I nod, stepping closer until I’m standing right in front of him.
“You don’t have to explain it,” I say softly, taking his hand in mine.
We stay in the silence before I gently press on.
“How did you even get in?” I ask, still holding his hand, stilltrying to piece together how he ended up sitting in Grandma’s room like this.
He glances toward the window. “You said your grandmother leaves it open sometimes.”
I follow his gaze, letting out a short laugh, the sound slipping out before I can stop it. “Before we unpack the pros and cons of breaking and entering,” I say, stepping a little closer, “what is going on?”
He pulls his hand from mine, not abruptly, but like he needs the space, like even that small point of contact is too much right now. His fingers go back to the ring, spinning it once, twice, faster.
“I had it.” His voice is low, controlled in that way that isn’t actually controlled. “It was fine at first. They were watching a movie, it was quiet, I knew what I was doing…” He stops, shakes his head.
I don’t interrupt.
“I couldn’t track it,” he continues, words starting to come faster now, like he’s trying to get ahead of them. “They were talking, moving, asking questions, and then the volume spiked and something hit the floor and there was a parent asking me what the plan was and my phone kept going off and I just?—”
He exhales sharply.
“I couldn’t pick what mattered most. I knew what I was supposed to do,” he adds, quieter now. “I just couldn’t get there.”
I take a step closer. “That doesn’t mean you messed it up.”
He lets out a short, humorless laugh. “I left, Vivian.”
“Yes,” I say gently. “You did.”
“In the middle of it,” he pushes. “I left Liam with a room full of kids and a parent who already thought I didn’t know what I was doing.”
His jaw tightens.
“That’s not someone you rely on,” he says. “That’s not someone you build anything with.”
My stomach drops. “Ty?—”
“I can’t even get through one afternoon without…” He cuts himself off, pressing his lips together hard, like he’s trying to contain it. But it’s already spilling over.
“You allowed me to help you,” he says, looking up at me now, something raw in his eyes. “And I couldn’t do it.”
The guilt I was already holding tightens in my chest. “This isn’t on you.”
“It is,” he says, immediately. “Because I said I could do it, and I shouldn’t have.”
That punches me right in my guts. I shake my head. “No.”
“I knew it was going to be different,” he goes on, pacing now, pushing off the windowsill like he can’t stay still. “Different setup, different expectations, not my system, not my structure. I still said yes because I?—”
He stops. The words catch. Because Iwhat?
He drags a hand through his hair instead, frustration edging into something heavier.
“You have everything handled,” he says, gesturing vaguely, like he means the house, the store, my life. “You walk into a room and it just works. People listen. They follow you. You make it look easy. And I walk into the same room and I need everything to line up perfectly or I lose it.” His voice drops. “And today, it didn’t line up.”
Silence stretches between us.
“I’m a liability,” he says finally, quieter than anything else he’s said. The word lands like something solid. Final.
