Maren didn’t look away when I asked. She didn’t soften it or tried to wrap it in something pretty. She just breathed inslowly, like she’d been waiting a long time for someone to ask her that.
“I want to believe he’s alive,” she said, her voice low so it didn’t travel. “God, Iwantto. For Evander’s sake. For me. But wanting something and trusting it are two different things.”
Honesty stung.
She glanced towards where Evander was, who was unaware of the storm gathering here.
“My son has held onto hope so tightly because it’s part of him. He needs to believe that the boy had survived. It needs it like air. But me…I’ve lived long enough to know the world doesn’t always give back what it takes.”
She turned back to me, her gaze steady. “So, no. I don’t know if he’s alive. I don’t know if he’s gone. I don’t know what’s true anymore.”
“But” she added; her voice gentled in a way that made my breath catch. “If heisalive…if he’s out there somewhere….then I could want him home. I would want him to be safe. I would want him loved.”
Her eyes held mine, unwavering.
“And I would accept him. Whoever he became. Whatever he’s been through. I would accept him.”
The words hit me like a soft blow, warm, terrifying and impossibly kind.
Because she didn’t know she was talking to me. And I didn’t know how to hold the weight of that truth.
Not yet.
Chapter 34
Kasey
“Did you have a nice chat with my mother?” Evander asked once we were settled on the couch, a small plate of snacks between us.
He’d decided somewhere along the way that I needed to eat more. I kept insisting I was fine, that I ate when I was hungry, but if Evander thought I needed food, I wasn’t going to argue. Not when he looked at me with that quiet certainly, like he knew something I didn't.
And maybe he did.
I took another bite, more for him than me, and nodded.
“That’s good.” He shifted beside me, settling deeper into the couch as he pulled a tablet onto his lap. The same one I’d seen him use a handful of times. His thumb swiped across the screen with practiced ease. “I got the file from Lockswell.”
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to breathe for a second.
Because whatever was in that file, it wasn’t just pictures. It wasn’t just my records.
It was my life. Every year. Every rule. Every correction. Every piece of training carved into me.
All of it, sitting right there in his hands.
And I wasn’t sure I was ready to see myself through their eyes.
He didn’t look at me right away, instead his eyes stayed on the tablet.
“I haven’t opened it yet.”
The tablet screen glowed faintly; the Lockswell crest stamped at the top like a brand.
“I don’t know what’s in it,” he went on. “But whatever it is…it’s not going to change how I view you.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to look at it.
“You don’t have to look at it all. Mostly what I’m after should be on the very first page.”
