Page 182 of Knot Their Starlet

“What do you know of what happened?”

“Honestly, I’ve learned more from the old media articles than I’ve learned from her. I just really know that you... pushed her down the stairs? And then she accused you of physical abuse and unbonded you and took me with her.”

“That was the story that was told to the media,” Edison sighs. “I didn’t push her down the stairs. She... she fell down them herself. I was cleared of the accusations, but when the case was brought to trial, it was... too late. She used the emergency protective order to take advantage of a new bill that’d been recently passed at the time. One that allowed her to dissolve the bond chemically without my consent. Or awareness.”

“You—you didn’t know your bond was being dissolved before it happened?” I say, blinking at him in horror.

Someone, I’m not sure who, makes a grunt of surprise from the living room. I guess the guys are listening in. I don’t blame them. What else is there to do here? I have a feeling that Edison doesn’t mind. It seems like—despite how reluctant he was to start, now that he’s speaking about what happened—he really wants to get this off his chest.

“No,” Edison says, tugging down the zipper of his sweater and tugging his shirt to the side, showcasing a twisted, scarred, black bond mark. “I only knew when I collapsed here in this very kitchen. Your mother left with you after the fight, but I didn’t know what she was going to do.”

“What—what happened to you when the bond was dissolved?”

“I was knocked unconscious by the process for a couple of days.” There’s a heaviness to his voice, that earlier exhaustion returning. “I still have to manage... lingering physical repercussions. That original bill has since been changed. It has been edited to require the bondmate to have awareness of the upcoming procedure so they can arrange their own medical care, even if they don’t consent to the dissolution itself.”

“That’s—that’s crazy that she could do that to you,” I whisper. “H—how? She was your bondmate?”

“I’ve asked myself that question over and over again,” he says, his shoulders slumping forward. “And I have yet to come up with an answer. Maybe I worked too much. Maybe she was just that deeply unhappy with our lives together. I’ve decided that it doesn’t really serve me to think endlessly about it.”

His lips quirk up as he takes a deep breath.

“Especially now that you’ve made your way back home.”

He sets his mug down and tilts his head towards the hallway.

“Would you like to see the rest of the house? Maybe it’ll stir up more memories.”

“I’d... really like that,” I say, my voice coming out smaller than I meant it to.

“I have videos saved from when you were a child,” he says, waving to his office door as we pass it. “As you can imagine, I tended to have a camera in my hand more often than not. I’ll show you sometime, yeah?”

“Yeah.” I nod.

For some reason, the thought of watching home videos like that doesn’t send the same jolt of anxiety as watching film for my mom’s show from when I was younger. I think because when I watch those old episodes, I’m reminded of the stress of not saying things properly, or not looking good enough on camera to fulfill my mom’s vision, or because the only time I had the nice version of my mom was when the cameras were running.

Edison leads me down a hallway, pointing out little details of the house as we go. A still from the first frame he ever did. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along one wall, crowded with books of all sorts. Some old childhood photos with the two of us.

Those are the ones that draw my eye the most.

I look so... happy in them.

We both do.

Despite my return, there’s still a heaviness around my Dad’s eyes that must come from the stress of everything that happened.

The guys trail behind us at a respectful distance. They seem to understand that I don’t think I have the strength to be left alone, but that this is a tour for me.

We reach the stairs.

“We have a guest room on this floor,” Edison says, nodding towards a door on the right. “But I thought you might want to see the upstairs.”

I follow him up, my hands finding the banister. The wood is smooth under my palm, worn and warm from the decades of use.

Was this the staircase?

My steps slow as something tugs at the back of my mind.

It’s just a flash of a memory. But I’m pretty sure I used to climb up these stairs on my hands and knees like a total weirdo. I’m not even sure if the memory is real or my brain is just filling in the blanks for me.