father did.”The words landed like stones, each one meant to protect me but cutting all the same.I could see the terror in her eyes, the way her hands twisted against each other on the table.She wasn’t just afraid of me making a mistake—she was afraid of me getting hurt the way she had.
I straightened, heat surging into my chest.“Maybe he is,” I shot back, my voice steadier than I felt.“Maybe he’s older, maybe he’s scarred, maybe he’s spent too long alone.But I love him anyway.”My gaze snapped between them, my mother weeping, my grandmother silent and gray with guilt.
The words echoed in the kitchen, heavy, unmovable.I could see them flinch under the weight, but I didn’t take them back.I couldn’t.It was the truth, and I was done pretending otherwise.The lies they had built my life around might have been meant as protection, but all they had done was leave me shattered twice over—first when I grieved a father I thought was dead, and now again, knowing he had chosen to leave.
My hands trembled as I grabbed my coat from the back of the chair.The burned letters, fragile and damning, crinkled in my grip as I clutched them tight.They felt like proof, like a compass, like a burden I could no longer leave behind.I didn’t know yet whether they’d destroy me or save me, but I knew I couldn’t let them go.
At the door, I paused.Tears burned hot at the corners of my eyes, but I forced my voice steady, even as it broke.“You tried to protect me from heartbreak,” I said, the words bitter and raw.“But all you did was make sure it came later—and hit harder.”
The kitchen behind me went utterly still.I didn’t look back.
I stepped out into the cold, the bite of winter air filling my lungs like fire.My boots crunched over the snow, and the world around me felt too quiet, as if it were listening to the pounding of my heart.I tightened my grip on the letters, holding them against me like armor, like a vow.
And then, softly, just for myself, I whispered into the frost-laced air: “I love him.Fuck, I love him.”
The words were fragile, almost reckless—but they were mine.And for the first time in days, I felt something like certainty blaze in my chest.
Chapter18
Charlie
Ihadn’t seen Belle since the morning she stormed out.That look in her eyes—betrayal, grief, anger—it stuck to me like shrapnel I couldn’t dig out.The house had been hollow ever since.The library felt colder without her humming under her breath; the fire burned lower, and even the silence had a weight to it I couldn’t carry.I tried filling the hours the old way—pacing the halls, cleaning rifles that didn’t need cleaning, stacking wood until my shoulders ached.None of it helped.Every damn corner reminded me of her.
On Christmas Eve, the ache sharpened.Gossip had a way of slipping through cracks, and I caught enough of it at the supply store to know: the library’s fundraiser was tonight.I didn’t need to ask if she’d be there.Belle would see it through, no matter how heavy it weighed on her.I could picture her already—dressed for the season, smiling despite everything, arranging books and decorations like the place was hers by right.
My first instinct was to stay put.Safer that way—for her and for me.Let her shine without me poisoning the air.But a whisper I couldn’t shut out kept needling me:If you don’t go, you’ll lose her forever.
I sat at my kitchen table for hours, staring at nothing, fists clenching, unclenching.The rational part of me hissed that showing up would only dig the wound deeper, that she deserved someone untouched by betrayal and ghosts.But the selfish part—the part that still burned from her laughter, her lips, her warmth—refused to let go without a fight.
By the time I pulled on my old coat and boots, my hands were shaking.Not from the cold.From fear.Fear of seeing her eyes and finding nothing left in them for me.
The walk to town felt like marching into fire.The square was lit up like a memory—garlands strung across lampposts, wreaths on every door, bells chiming from the church tower.I hadn’t stood in the middle of it on Christmas Eve in years.It looked brighter than I remembered, cruelly so.
