“Tristian didn’t say—”
“Of course he didn’t,” Noah cut me off. “He can’t accept it. He’s still hoping. Still clinging on. But she’s going to die. And when she does, you’ll be the only one left trying to hold him together when the blame consumes him.”
“If you know so much about it, then why don’t you do something about it?”
“Like I said, Ingrid… I did my part. Unfortunately, Tristian didn’t.”
“And watching his mother die is a reasonable consequence?”
“You apparently know my son better than me… I’m sure you know how reasonable he is.”
I swallowed, the same feeling as being in the visitation room rushing back in.
“You don’t get to talk about him like that,” I said finally, my voice shaking.
Noah raised an eyebrow. “I’m his father. That’s what you said, right?” Then he shifted. His voice softened, almost pitying. “You know, you and Tristian are so different… and yet so alike. You probably don’t realize it, but you are. For instance…” He sighed, fixing me with a heavy look. “Both of your mothers are dying.”
My eyes stayed on his, and for a moment… there was silence.
My mother?The thought started and stopped. Started again and went nowhere. I heard the words… They registered somewhere in my mind, but I didn’t speak, I couldn’t, I—
She’d been a ghost my whole life… present enough to be real, absent enough that I’d stopped reaching. I didn’t even know what losing her was supposed to feel like when I’d never really had her to begin with.
I was more confused than anything at the words, watching Noah’s gaze of pity return.
“Get the hell away from her.”
Tristian moved in front of me before I could even register him, a shield between me and his father.
“You okay?” he asked me, his voice tight, barely controlled.
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“It’s okay, son,” said Noah easily. “We were just talking; gave her a warning of the inevitable when you decide to finally pull the plug.” At Tristian’s intense gaze, he continued, “Don’t look at me like that. The poor girl needed to hear it from someone. You should thank me.”
For a long moment no one said anything. Tristian breathed heavy and hard. His body turned rigid. Then Tristian’s fist connected with his father’s face with a crack that echoed off the walls.
Noah jerked backward. Blood sprayed across his suit. Voices erupted from down the hall as doctors pushed forward.
They didn’t need to intervene as Tristian stayed back. Watched his father stagger, clutching his nose, looking up at his son in shock.
“You don’t talk to Ingrid,” Tristian finally said, voice razor-sharp. “You don’t look at her. You don’t even breathe in her fucking direction.”
Noah’s chest rose and fell, heavy breaths through his mouth now that his nose was broken.
“I’m preparing her,” he grunted, “for what you won’t say. For what youcan’t.”
The tension was unbearable. My heart pounded so loud I could barely hear. I didn’t know who to look at. What to say. Or what I was even supposed to feel.
I was standing between a man breaking apart… and the man who built the pieces wrong in the first place.
And much as I hated to admit it, Noah wasn’t entirely wrong. I knew what clinging to impossible hope felt like. I’d done it my whole life with my father.
Tristian was in the same place. He hoped desperately for his mother… and she was declining. But he couldn’t face up to it, couldn’t acknowledge any truth in Noah’s words. Because if he did, then this was real. His mother was dying and he was going to lose her.
I stepped between the two of them, ignoring the trembling in my hands.
“You said what you came to say, Mr. Locke,” I said, “and I listened to you for long enough. So please… just do us a favor and leave.”
