Across from him.
So I can see his face.
“Your dad,” I say carefully.
He nods.
Once.
And then he doesn’t say anything for a long time.
I wait.
I have waited for this my entire life.
I can wait a little longer.
“He blamed me,” Cassian says finally.
Still not looking at me.
“For her. For everything. I was eleven and he looked at me like — like it was my fault she couldn’t hang on.”
Something cold moves through me.
“And then there was so much blood—”
He stops again.
This stop is different.
Longer.
His hands press harder against his knees.
“Cassian.”
“I don’t —” He exhales. Unsteady. “I’ve never said this. Out loud. To anyone.”
“I know,” I say.
“He —”
The word doesn’t come.
But something does.
Something in the way his whole body changes.
The way he folds slightly inward.
The way the thing he’s always carried shifts into view for just a second —
• • •
This.
This is what’s been behind the door.
