My voice cracked on the word, and I hated myself for it.
Hated the weakness. The vulnerability. The fact that after everything I'd done, everything I'd survived, this was what broke me.
Not bullets. Not blood. Not death.
Him.
"I can't—" I shook my head, backing toward the door. "I can't do this."
"Son—"
"Don't call me that."
The words came out raw. Vicious.
And I saw it land. Saw the flinch in his eyes, the tightening of his jaw.
Good.
Let him hurt.
Let him feel a fraction of what we'd felt when he left.
But even as I thought it, something else rose up—something I didn't want to name.
Because it wasn't just anger.
It was grief.
Old, unprocessed grief that I'd never let myself feel because feeling it meant admitting he mattered. Admitting that losing him had broken something in me I'd never figured out how to fix.
And I couldn't handle that.
Not here. Not now. Not in front of him.
So, I did what I'd done when my mother died.
When my world caved in for what I thought was the last time.
When I shut off everything and everyone because it was the only way to survive.
I ran.
Out of the room. Down the hallway. Past the butler, who called after me but didn't try to stop me.
Out the front door. Across the lawn. Through the gates that opened too slowly, forcing me to squeeze through the gap before they'd fully parted.
I didn't stop until I hit the road.
And even then, I kept moving.
Because if I stopped, I'd have to think.
And if I thought, I'd have to feel.
And feeling was the one thing I couldn't afford.
Not when everything I'd built—every wall, every defense, every carefully constructed piece of armor—was crumbling around me.
