Chapter 11
Oscar
Isit in the hospital room, trying to laugh along with them, but my chest is too tight. Claire gathers up the empty Tupperware, brushing her hand against Will’s as he helps her, and every time they touch, they smile like they’ve forgotten this place is supposed to hurt.
But my eyes never leave her.
Lottie.
Always Lottie.
Always the center of gravity, pulling me in, whether she means to or not.
She looks steady, calm, like none of this touches her—but I know better.
I can see the tension in her shoulders, the practiced ease in her smile.
She’s faking it. Pretending. Because beneath that oversized sweatshirt, she’s hiding bruises that I don’t dare try to confront her about.
She shouldn’t have to carry this weight, not with Lorenzo still out there, not after everything. But she does. She holds it for all of us, and she does it like it costs her nothing.
And it kills me, because I know it costs her everything.
I stay near, not hovering but close enough that if she stumbled, I’d be there. Archer notices the way she’s holding herself. He always notices when it comes to her. He shoots me a look across the room, and I send him one right back. “She’s not glass, Archer. Don’t treat her like she’ll shatter.”
He nods, albeit reluctantly, and moves back to her side. Roman’s asleep, the drugs finally kicked in enough to knock him out, and Crew’s more subdued than when he was when he walked out. The secrets have been revealed, and it’s all too much for all of us; he just shows it more.
Later, when we’re finally home, the house settles into quiet. Lottie and Archer breathe evenly beside me, their warmth pressed close, and for a moment, I almost believe I can sleep. But the weight in my chest won’t let me.
In the kitchen, I put the kettle on just to have something to do. The low hum fills the stillness, steam curling upward, fogging the glass. I stand there watching it, trying to pretend it’s enough to ground me, until a shadow crosses the floor.
Claire.
She always seems to find me when I need her. She doesn’t waste time, though. Her hands rise, precise and steady, every sign sharp as her blade that she uses. “You need to move in. Fully.”
I shake my head before she’s even finished. “I’m already here most nights. That’s enough.”
Her eyes narrow. “Not enough. Lottie needs you, and you need her. Stop pretending you don’t want to be here.”
Her words strike deeper than I want them to.
Because she’s right—I do want to. More than anything.
But wanting and taking are not the same.
My hands move slowly, carefully, each sign measured.
“I don’t want to cross a line. She’s already given me more than I ever thought possible, letting me love her. I can’t push her for more.”
Claire tilts her head, studying me like she’s dissecting every flicker of expression I can’t hide.
Then she steps closer, her signs sharp, deliberate.
“You think protecting her means holding yourself back. It doesn’t.
You pull away, and she feels it. And she’s had enough of people leaving her. Don’t be another one.”
The words cut straight through me. My throat tightens, my hands tremble as I try to answer. “It’s not about leaving. It’s about not becoming them. Not taking her choices from her. Not making her life about what I need instead of what she wants.”
For a moment, Claire’s expression softens, though her hands stay steady. “You’re not them. You never could be. But don’t you see? Choosing her doesn’t take her choice away. It gives her one. The choice to say yes or no. Don’t decide for her by saying nothing.”
I grip the edge to ground myself because she’s right, I love Lottie.
I love the bruises she hides that no one else notices, the quiet strength she fakes for the rest of us, the truths she’s been forced to carry alone.
I hate that I learned her story through the mouths of men who scarred her, their words careless, cruel, as if her pain belonged to them.
It made me want to destroy them.
And maybe I would have, if I’d heard the sounds to match the shapes of their lips. But I didn’t. I only saw it. And maybe that spared me.
But it doesn’t spare her.
I close my eyes, flex my hands, and steady them before I sign again. “I refuse to be like them. I won’t steal her voice. Not ever.”
Claire exhales through her nose, the closest she gets to a sigh.
Then her hands move, slower now, but no less certain.
“Good. Then don’t. You think being here is taking?
You think protecting her and loving her is stealing something?
You and Archer are giving her something she’s longed for, for so long…
” Her hands pause, staring at me expectantly, but I wait her out.
“Love Oscar. You’re giving her unconditional love.
No strings. No conditions. Just love because you love her for who she is.
