I can’t move. I can barely breathe.
“But you knew the risk,” I manage.
“Of course I did. But Tom—” His voice fractures. “Do you know what it’s like to go years without being touched kindly? Without someone seeing you as anything other than property?”
Tears slip down his cheeks. “I knew I shouldn’t. I knew I was repeating the same mistake. But I was so fucking lonely. And you — you made me feel like maybe I wasn’t gone already. Like maybe I was still me.”
I can’t hold back anymore. I reach for his hand. He grips mine tight, desperate, like a man clinging to a rope in a storm.
“So, James let me happen,” I say slowly, “because he knew at some point, he would tear me away from you.”
Pete nods, swallowing hard. “That’s what he does.”
“So, why now?”
“It’s when he realises I care too — that’s when it turns. That’s when it gets dangerous. I thought maybe, if I kept it small, kept it low-key, James wouldn’t notice. Or maybe he wouldn’t care. But James always notices. And James always cares.”
He pulls his hand away from mine and presses his palms flat to his thighs, grounding himself.
I want to scream. I want to storm upstairs and smash every single hidden camera I know is in this house, rip the place apart until James has nothing left to hide behind. I want to take Pete and drive as far as the roads will let us go.
Instead, I sit here. Holding his truth like it’s glass, fragile and sharp at the same time.
“I don’t care how messy it gets,” I whisper. “I’m not walking away from you.”
Pete shakes his head, tears streaking down his face. “That’s what Chris said.”
And in that moment, the air between us isn’t just heavy — it’s suffocating.
“Did you two ever talk about leaving, going away together?” I ask.
“We talked about it, but… it was never going to happen. The risk was too high.”
For a while, neither of us speaks. I listen to the sound of his breathing, uneven, shaky. My own heart is thundering, threatening to drown everything else out.
“Pete, whatdidhappen to Chris?”
Pete presses his fists against his eyes, like he’s trying to squeeze the truth out.
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. One day, he was here and the next day, he texted to say he couldn’t be a part of this anymore. He was moving away. There was something going on with his job, the police were involved. Talk of him being charged. I’m not too sure of the details, but I never heard from him again.”
I think of Chris — his name said like a ghost, a warning. Chris who wanted Pete to leave, who vanished into thin air. Chris, who Pete once held, just like I am now.
“Do you think it was James’s doing?”
I picture James, looming, controlling, pulling invisible strings. Pete’s words echo in my head:the leash.
“In one way or another, yes,” he says.
I hate myself for asking the next question, but I need to. “Why me? Why did you let yourself fall into it again, after everything?”
“Because you made me feel alive again. Because you smiled at me like I wasn’t broken. Because for one stupid second, I believed it could be different this time.”
His shoulders shake. He lets out a sound that’s halfway between a laugh and a sob.
All I want is to take it all away. To fix it. To save him. But I know Craig’s words are true — this isn’t something I can fix with hugs and declarations. This is bigger, messier. Still, right now, it feels like the only thing I can offer is to hold him together while he falls apart.
Silence stretches. His breathing shudders. Mine feels tight, thin.
