The words stung worse than if he’d yelled. The hurt was etched into the lines near his mouth, his furrowed brow, the way his eyes avoided mine. The memories being re-sorted. The assumptions being undone.
“It was only a few months,” I said quickly. “I left, and he stayed. It wasn’t some long, twisted sibling thing. It was... ” I paused, searching for breath. “It was survival.”
Dirks shook his head, running a hand over his jaw as he stepped back and looked toward the ceiling.
I pushed back from the stool, the metal legs squealing beneath me, and walked over to him.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you by keeping it from you, but it wasn’t mine to tell. It was ours. Jeremy and I—we were kids, scared, holding onto the only good thing we had. I left because I had to. Because staying meant something worse.”
“I get it,” he murmured. “I do, but I don’t know how to feel about it yet.”
“You don’t have to know,” I said, voice trembling. “Just... don’t walk away.”
“I’m not walking away. But this is big, Luna.”
“We saw each other again after all those years, and we promised not to say a word to anyone. We said we’d keep it buried.”
Dirks didn’t move or speak.
“It wasn’t supposed to mean anything, but it did.” I went on, the words tumbling out. “We dated, and it was easy and familiar. Then... I met you, and somehow it was still easy. The three of us.” I looked down at my hands. “We kept it a secret because it made us feel protected and because we didn’t know how to be that open. We’re not wired that way.” A broken laugh tore out of me. “Maybe it’s just that we’re both really fucking broken trauma magnets.”
Dirks still didn’t say anything, so I looked up. “Baby... I know this is a lot. I know this is heavy. I can’t promise I’ve told you everything. I wish I could, but unlearning a lifetime of survival tactics doesn’t happen in a night.” I walked toward him,eyes stinging. “I swear to you... this secret? It was the hardest one to hold. I didn’t want to keep it from you.”
“Then why did you?”
“Because I didn’t want to lose this. And because... ” I swallowed. “Because it’s tied to a version of me I’ve spent years trying to forget.”
Dirks exhaled slowly and sat down on the couch, rubbing a hand over his face.
“I get it,” he said finally. “I get why it was hard. I’m not mad about the secret, Luna. I’m mad that you thought I couldn’t handle it.”
I sat beside him, the air between us still thick.
He turned to face me. “Look, I’m not expecting you to pour out every dark corner of your life all at once, but I need something from you, if we’re going to do this.”
“Okay . . . what?”
“Truth. That’s it. Doesn’t have to be pretty. Doesn’t have to come fast. But it has to be real.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
He studied me, his blue eyes sharper than ever. “So tell me one thing. No bullshit.”
I braced myself.
“Do you miss him?”
“Y-yes.” I didn’t backpedal.
Dirks looked down, nodded once like he expected it, maybe even respected it more than a lie. “Okay,” he said. “That’s all I needed to hear.”
“Does that hurt you?”
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt. It... makes me think we should find him.”
My heart twisted.
“Because what you and Jeremy had—it’s not something I can replicate. You have a history of surviving shit together. He gives you something I can’t.”
