I settle onto a barstool while Argyros flops down beside me on the hardwood. A quick scan of the gleaming kitchen shows… nothing. Not a single beer can. No crusty pizza boxes. No sign whatsoever that a full-blown rager happened here less than twenty-four hours ago.
“Wow. You got Dimitra to deep-clean on her day off?”
“It’s late, Al,” he says, voice low, rubbing his eyes. “What’s going on? I know you didn’t come barging in to talk about Dimitra’s cleaning schedule.”
My throat goes dry. Suddenly I’m nervous, unsurehow to tell Hayes about the letters and what my mom just told me. It’s strange. I don’t get nervous around Hayes. He’s the one person I’ve always been able to tell anything.
Well—almost anything.
Just not the part where I’m halfway in love with him, like an idiot, obviously.
“Uh… can I get a water or something?” I ask.
Without a word, Hayes grabs a chilled Evian from the fridge, twists off the cap, and hands it to me.
I take a slow sip, using it as cover while I try to figure out how to explain this. It’s not that I think Hayes will judge my mom. He already knows she’s… unconventional. Quirky. A little out there. Whatever. But this is something else entirely.
And it’s not just about her.
Mental illness runs in families. Genes, patterns, entire histories passed down like heirlooms. If my mother has some kind of mental disorder… what does that mean for me? Is this something buried in my DNA too? Could I lose my grip someday, just like she did?
“Al?” Hayes nudges my shoulder. “What’s going on?”
My hands won’t stop shaking. I shove them under the counter, hiding them in my lap, and close my eyes. And there it is again. My mother’s messy handwriting looping across those pages, words I can’t unread.
“I tried to tell you the other night. Before, you know, I got, uh, sick.”
His expression shifts—serious now, tuned in. “Right. You said it was about your mom.”
I swallow hard.
God, how do I even say this out loud?
“It’s even worse than I thought, Hay.”
He stays quiet, waiting.
“She thinks…” I falter, forcing the words through my teeth. “She thinks my father is from another world.”
A beat passes. Then another.
“Shewhat?”
He lowers himself onto the barstool beside me. His eyes stay locked on mine, steady and alert. Concerned. Not mocking. Not retreating.
“I know how it sounds,” I say. “But this isn’t one of her usual woo-woo moments. She’s serious. She really believes it. And… I’m starting to wonder if she always has.”
His gaze never wavers.
“Okay. Tell me everything,” he says.
So I do.
In a breathless, rambling rush, I spill it all. The letters. The conversation. Titans, gods, the Underworld—every surreal detail tumbles out in sharp, uneven bursts, breaking on my tongue like shards of glass.
Hayes doesn’t interrupt. He just listens.
When I finally stop, the silence stretches long enough that I start to regret saying anything at all.
