I open the anchor sense. Push it outward, slow and easy, toward the boy on the log. The calm settles into the space around Cameron’s fire, not fighting it, not smothering, just laying a foundation.
Cameron’s head lifts. The fire flickers.
“Cameron,” I say. Not loud. Settled. “We’re here.”
“Go away.” His voice is raw. He’s been crying. The fire pulses brighter.
“Not going to do that.”
“I saidgo away.”
“And I said no. Your mother’s here. I’m here. We’re not leaving.”
He looks up. His face is streaked with tears and lit by his own fire. The expression on it breaks something in me. Not a boy’s anger or a teenager’s defiance. Betrayal. Pure, uncomplicated, devastating betrayal.
“I heard you,” he says. “On the path. This afternoon. You were arguing about when to tell me.”
Fuck.
He heard us. Of course he did. The conversation about paternity, about timing, about Brenna not being ready. He was there, upstairs, the window open, carrying every word back to his bedroom to add to the pile of evidence he’s probably been assembling since the day I put him in a truck and drove south.
Brenna makes a small, broken sound beside me.
“You’re my father,” Cameron says simply. He’s known for hours, sitting alone in his room while the adults in his life argued about when he deserved to know the answer. “Both of you knew. And neither of you told me.”
“Cameron—” Brenna steps forward. The fire flares, and she stops. The heat is real. I can feel it from fifteen feet, the air rippling.
“You lied.” He’s looking at Brenna now. “I sat in that room, and I gave you a chance, Ma. I looked you in the eye, and I gave you a chance to tell me the truth, and you told me to go eat something.”
The words hit Brenna hard. She sucks in a breath.
“You’ve been lying all along,” he continues. “Not just the two years. Not just the death. My whole life, Ma. Every time I asked about my father. Every time you said he was a good man who made a bad choice. He was right there. Within reach. And you didn’t tell me.”
“I was trying to protect you—”
“From what? From him?” He swings toward me. His eyes are blazing. “From the man who drove fifteen hundred milesto bring me home? Who sat with me through nightmares and calmed my magic when yours couldn’t? You were protecting me fromthat?”
The fire climbs. The fallen log beneath him is starting to smoke. The anchor sense is holding the floor, but his power is pushing against it, swelling with every word.
“I was protecting you from the pain of knowing your father chose to leave,” Brenna says. Her voice is stripped. No armor. No careful framing. Just the raw, awful truth. “I was protecting you from growing up knowing that the man who was supposed to love you walked away before you were born.”
The clearing goes quiet except for the crackle of Cameron’s fire.
“I didn’t know,” I say. “Cameron. I didn’t know about you. Your mother never told me she was pregnant. I left before either of us knew.”
He stares at me. The fire dims slightly. Confusion cutting through the fury.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“But you—” He looks between us. Recalculating. “You left her. Before.”
“I left her because I was young and naive, and the men I trusted told me it was the right thing to do. They were wrong. I was wrong. And I spent all those years knowing I was wrong. But that’s not enough, and I’m sorry.”
The fire pulls back another degree. The anchor sense settles deeper. He’s listening. Not forgiving—nowhere close to forgiving—but listening.
“Your mother kept the secret because she was trying to spare you from exactly this,” I say. “From knowing that your father failed before you were born. Every choice she made—including the ones that hurt you—came from wanting to protect you fromthe damage I caused. You can be angry at both of us. You should be. But don’t put her failure and mine in the same category. She stayed. I’m the one who left.”
