He speaks even less about his childhood. The little I know is scattered—fragments of memory he’s let slip through clenched teeth. A few words about his mother. A few flickers of something that might have once been love. He must’ve loved her, once.
Maybe still does. And maybe that’s what makes all of this worse, because he must have loved this place too.
The trailer door creaks open, pulling me out of my thoughts.
His mother steps out.
Her gaze lands on me and freezes, then she moves stiffly, like the ground beneath her isn’t sure it wants to hold her weight. She’s a reflection of him, almost—blonde curls messy and unbrushed, pale skin, sharp cheekbones that mirror his,and huge brown eyes. But where Lucas carries his beauty like armor, she carries hers like a fading photograph, washed out and tired, her beauty is brittle now, worn down by too many nights of drugs and alcohol and god knows what else. She looks like someone who gave up a long time ago and took everything down with her.
Her eyes flick past me.
“Where’s Lucas?” she asks, her voice tentative, searching. Like she actually expects to see him appear behind me.
I raise a brow.
Is she serious? Does she think I will ever let him set foot here again?
She must see it in my face. Because her breath stutters out, and she folds tighter into herself like she’s cold. Or guilty. Maybe both.
“If he’s not here,” she says, voice lower now, fragile, “then what are you doing here?”
I take a slow step forward, keeping my voice even.
“I need answers.”
Her mouth parts, but I don’t give her time to speak.
“I need you to tell me what the fuck happened to him.”
The words are quiet. But they slice through the air like a blade.
Because I need to know.
I’ve held back for so long and given him time. Space. Patience. I’ve waited through the silences, through the quiet smiles he gives in the mornings after nights filled with whimpers and sudden jolts awake. It started ever since that night of Tyler’s birthday. I’ve told myself not to push, that he’d tell me when he was ready.
But I’m starting to wonder if that day will ever come.
He keeps saying it’s just anxiety that it’s manageable.
But I see the way his eyes dim sometimes when he thinks I’m not watching. I feel the way he clings tighter at night when he sleeps, like he’s fighting something in his dreams, something I can’t reach. And I hate it. I hate how helpless I feel. I hate how he shrinks into himself when I ask too much. So I don’t ask anymore. I just hold him when the nightmares come, pull him into my arms, and whisper things I’m not sure he hears. I tell him he’s safe, that I’m here.
He wakes up the next morning bright-eyed, smiling like he’s untouchable. Like nothing haunts him, the kind that could fool anyone who hadn’t heard his quiet whimpers at midnight when he’s asleep, hadn’t held him through all that. But I have, and I know better. I’ve seen the cracks in the armor, I’ve felt them, I know he’s hurting, I know he carries something heavier inside him, I’ve known it since I met him in that Alley.
And I wonder just how many years it took him to bury his pain deep enough to fake it this well. How long did it take him to learn to block it out from everything else? How long did it take him to train himself to survive like this quietly, beautifully, tragically?.
“Don’t believe whatever that fucker Oliver says about my son,” Kathryn cuts in, her voice tense, raw. “He’s a sore loser who thinks he can use it against Lucas any chance he gets.”
I blink. My eyes narrow at her.
Oliver?
I haven’t even spoken to the bastard. He hasn’t been able to open his damn mouth since I chained him in that damp hellhole beneath my grandfather’s mansion. And even if he had… I wouldn’t have believed him. Not about Lucas. Not about anything.
The idea that he knows something about Lucas—something he could throw in his face—makes something boil low in mystomach. A slow, ugly heat that climbs up my spine. His intestines would be wrapped around his neck when I leave here.
“I haven’t heard shit from Oliver,” I say, voice cold, measured. “And I don’t want to”
Kathryn swallows. Her eyes flick away from mine.
