“I’m keeping the truth from someone I care about,” I admit.“And it’s… eating at me.More than I want to acknowledge.If I tell them, I could ruin everything.But if I don’t…” I trail off, swallowing.“I keep dying a little inside.”
Alfie studies me for a long moment, fingers steepled, eyes kind but sharp.Then he asks the exact, awful question I’ve been avoiding.
“Are you shielding him from the truth,” he says softly, “or shielding yourself from the consequences?”
“How did you?—”
He smiles, a hint of mischief breaking through the wisdom.“I may be an old man, but I’m an old man who pays attention.”Then, gentler now, he repeats, “So tell me—are you protecting him, or protecting yourself?”
It lands like a clean strike, and I have nothing pretty to say in response.My throat works around a dozen half-formed thoughts, none of them brave enough to make it past my teeth.
“I don’t know anymore.”
The words fall out of me small, raw, like they’ve been scraped loose from somewhere tender.
Alfie nods, slow and thoughtful, as if he expected nothing less.
“Confusion is honest at least,” he says.“Certainty is often just fear wearing a tidy mask.”
I look at him, startled, and he smiles gently.
“You know,” he continues, leaning back in his chair, “people think clarity arrives like lightning—sudden, bright, unmistakable.But more often, it’s a tide.It comes in quietly, inch by inch, reshaping the shore while you’re busy staring at the storm.”
I swallow, the weight in my chest shifting in a way that feels almost like relief.
“So what do I do?”I ask.
His words settle over the space between us, not heavy, but grounding—like someone quietly placing a stone in your hand and trusting you to know what to do with it.For a moment, neither of us speaks.
“Thank you,” I whisper, because there isn’t a bigger or better word that fits.
Alfie smiles, that soft, knowing bend of his mouth that always makes me feel eight years old and entirely seen.
“Oh—before I go, do you have any editions ofThe Chronicles of Narnia?I want to give it to someone.”
A knowing smile crawls up his face, gentle as dusk.
“Wait here” he says, before shifting from his chair and walking towards the back of the store.
I watch the familiar shuffle of his steps, the way his fingers trail along spines as if greeting old friends, and when he returns, he’s holding a battered early copy ofThe Chronicles of Narnia.The exact edition Jake and I used to fight over.
My hand goes instinctively to my pocket.
“How much do I?—”
Alfie clicks his tongue, already offended on principle.
“No.Absolutely not.”
“Alfie—”
He presses the book into my hands with surprising firmness.
“Family doesn’t pay here,” he says with a wink.
The wordfamilylands softly—warm, anchoring, right.
He will be a part of us soon.
