The Fall's Quiet Reckoning

1. Knox

Knox

I’ve made a catastrophic mistake. But I knew that already. The second I watched Moretti walk out of my father’s office last night, the gravity of what was asked of me sat on my chest like a pile of bricks. Crushing the life out of me.

I know pain. I know the weight of responsibility. Hell, I could live with what’s being asked of me…if it wasn’t for her. My Sawyer.

I’m coming apart from the inside.

Ella is in my arms, laughing and crying at the same time.

She’s genuinely happy. Somewhere in her mind, she believes this is real.

Her tears are on my collar. Her hand is shaking as she gazes at the ring I slid onto her finger.

My grandmother’s ring, pulled from a velvet box my father slid across the desk last night while I tried not to kill him then and there.

It’s not just Ella, but everyone at this table is in a haze of delusion.

My mother has her hand pressed to her mouth.

My father is already refilling his glass, readying to give a toast. Moretti’s wife is recording the whole thing, laughing with joy.

And Vince Moretti himself is looking up at his daughter with pride, but I know there’s something else in his expression.

It’s the same one my father’s worn every time he’s closed on a deal.

Because that’s all this is. A deal where my soul is the piece being leveraged.

I hold Ella. I say the things you’re supposed to say. I let my mother take my face in her hands and tell me Owen would have been so happy, and let that add to the inescapable weight of it all.

And in the space between one breath and the next, I look up.

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s a force of habit.

Maybe I needed to give one of my senses a reprieve from this sham.

But I look toward the bar, and there’s a vodka cranberry sitting half drunk on the counter, the diluted juice looking more pink than red.

Movement catches my eye and I see the back of a head I would know anywhere.

Sawyer. She’s walking out the door, shoulders set, her movement almost robotic.

Fuck. No. What did she see?

I stand frozen, staring at her retreating frame, my heart pounding against my ribcage. The restaurant hums around me. Silverware against china, low conversation between families, someone’s laugh carrying over the light classical music. None of it truly reaches me.

Ella’s still against my chest, her floral perfume burning my nostrils.

My mother is studying my face and if I so much as flinch, the whole thing falls apart.

So I stand there and watch Sawyer Thorne walk out of the restaurant, and I think how twenty-four hours ago, I could have had it all. I could have had her.

A part of me should have known that was never really on the table.

I watch the door swing shut behind her and her silhouette disappear into the hallway. The moment she’s out of sight, panic sets in.

“Knox,” my father says. “Why don’t you sit back down? Let’s toast.”

He knows I’ve been staring at the door for too long. Did he see Sawyer? Did Moretti?

Ella finally releases me, an agreeable sound escaping her before she settles back into her chair. I take a shaky breath that doesn’t reach my chest, sit, smile, and reach for my wine glass. The smile probably looks like a grimace, but it’s something.

“To family,” he says, raising his glass. Everyone follows, and the crystal rings out across the table as the glass in my hand is tapped.

I drink and keep drinking until there’s nothing but crimson droplets left running along the inner rim.

The dinner moves around me. Courses arrive.

Moretti makes a joke that gets a big laugh.

Ella keeps looking at the ring, tilting her hand in the candlelight to get a better view, and every time she does, I feel it like a splinter driving deeper.

My mother starts talking about venues, and guest lists, and whether a spring wedding is too soon.

I answer when I’m spoken to and cut my food into pieces I don’t plan on putting into my mouth.

I can’t eat when my stomach is carrying a lead weight.

I glance toward the bar. The vodka cranberry’s still sitting there, the ice melting down to almost nothing, the glass fogged with condensation.

And all at once, I can’t breathe. It hits me hard enough to knock me out of my seat.

I don’t even have it in me to excuse myself.

One moment, I’m cutting into my steak. The next, my knife clatters onto the plate and I’m on my feet, heading toward the door.

Toward the lobby. Toward the parking lot where maybe I can suck down air and it’ll actually reach my lungs.

Humidity hits me the second I clear the hotel entrance, thick and warm, wrapping around me like a fist. The parking lot’s quiet, just a couple walking toward the entrance and a valet leaning against a pillar checking his phone. No sign of Sawyer’s car.

I knew she’d already be gone.

