Page 172 of Puck Me Back to Life

“I know.”

“You mentioned your dad to me once.” My shoulders stiffen before I can stop them.

Kai notices immediately. “We don't have to talk about it.”

“No.” I shake my head. “It's okay.”

He waits.

God.

He's good at waiting.

Most people get uncomfortable with silence. Kai somehow makes silence feel comfortable. Safe.

“What do you want to know?”

He hesitates, clearly trying to choose his words carefully. “What happened?”

The question isn't curious. It isn't intrusive. There's no morbid fascination behind it. It's like he genuinely wants to understand me.

Nobody has asked me that before. Not really. Most people ask if everything is okay. And by most people, I mean Dante. Dante, as annoying as he is, has a kind heart. His family became mine once my grandfather passed. Which was something I desperately needed. But even Dante felt the pain that I was hiding and didn't want to pressure me to tell him.

Little did I know that I wanted to be asked.

I stare down at my hands. “My dad blamed me for my mom's death.”

Kai knits his eyebrows together. “Why would he do that?”

Kai knows my mother had died when I was young. I told him that one night when we were tangled in my sheets sharing secrets. But I never told him why.

“My mother died in childbirth.”

Kai's face melts. “Ash…”

“He—” The words catch unexpectedly. I clear my throat. “My father wasn't exactly…gentle after that.”

Kai's face softens. I don't elaborate. I don't need to. The understanding in his expression tells me he already knows what I mean.

“He had a bad day…” I shrug weakly. “I had a bad day. It didn't really matter. Eventually, I stopped trying to tell the difference.”

The apartment is silent except for the rain outside.

“I learned pretty young that home wasn't somewhere you relaxed. It was somewhere you paid attention.”

“I needed to know what mood he was in so I could survive.” I stop there.

I could tell him more.

About the shouting.

About the broken furniture.

About learning exactly how much noise a floorboard made outside my bedroom.

About becoming six-foot-five and realizing one day that I wasn't scared anymore.

But I don't. I don't have to. Kai already understands.