The words hit me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. My free hand gripped the edge of the dock so hard the weathered wood bit into my palm.
"What?" I managed, my voice barely a whisper, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard I could hear it in my ears. "But you—when I came back for the cancer—you never said?—"
"I tried." His voice broke on the word. "That night you sat with me in the hospital, when I thought I was dying—I tried to tell you. I said your name, and you looked at me with those eyes, and I opened my mouth to say it, and you just..." He took a shuddering breath. "You smiled and changed the subject. Started talking about the Saints game. And I was so tired, so sick, I told myself I'd try again tomorrow. But tomorrow you were closed off again, and then I was in surgery, and then recovery, and then?—"
"Then I left," I finished, my voice hollow and distant, like it belonged to someone else. The words tasted like ash in my mouth.
"Then you left." The words hung between us like a wound, and I could hear him swallow hard through the phone, could picture him sitting in his leather chair with tears streaming down his weathered face. "And I never got to tell you the truth."
"What truth?" I could barely get the words out, my throat raw and tight, my whole body trembling like a leaf in a storm.
"That what happened to Luc was an accident." Papa's voice was fierce now, intense in a way I'd never heard. "A terrible, tragic accident. You were seventeen, Remy. Seventeen. You made the same choice a thousand other boys your age would have made—left your little brother alone for a few hours to go see a pretty girl. It was normal. It was human. You couldn't haveknown he'd go down to the water. You couldn't have known the current would be so strong that day."
"But I should have—" The protest died in my throat, weak and automatic, the same excuse I'd been telling myself for twelve years.
"No." The word cracked through the phone like a whip, sharp and fierce. I could picture Papa sitting forward in his chair, his free hand balled into a fist on his knee. "No. Don't you dare. I am so tired of you carrying this guilt, mon fils. So tired of watching you destroy yourself over something that was never your fault." His voice dropped, trembling with emotion. "Do you want to know who I blame? Do you want to know who I've blamed every single day for the past twelve years?"
I couldn't speak. Could barely breathe.
"Myself." The word came out broken, shattered. "I blame myself, Remy. I was the one who bought that property on the river. I was the one who never taught Luc to swim properly because I was always too busy with work. I was the one who left two boys alone that weekend while I took your mother out of town for our anniversary." His voice cracked into a sob. "If anyone killed Luc, it was me. Not you. Never you."
"Papa, no—" The words tore out of me, raw and desperate, my voice breaking on a sob. I was shaking my head even though he couldn't see me, tears blurring my vision until the bayou was nothing but golden smears. "It wasn't your fault either. It wasn't?—"
"Then why can it be yours?" he demanded, and the question hit me like a hammer to the chest, stealing my breath, making my heart stutter. "Why do you get to carry that guilt and I don't? Why do you get to punish yourself for over a decade while I sit here, missing my son, knowing that the real tragedy isn't just that we lost Luc—it's that we lost you too?"
I was crying so hard I couldn't see, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but clutch the phone and shake.
"We tried," he continued, and now I could hear the tears in his voice too, the grief he'd been carrying for over a decade finally spilling over. "When you came back for the cancer, we thought—we hoped—but you were so closed off. Every time we tried to bring up Luc, you'd change the subject. Leave the room. And then once I was better, you just... vanished again." He broke off, cleared his throat roughly. "We didn't chase you. We thought maybe you needed more time. That forcing it would only push you further away. But God, Remy—" His voice shattered completely. "Not a day has gone by that I haven't regretted that choice. Not a single day."
"Papa—" I couldn't finish, the word catching in my throat like a fishhook. Couldn't speak around the lump that had formed there, the years of guilt and pain and loneliness crashing over me like a wave, threatening to drag me under. They'd tried to reach me, and I'd shut them out. Again and again and again.
"You were seventeen years old," my father said, his voice fierce now, almost angry, but I could hear the love underneath—fierce and desperate and unshakeable. "You were a child, Remy. A child. You made a mistake—a terrible mistake, yes, but you were a child. And you have spent the last twelve years punishing yourself for something that was never your fault. Do you have any idea what that does to a parent? To watch your son destroy himself with guilt and be powerless to stop it?"
