She laughs, low and kind. “Baby, it should. But it’s the only thing that keeps us alive, too. If everyone showed their depths, all at once, the world would end.”
I let the words roll around in my skull, bumping into every bad thought I’ve had in the last six weeks.
“Were you scared of me, when I was little?” I say, and I realize I mean it. “Like, did you ever think I could be?—”
She cuts me off. “No. Not for a single second.”
I want to believe her. I really do.
“People are whole oceans,” she says again. “Sometimes, even they don’t know what’s at the bottom.”
A siren wails closer, then fades. I hear her breathing, steady, patient.
“What if I don’t even know myself?” I ask.
She makes a small, happy sound. “Nobody does, darling. That’s why we have family. And therapy. And ice cream.”
I laugh, just a little.
She goes quiet, then says, “Do you want me to come visit?”
“Maybe,” I say, and the word comes out a whisper.
“Or you come home. Any time, Darius. No excuses.”
I nod, phone pressed to my forehead.
We say I love you, goodnight. She hangs up.
I sit in the dark a long time, just breathing.
Then I think about Ash.
The way his eyes flash when he’s about to say something real. The scar under his chin from a high stick in juniors.
The way he shakes out his hands before a big set, like he’s trying to exorcise the nerves.
The way he says “don’t let go” when I spot him, and the way my heart hammers in my chest every time he looks at me like maybe I’m the only thing holding him up.
And then it hits me, the thought I've been circling for weeks without knowing it. Caleb sat with us. He hugged us. He cried with us.
And the whole time, he was carrying something so dark it killed four people.
If he could hide that, smile through it, grieve through it, eat pancakes through it, then what the hell is my excuse? I've been hiding too.
From Nia, from the team, from myself. But the thing I'm hiding isn't dark. It isn't dangerous. It's just true.
It’s not dark, not like the things we fear in other people. It’s just there, waiting for me to say it out loud.
I pick up my phone. Open the texts. I scroll until I hit Ash’s name.
I hover for a second, thumb trembling.
Then I start to type.
No more hiding.
CLEAN BREAK
