"You…" My voice cracked before I could stop it. I didn't realize I was shaking until my hands clenched so tight that my nails bit into my palms. My chest felt hollowed out, like someone been scooped out something vital and left me bleeding for the world to see. I cleared my throat, but that shit didn't help. "You're telling me my whole life?—"
I laughed, and it came out sounding wrong and broken.
"You mean to tell me the shit I've been through since setting foot in Gravehart Homes wasn't just collateral but currency?"
"Crown—"
"Nah," I snapped, stepping back. "My worst fucking nights were fucking leverage, my nigga."
I dragged a hand over my face, chest tight. "All those nights I felt weak. All those mornings I woke up like my guts were about to crawl their way out of me… that wasn't me failing at life? That wasn't me disappointing my mother?"
Honor shook his head, eyes still glossy.
"I stopped it," he informed me. "But I should've stopped it sooner."
"That's the fucked up part. You didn't do ittome… you let it happenforme." I dryly laughed. "I had to get addicted 'cause you had to be the one to save me."
I lifted my eyes to his as I leaned against the wall.
"What was it that Lucian said? When you pull a man from the grave, you don't just save his life… you inherit it."
Honor's jaw tightened.
"I couldn't save you without damning you. Lucian don't let nobody walk away clean. He only trades lives."
I slowly nodded, the truth settling into my bones.
"This must be the kind of understanding Xscape was singing about 'cause as fucked up as this shit is—" I exhaled, slow and controlled. "I understand."
After a few seconds of silence, I asked, "You ever think about telling me?"
"Every day," Honor quickly answered.
"Then why the fuck didn't you say shit?"
"Because if you knew…reallyfucking knew you would've had to carry it, and I couldn't do that to you."
I pressed my fist to my chest like I could hold my heart in place.
"You don't get it. You keeping shit from me ain't protection. That's you deciding what kind of pain I'm allowed to survive."
"I was trying to live up to my name and trying to bear the weight of the shit I brought you into."
"Maybe you were," I said. "But two things can be true at once. You also wanted to be alone. Shielding those you love from shit don't mean we don't bleed, my nigga. We all felt the weight you carried, whether it hit us directly or bled into our lives some other way. What you did in the name ofprotectionwas turn martyrdom into your religion… and dressed that shit up as love."
Honor's head bowed. His shoulders shook, not dramatically but honest. In front of me was a man coming apart, fighting tears like they were another enemy he had to keep away from the people he loved.
"I didn't want y'all to see me weak," he rasped.
"None of this shit makes you weak. It's just the cost of carrying everything alone."
I pushed off the wall and stepped closer to my brother.
"Showing us this would've been you letting us see you as human. You taught us how to survive, my nigga, but you didn't let any of us teach you how to live."
I looked at Honor, like really looked at that nigga, and for the first time since I've known him, there was no command in his eyes. Just vulnerability.
"I hear you… I do, but I don't know how to let go. I feel like if I stop holding everything together, there won't be anything left of me."
