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My mother is a rule follower. She always wants to do the right thing. But my father winks at me and goes to the fridge, opening it.

“What kind do you want, Cam? I’ve got IPA⁠—”

“Alistair!” my mother cuts him off.

My father looks at her with amusement. “He’s in college, honey. A grown man. If he wants a beer, he can have a beer.”

My mother raises her hands in defeat, and my father looks at Lucien and me. “Lucien, beer?”

Lucien smiles. “Sure.”

My father hands us each a can of IPA, and we crack them open. Dad raises his rosé glass in a silent cheers, and we all raise our drinks and sip.

The whole moment feels completely surreal. My dad is different, definitely different. The beer he handed me feels less like a drink and more like a peace offering, and the sudden weight of how badly I needed it hits me all at once. For the first time, the knots in my stomach start to loosen. My father seems genuinely glad I’m here, and more than that, he’s clearly impressed by Lucien. The heavy tension I’ve been carrying in my shoulders since we left Hayworth finally begins to drain away.

Ruby leans against my leg, and I reach down to scratch behind her ears. Lucien catches my eye across the island. He’s here, he’s doing this, and somehow, impossibly, it’s working.

My mother is already talking about dinner plans, and my father is asking Lucien about his experience at St. Silas. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

Even if my mother keeps giving me those knowing looks.

36

LUCIEN

Cameron’s mother insists on showing us to our rooms herself, leading us up the wide, carpeted staircase. I follow behind Cameron, noticing the way his shoulders have relaxed since we arrived. He’s home. And somehow, impossibly, I’m here with him.

“This is the guest room,” Whitney says, pushing open a door on the second floor. “Lucien, I think you’ll be comfortable here.”

I step inside and take in the space. It’s elegant with cream walls, slightly oversized beige furniture, and a four-poster bed with pristine white linens. It looks like a room from a design magazine, except for the miniature Christmas tree with colored lights on top of a dresser.

“Thank you,” I say.

“You’re very welcome, honey. Cameron’s room is just across the hall if you need anything.”

She gives Cameron one of those knowing looks again, and I watch a faint blush creep up his neck.

“Thanks, Mom,” he says.

She squeezes his arm and heads back downstairs, leaving us alone in the hallway.

Cameron looks at me, and there’s something shy in his expression. “Want to see my room?”

“Show me.”

He leads me across the hall and opens the door, stepping aside to let me enter first.

The moment I walk in, I stop.

The room is frozen in time. Posters cover the walls, indie bands I recognize from their album covers, concert posters for shows at small venues. Photos are pinned up in little collages, concert tickets interspersed between them. Cameron with his arms around friends, all of them laughing. Cameron at the beach. Cameron at what looks like a music festival, wearing a backward baseball hat and grinning at the camera.

This is who he was before St. Silas, before everything changed.

I realize this happiness, this easy, uncomplicated teenage joy, was ripped away from him. Stolen. And I was there when it happened. I watched him arrive at that school, watched the light in his eyes dim as the months passed, watched him learn to perform and survive.

I didn’t protect him. I didn’t even try.

“You must have been very popular,” I say quietly.