I’m almost glad she is. I can’t face her. Not yet.

How the fuck did it get to this? My hands are shaking. I stare at them like they belong on another person’s body. These same hands that had the privilege of touching Sawyer an hour ago are now the hands that offered another woman a ring.

I wish I could rip them from my body.

The valet shifts beside me, and I hear the spark of a lighter. I turn to him, asking without thinking, “Can I bum one of those?”

He glances at me, then holds out the pack of Marlboro reds. I take one, let him light it, and pull the smoke down slow.

“Thanks, man.”

He nods, and takes out his phone, scrolling the screen so he doesn’t have to hold a conversation with me. I’m grateful.

I blow out a shaky stream, watching it dissipate into the air. I haven’t smoked in years. Not since college, when I’d stand outside the library at two in the morning telling myself I was fine. I’m not fine now either, but at least this gives my hands something to do.

The first drag doesn’t help me settle. The second one takes me somewhere else—it’s the smell of it, something about the char, and suddenly, I’m not in this parking lot. I’m suspended a hundred feet in the air, and there’s metal grinding, lights flashing, and there’s Sawyer’s hand and Owen’s scream.

A car door slams across the lot.

I flinch hard enough that ash drops onto my suit jacket. The valet pretends not to notice me acting off, but I see him give me the side eye. I’d crack some kind of joke and thank him for his graciousness if I had it in me.

I stand there until the shaking slows, and as the cigarette burns down to the filter, I let my mind wander back to the night I should have fought harder. The night eight months ago, when my father dropped a fucking nuke on me and let me handle the fallout.

Owen was already at the table when I walked into my parent’s house. He had a glass of wine in one hand, his phone in the other, grinning at something on his screen. So at ease. So Owen. It was always like the walls of my parent’s house didn’t suffocate him the way they suffocated me.

That was the difference between us.

He hadn’t noticed the last three months of my father’s conversations getting shorter, more clipped.

Hadn’t noticed the invoices stacking up, the employees growing wary, the contractors with their watchful eyes.

And he really hadn’t noticed the extra bottles of whiskey left in our father’s garbage can.

Owen existed in this family like a visitor. Warm and happy, everything surface level, never carrying any of the weight.

And why shouldn’t he be happy? He got to graduate college. He worked a normal job. And most of all, he had Sawyer.

Apparently, my father had decided he could live with their relationship, as long as Owen didn’t shove it in his face. He never even fucking told me when it became serious. I had to piece it together on my own.

I dropped my keys on the console table and ignored Owen for now. I kept moving toward the kitchen, where I could already hear my mother.

She was transferring takeout into serving dishes when I found her.

Containers with herbed chicken, sauteed vegetables, and mashed potatoes were lined up on the counter next to our good platters, the ones she brought out for company.

I observed her for a moment, watching her hand movements, the shuffle of her feet.

She seemed lucid. Maybe it was a good day.

“Hey, Mom.”

She turned and gave me a half smile, reaching up to touch my cheek briefly. “Knox. Why don’t you go sit down? Your father will be out in a minute.”

I looked at the plates and the work she was putting into the presentation. Such an effort to put on the performance of a normal family having normal family dinner.

“What’s going on? Dad wouldn’t say.”

She handed me a dish to carry and turned back to the counter.

“Go sit down,” she said again, quieter this time. “Please.”

Okay then.

I carried the dish to the table and took my usual seat across from Owen. He glanced up from his phone long enough to acknowledge me with a nod, then went back to scrolling.

“You know what this is about?” I asked.

“No idea.” He didn’t look up. “Dad just said dinner. I’m hoping it’s quick. I have plans.”

Whatever plans he had weren’t with Sawyer. I knew she had a late shift at the hotel that night.

I reached for the red wine already open on the table and poured myself a glass, watching my brother for a moment. So relaxed, so easy. A small smile played at the corner of his mouth while he typed something. Probably texting Sawyer. I took a long sip of wine, willing it to loosen my tight chest.

It was clear Owen didn’t want to make small talk, so I pulled out my phone too.

The app started up, and I breathed out when I saw her little blue dot at the hotel, exactly where she was supposed to be. I stared at it a beat longer than necessary, then locked my screen and set the phone face down on the table.