“I didn’t know,” he says.
“You didn’t want to know.” I feel the anger rising—the good kind, the clean kind, the kind that keeps me standing instead of folding. “You had years of voicemails telling you exactly what was happening, and you couldn’t be bothered to listen to a single one. Earl asks about you. Every time I come back from town, every time I walk through the door, he looks past me to see if maybe this time you’re behind me. And every time I have to watch that look die on his face when it’s just me.”
Something flashes across Lee’s expression—guilt, maybe, or shame.
Whatever it is, it’s gone before I can name it.
“I want to be clear about something,” I tell him. My voice is level but my hands are shaking, and I curl them into fists at my sides to keep them still. “I didn’t come back for you. I came for Earl. I packed up my entire life—my clients, my apartment, my routine—because that man gave meeverythingwhen the people who were supposed to give me everything couldn’t be bothered. He’s my family, Lee. Mine. Not by blood, but by every single thing that actually matters. And when your family is dying, you show up.”
The implication hangs in the air between us, sharp as a blade.
I don’t say it outright.
I don’t have to.
I showed up. You didn’t.
Lee’s jaw works.
The ring catches the light again as his hand tightens on the counter.
I watch him process it—the information, the accusation, the guilt—and I watch him do what he’s been doing for five and a half years: shut it down.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says quietly.
And there it is.
Not “I’m sorry.”
Not “How can I help?”
Not “Take me to him.”
Just the same wall he’s been hiding behind since the funeral—the reflexive push-away, the door slamming shut, the man who’d rather stand alone in the dark than risk standing in the light with someone who might remind him of what he lost.
I don’t flinch.
I’ve had a lifetime of men telling me I shouldn’t be somewhere.
My father said it when I walked in the door.
My mother said it when I needed things she couldn’t give.
Teachers, coaches, boys who didn’t know what to do with a girl who hit back.
The world has been telling Bex Dalton she shouldn’t be here since the day she was born, and the world has been wrong every single time.
“Well, I am,” I say. “So deal with it.”
I hold his eyes for one more second—long enough to make sure he sees that I mean it, that this isn’t the same girl who used to defer to Rose, who used to soften her edges to fit into smaller spaces.
That girl died somewhere on a highway in the rain along with the best person she ever knew.
What grew back is harder. Sharper. Less willing to bend.
I turn and walk out.
The bell jangles behind me.
