Please enjoy the photos of the winter vacation. You could have been in them if you hadn’t been so stubborn. I don’t know how you sleep at night with the way you broke mom’s heart. You have no idea how much you hurt her. There was no reason for you to do what you did, and I hope you can find it in you to ask for forgiveness someday.
You know what you have to do, and you’d be welcomed back.
Hope to hear from you soon,
-Callum
My vision was hazy, and my hearing was overwhelmed by the sound of my heart beating in my ears. But I clicked on the photos and looked through them until my eyes were too blurry to see anything properly.
They all looked happy, though I wasn’t sure that was ever the right word for it. They looked smug, that was for goddamn sure. Each of them was grinning at the camera with looks on their faces like they knew I was going to see it.
Like it was for me.
To hurt me.
But while I waited for the feeling of pain to hit me in the chest the way it always did, it didn’t come. There was a sting—resentment, anger for the fact that they could be so casually cruel for no reason other than they enjoyed it—but I wasn’t brought to my knees.
“Ryan?”
I glanced up. My vision was still a little foggy. “Hey.”
“You’re crying.”
I swiped my hands over my cheeks. I was. I hadn’t realized it, but it was more cathartic than anything. I said nothing as Atlas walked over and dropped beside me, gently taking the phone out of my hands. He kept the screen pointed down.
“Is it Gracie and Hasan?”
I laughed, then sniffed. “No. No. It’s…” My throat felt thick for a second. God, why did it have to hurt at all? Why did it have to bother me so fucking much.
His hand cupped my cheek and drew my gaze up. “Talk to me.”
I didn’t want to say it aloud, so I took the phone back from him, opened the message, and gestured for him to read it. I watched his face as he did—the journey of confusion, which melted into a small frown, which turned into a fire in his eyes.
Dropping the phone on his lap, he took a deep breath. “Hateful.”
I’d never thought of it with that word before, but yeah. That’s what it felt like. Hateful. Swiping my hands down my face, I took a deep, cleansing breath. “They don’t matter.”
“No, but that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt. And believe me, I get it. I stopped loving my ex years ago, but he was still able to hold a knife and sink it deeper because he knew me. He knew where my tender spots were.”
“I just hope it eventually stops bothering me at all,” I confessed.
The smile he offered was soft and careful. “Want me to help you forget?”
“Oh.” Yes, I wanted that. I just didn’t think I could perform the way he was suggesting. “I, ah…I mean. I want to, but I’m not sure I can—you know—when I’m feeling like this? God, I’m so sorry. I?—”
“Ryan.” His voice was soft but firm. He took my chin between his fingers and met my gaze. “That is not what I meant.”
I blinked at him.
“Stand up and come with me.”
With the way his voice was pitched and the way his order felt a bit like affection, it was impossible not to obey.
Twenty honey-slow minutes later, we were standing at the edge of a cave with several tide pools around it. Atlas was behind me, using my waist and one crutch to keep himself properly balanced, but he was steady on his legs as we carefully made our way across the bumpy rock bed.
“A guy at the desk gave me this brochure when I came downstairs my first night to get a couple towels,” Atlas said quietly, his voice just audible over the waves lapping at the pools. “He said these rocks are actually just really hard-packed sand.”
I nodded. I knew exactly where we were, and it was saying something that Atlas had picked this place to help me forget my family. It was the place I had used myself to forget them when they were being terrible.
