Page 76 of We Are Just Us

It wasn’t a question.

Rory nodded. “I was turning into the guy who killed her. And I couldn’t live with that.”

“But you were drinking that night,” Kieran said. “In your backyard. When we first met. You had a beer.”

Rory looked at him for a long moment.

“It was non-alcoholic, Kieran.”

Of course it was.

Of course Rory had been sober this whole time, quietly, without announcement, without needing anyone to notice or accommodate or give him credit for it. And Kieran just assumed. He’d never even thought to ask.

Kieran said nothing. His voice, if he’d used it, would have sounded small.

“I did the work,” Rory said. “Therapy. Meetings. I moved back here and rebuilt everything from scratch. And I thought I was okay. I thought I’d figured out how to be a person again.”

“And then?” Kieran asked.

Rory stared at him. “And then you moved in next door.”

Heat rushed into Kieran’s face.

“I wasn’t looking for this,” Rory said. “I wasn’t looking for anything. And then there you were, and I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and it scared the shit out of me.”

“Why?”

“Because I know how this ends.” Rory’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I know what it feels like to lose someone. And I don’t know if I can survive it again.”

The words sat between them. Kieran understood the shape of what Rory was saying: that love and loss were the same thing in Rory’s vocabulary, that he couldn’t reach for one without bracing for the other. For a brief moment, the anger softened into ache.

But it didn’t dissolve.

“So you kept me at a distance,” Kieran said.

“I’ve tried to…at least half tried.” Rory’s mouth twitched. “Didn’t work too well.”

The silence stretched. Softer now, but still heavy.

“I told you about my mom because I trusted you,” Kieran said. “Because I thought we were building something real. Something that could matter.”

“We are…”

“Are we?” Kieran cut in. “Because you’ve already given this an expiration date. Like you’re waiting for me to leave so you can say you knew it wouldn’t work.”

Rory’s forehead wrinkled. “That’s not fair.”

“I was missing a huge piece of the picture. And I can’t pretend that’s okay. I can’t pretend it doesn’t change things.”

“What do you want me to do?” Rory said. “I can’t undo the past. I can’t bring her back or make it not have happened.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Then what are you asking?”

“I’m asking why you didn’t trust me enough to tell me.”

“It wasn’t about trust.”