I was crying openly now, tears streaming down my face, my whole body shaking with sobs I'd been holding back for over a decade. All those years of running, of hating myself, of believing I was unforgivable—and my parents had never blamed me at all. The realization shattered something inside me, something hard and cold that had been lodged in my chest since I was seventeen years old.
"Luc loved you," Papa said, and his voice broke on my brother's name. "He worshipped you, Remy. You were his hero. His big brother who could play guitar and make everyone laugh and charm the birds out of the trees." A wet, broken laugh. "Do you think he'd want this? Do you think he'd want you spending your whole life drowning in guilt? He'd be so angry with you, mon fils. He'd tell you to stop being an idiot and go live your life."
The laugh that came out of me was half-sob, half-something else—recognition, maybe. Because Papa was right. Luc would have been furious. He'd always hated when I got too serious, when I disappeared into my own head. He used to throw things at me until I smiled again.
"I miss him," I whispered, the words barely audible, scraping past the lump in my throat. It was the first time I'd said those words out loud since the funeral, and they felt like glass shards coming up. "Every single day. I miss him so much it feels like there's a hole in my chest where he used to be."
"I know, mon fils." Papa's voice was gentle now, so gentle it made me cry harder, my shoulders shaking with silent sobs. "I miss him too. We all do. But missing him doesn't mean you have to disappear too. It doesn't mean you have to punish yourself forever." A pause, heavy with emotion, and I could hear him fighting to steady his own breathing. "Luc is gone. Nothing will ever change that. But you're still here. You're still alive. And I need you to start living like it."
"I don't know how," I admitted, the words scraped raw from somewhere deep inside me, my voice cracking on every syllable. "I don't know how to be okay. I've been broken for so long, I don't remember what whole feels like."
"Then let us help you." The words were so simple, so earnest, that they cracked something open inside me—something that had been locked tight for over a decade. "Let us be your familyagain. Let us love you the way we should have been loving you all along." His voice steadied, grew stronger, carrying the weight of a promise. "You said you have a pack now. An Omega. Brothers. That means you've already started healing, Remy. You've already started letting people in. So let us in too. Please."
"I'm sorry," I choked out, barely able to form the words through the tears, not even sure what I was apologizing for anymore. For leaving. For staying away. For all the years we'd lost. For being too broken and too proud to pick up the phone. For making my mother cry every time she passed my room. For making my father sit alone in his study, looking at old photos and grieving for a son who was still alive. "Papa, I'm so sorry?—"
"Shh, mon fils." My father's voice was gentle now, the voice I remembered from before everything fell apart, the voice that used to tell me bedtime stories and teach me to fish. The voice that used to call me his little troublemaker, his charmer, his joy. "It's done. It's past. What matters now is that you called." A pause, and when he spoke again, I could hear the smile breaking through his tears. "What matters is that my son has finally found his way home."
"I love you, Papa." The words came out before I could stop them, words I hadn't said in over a decade, words that felt like breaking open and healing all at once. My voice was wrecked, barely recognizable, but I pushed through anyway. "I love you and Maman and Jean-Pierre, and I'm so sorry I made you think I didn't. I'm so sorry I ran."
"We love you too, Remy." His voice cracked, but he kept going, fierce and sure, each word a promise carved in stone. "We never stopped. We never will. No matter how far you run, no matter how long you stay away—you will always, always be our son. Nothing will ever change that. Do you understand me? Nothing."
I sat there on the dock, phone pressed to my ear, crying like I hadn't cried since I was sixteen years old standing over my brother's grave. The sobs wracked my whole body, shaking me apart, and somewhere in the distance I could hear the bayou birds calling and Gumbo rumbling in the water, the world going on around me while I finally—finally—let myself fall apart. Crying for Luc, for my parents, for all the years I'd wasted running from a forgiveness that had been waiting for me all along. Crying for the boy I used to be and the man I was trying to become. Crying because for the first time in twelve years, I actually believed I might deserve to be happy.
Eventually, the tears slowed. I wiped my face with my shirt, the fabric coming away soaked, and took a shuddering breath, trying to remember why I'd called in the first place.