” My throat tightens, but she doesn’t wait for me to answer.
“You have always been family. Always. Act like it.”
Family…
The word lodges in my chest like a stone. Too heavy, too sharp, like it could splinter if I even tried to hold it the wrong way. My hands curl around the edge of the counter until my knuckles ache.
Family is what was stolen from me.
Family is what was ripped from her.
How could I claim it now, like it’s that easy? Like a word can undo all the fractures…
Claire doesn’t flinch under the weight of my silence. She just stands there, arms crossed, as steady as a soldier. Her expression doesn’t waver, but her stillness speaks louder than anything she could sign. “You’re out of excuses.”
Finally, my hands move, jerky at first, then smoother. “I don’t know how to be that. Not the way she deserves.”
Her eyes sharpen. “Then learn.”
It hits me with the same force as a slap.
I stare at her, throat thick, but before I can shape an answer, she steps closer, close enough that the steam from the kettle blurs between us.
Her hands rise again, slower this time. “She doesn’t need perfect.
She doesn’t need you to have all the answers.
She just needs you here. Present. Not halfway. Not running when it hurts.”
I close my eyes, and behind them I see Lottie’s face—her guarded smile, the way she curls into Archer’s chest at night, the small, unconscious movements that betray how much she aches.
And I see her strength.
God, she’s strong. Stronger than all of us combined. But strength doesn’t mean she should have to stand alone.
My hands rise before I can think better of it. “What if she doesn’t want me here?” The truth rips out of me, raw and unguarded. “What if I’m just… one more weight she has to carry?”
For the first time, Claire’s lips soften, her mask cracking just enough to show the woman beneath the blade. She shakes her head. “Oscar. You are not her weight. You are her anchor. Don’t you see the difference?”
Something in me stumbles at that, like I’ve been knocked off balance.
Her mouth curves, like she knows I’m finally listening.
“You were a boy when I met you. Now you’re a man, and she needs you closer.
Not just there to guard her body, but to be there beside her day and night while she rebuilds herself. ”
I flinch, because I know what she means. I don’t need Claire to tell me why Lottie strips. I’ve known since I watched her dance for the first time. The stripping isn’t about shame. It was about power… About taking back her body on her own terms, on her own stage with her own rules.
And I respect it.
God, I’m proud of her for it, but that doesn’t stop the fear.
Every night she walks into that club, my chest tightens like a vice. Every man who looks at her like she’s a thing and not a person makes me want to break something. “She’s strong. Stronger than me, but I hate seeing her there. I hate knowing she was hurt, and this is the only way she feels free.”
Claire steps closer to me, her face unreadable. “You do not get to hate her strength. You don’t get to wish she found another way. This is hers. Not yours. Not Archer’s. Not theirs. Hers.”
I drop my gaze. She’s right. Of course she’s right.
Her hands move again, deliberate. “So you’ll stay here.
You’re going to go back to college, and you’ll protect her at the club.
You’ll learn to stand the way she needs you to because she’s carving her own path, and she chose you to walk it with her. ”
The breath leaves me in a rush. College. Family. Protection. All of it at once.
I look up, desperate, searching her eyes for any hints of deception. “Why?”
Her reply is immediate. “Because she loves you and you love her enough to fight your own fear. That’s why.”
The words shatter something in me. My chest aches, my throat burns, and for a moment I can’t even breathe. All I can manage is a shaky nod.
Claire studies me, then smiles, sharp and dangerous, like a blade catching the light. “Good. Don’t make me regret it.”
And just like that, she’s gone, leaving me alone in the kitchen with my tea forgotten and my pulse still racing.
She’s right. She’s always right.
And if she’s right about this…
I sit in the kitchen long after Claire leaves me with her words still lodged in my chest.
You’ll stay. You’ll go back to college. You’ll protect her.
Her hands had moved so deliberately, every sign slicing through my armor. Now I can’t stop seeing them in my head, can’t stop replaying the certainty in her eyes. Claire doesn’t deal in maybes. She doesn’t deal in hopes. She deals in absolutes.
I want to believe it. God, I want to believe it so badly it hurts.
