“Why are you digging this up now?”
He stared at her for a long moment, letting the silence stretch, the ticking of the clock marking the seconds. “Because I found someone beautiful and true. She never pulls punches. She’s been flipping everything I do and say back at me like a hard lesson on what intimacy means. She’s never looked away from me…not once, and I’m beginning to realize why I just fucked it up.” Her gaze flicked away, toward the pristine mantelpiece. Her fingers twitched against her slacks. “You loved him,” he said, not a question.
“Of course I did.”
“Then say it,” he said quietly, his voice soft but unyielding.
She looked back at him, startled.
“Say that you loved him so much you couldn’t grieve him out loud,” he continued, his gaze pinning her down. “Say that loving him destroyed you, and that getting close to me felt like reopening that wound. Say that staying distant was easier than risking that kind of pain again.”
Her breath caught, a small, audible hitch. Her lips pressed together, losing their color.
“And say that what you gave me wasn't love. That it was survival. That you taught me to build walls because you were trapped behind your own.”
Silence pressed in hard, thick and suffocating.
“I’m not asking you to justify it,” he said, his tone softening just enough to show this wasn’t an attack. “I just need you to tell the truth. For once. About me. About Dad.”
She looked away, her shoulders drawing in, retreating to the place he’d never been allowed to follow. “I was trying to stay normal,” she said, her voice thin. “For you. For your own?—”
“Don’t,” he said softly, cutting her off. “Don’t tell me it was for my own good. We both know it wasn’t.” She didn’t answer, her jaw working. “I didn’t need normal,” he said, the words heavy with years of unspoken pain. “I needed you. I heard you crying at night. I wanted to help. I didn’t know how to ask. I learned to leave you alone because that’s what you taught me to do.”
She said nothing, her knuckles white where she gripped her own hands.
“That’s what I got,” he said, the last of his anger draining away, leaving only a hollow ache. “Distance. Half-truths. Silence.”
Her jaw set, a final, stubborn defense. “You turned out fine.”
He let out a slow, shuddering breath. As he spoke, a sharp, familiar pain flared in his side, a physical echo of the wound she couldn’t see. “No. I didn’t.” That finally made her look at him, really look at him. “I locked everything down,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Feelings. Grief. Want. I learned it from you, and it almost cost me everything.”
Her eyes widened, a flicker of something, fear, maybe, in their depths. “Kelly?—”
“I’m not blaming you,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “I just needed you to hear it.”
She looked away again, the wall back in place. “That’s all in the past,” she said, her tone dismissive. “Best to let it go.” He watched her close the door from the inside. Something in him settled. She stood, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her slacks. “Will you be staying for dinner?”
He rose carefully, the pull in his side sharp but grounding. He moved with a deliberation that felt new, unburdened. “No.”
She hesitated, as if surprised by the finality in his tone.
“I just needed the truth,” he said. “I have it now.”
He walked out without another word, the door clicking shut behind him, sealing her in her world of quiet denial.
Outside, the air felt clearer. Warm and honest. He waited for the pain to hit him full force. For the grief to tear open something raw. It didn’t. Because he’d already lost her a long time ago. Now, finally, he understood that loss. He could name it. He could grieve it, and he could survive it. Some people couldn’t meet you where you were going. That didn’t make them villains. It just meant you stopped waiting.
He stepped off the porch and didn’t look back.
He stopped at a red light, allowing a man to cross the street. Breakneck’s hands tightened on the wheel. Something in the man’s shoulders reminded him of Trevor Jones, and everything flooded back.
The old rotten fish scent of the cannery, the oil, the diesel, the blood, and the sound of a neck snapping.
He fucking liked Jones. Jones had made his choice long before the cannery.
It was Breakneck’s job to eliminate threats, and he still wouldn't lose one night's sleep over it. But, with Jones, that one hurt, and he couldn't help wishing he hadn't been forced to kill him.
A horn sounded behind him, and he swallowed and moved on.
