But still that same fire under the ash. Still that same pull.
He doesn’t speak.
So I do.
“You vanished. Blew up, apparently. Sent me nothing. No beacon. No code. Just… left me holding grief and a child I didn’t know how to raise.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.”
He moves to the sideboard, pours himself a drink from a decanter that probably costs more than most refugee ships.
He doesn’t offer me one.
Fine.
He drinks, then leans on the table, arms braced. “I didn’t send anything because if I had, they’d have traced it back to you.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. Rivals. Debt collectors. Enemies I didn’t know I had.”
I walk toward him, slow.
“You didn’t trust me to handle it?”
“I trustedmenot to make it worse.”
That throws me.
Because there’s no venom in it. Just self-loathing worn smooth by time.
He sets the glass down. “I woke up in a wrecked freighter with half a lung and no way out. By the time I clawed through the decks, I was halfway across a dead zone, no signal, no allies.”
“You could’ve found a way?—”
“Idid.But by the time I did, I watched your face light up the Holonet, cutting ribbons, building homes, carrying our son. AndI thought, ‘If I go back, I bring the worst of me with me.’ So I stayed away.”
He’s shaking.
Slight. But real.
And godsdammit, I hate him for making it make sense.
Because now I can’t hate him cleanly.
“You should’ve letmedecide,” I say.
“I know.”
Silence.
It stretches so wide I feel like I might fall through it.
He looks at me, eyes rimmed in something raw.
“Do you want me to leave?”