I remember my stomach dropping, rage like fire in my veins.
I wanted to storm the club, tear it apart brick by brick, drag her out whether she wanted to leave or not, but then she told me she needed to take back her power.
That shut me up. Because if anyone knew the difference between survival and choice, it was Lottie.
And when I saw her on stage for the first time, I understood.
She didn’t dance like a victim. She didn’t move like someone broken.
She owned every inch of her skin, every pair of eyes glued to her.
She looked untouchable. Free. But I also saw the flickers between songs.
The exhaustion in her shoulders. The moments her mask slipped when she thought no one was looking.
That’s when I swore I’d never let her do it alone again.
If she wanted this path, fine. But she’d have me watching the door, watching the crowd, watching her.
Even if it killed me to see her that way.
My thoughts feel too loud.
College.
I’d dropped out when things got bad at home, when survival took priority over lectures and papers. I worked. I fought. I learned to read a room, read a threat, faster than I ever learned to read a textbook.
But now?
Could I really sit in a classroom again? Pretend I belonged, while at night I was standing guard in a strip club? Could I be both things… The boy who once dreamed of a degree, and the man who learned to live with his fists?
I don’t know, but Claire made it sound like I don’t have to choose.
It’s late when I finally leave the kitchen.
Most of the house is asleep. The hall is dim, a single lamp casting shadows across the floor.
I pause outside Lottie’s door, my chest tight, silent steps carrying me into her room.
Archer has moved to his own room. Maybe he knows I need her, maybe he knows what his mom was convincing me to do, and knows I need to feel her next to me to calm the raging thoughts inside of my head.
She’s curled on her side, hair spilling over her pillow, sweatshirt tugged up enough that I see a hint of the bruise along her ribs. My hands clench. I want to wake her, demand she stop hiding the pain, beg her to let me take it from her.
But I don’t.
I just slip into bed behind her, careful, slow. The mattress dips, and she stirs, turning slightly until her back presses into my chest.
Her hand reaches back, brushing my hip. She doesn’t open her eyes, doesn’t speak. My throat burns. I answer in the only way I can. My hands move against her skin, where she can feel me.
“Couldn’t sleep.” I sign, trying to explain my disappearance.
She shifts until my arm fits around her waist. She guides my hand under her sweatshirt, pressing it against warm skin, just above the bruise.
I freeze. But she holds me there, grounding me.
“I want you here,” she signs.
Those words undo me.
I bury my face in her hair, breathing her in. My heart pounds so hard I’m sure she feels it.
Slowly, she rolls to face me. Her eyes are half-lidded, soft, but there’s a glint there. She lifts her hand, brushing my jaw, then signs against my chest, slow and deliberate.“Stay. With me.”
I almost break.
I kiss her instead. Gentle at first, reverent. Then, deeper, hungrier, the kind of kiss that steals the air from my lungs but gives me life at the same time.
Her fingers tug at my shirt. My hands trace her curves, careful, asking permission even when she doesn’t say the words. She gives it anyway, pressing closer, guiding me.
We move slowly. Tender, intimate. Not about lust, not tonight. About safety. About her letting me touch the places she once hid. About me proving I can hold her without breaking her.
Every sound she makes is a gift. Every brush of her lips against mine is a promise.
And when it’s over, when she’s tucked against me, sweaty and trembling but smiling, I know.
Claire was right.
Lottie loves me.
And I’d burn the world to deserve it.
Later, when her breathing evens out and her hand stays tangled with mine, I stare at the ceiling. My mind should be racing, but it isn’t. For the first time in years, it’s quiet.
I think about college. About lectures and papers. About sitting in a classroom with my phone buzzing in my pocket because Lottie needs me to walk her into the club that night. About splitting myself in two — student by day, her shadow by night.
It sounds impossible.
But maybe that’s the point.
Maybe it’s Lottie, always Lottie, stronger every day, scars fading but never forgotten, taking back everything that was stolen from her piece by piece.
Maybe it’s messy. But it’s ours.
And when I picture it… all of us under one roof, surviving, fighting, laughing. For the first time, it doesn’t scare me—it feels like a home that I never got to have.