Chapter 61
The Clarity
Killian
“Can we talk?” I ask Dad when I get home early one day, gripped by a sudden urgency to resolve everything—my relationship with him, with Jenna. Us.
After he told me he was the one who made Mom leave, I’ve been flitting back and forth between moments of understanding and bursts of all-consuming rage that made me pound and kick the punching bag until I dropped to my knees, a hollow sadness dragging me down, making me want to give up.
In those extreme moments, I considered moving out, but in the moments of clarity, I slowly come to the realization that it’s not truly him I’m mad at.
To some extent, yes—he should have told me sooner.
But the anger directed at him is nothing compared to the rage I feel toward Mom.
She was the one who made the choice to leave.
She was the one who chose her addiction.
And I’m done letting her faults define and ruin my life.
I’m done.
“Of course,” Dad says and shuts down all three monitors on his desk, giving me his full attention. Leaning back, he folds his hands over his stomach. “Did your afternoon lessons get cancelled?”
Shaking my head, I drop into the recliner by the window. “It felt like a waste of time. Too much going on here.”
Dad muses on my words for a moment. “You don’t need the lessons anyway. You’re far more advanced than any of your peers.”
His words awaken a warm sense of pride in me, but I don’t linger on it. That’s not why I’m here.
“I don’t blame you,” I say directly, cutting to the chase.
“I’m mad at you for not telling me the truth, and I’ll need some time to digest that, but I don’t blame you for making her leave.
” I rake a hand through my hair and stare out the window.
“When I think really hard about it, I’m kind of glad you did.
” When I face Dad again, his expression is soft with compassion, eyes full of surprise.
“I’ve been thinking a lot these last days,” I continue, “about the way she was, remembering things I had refused to acknowledge.” I pause, breathing hard as a flood of memories comes rushing.
Her slurred yelling, the broken plates, the fire in the toaster I put out when she had passed out.
Her making me promise not to tell Dad. There are a ton more memories like that that I need to face, but now’s not the time.
I’m not ready to put them into words, so I simply say, “I understand why you did it.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “For not telling you sooner. Take all the time you need to process.”
“I will. But right now’s not the time to hold grudges and create tension. Jenna doesn’t need that. I don’t need that. Honestly—”
“Killian, you need to deal with this. You can’t just suppress it.”
“I’m not.” I get up and start pacing. “I’ll deal with it. Soon. But right now, I need to deal with what I did to Jenna.” I pause and face him head-on. “I need to make sure she’s okay.”
Dad gives a firm nod, accepting my priorities.
“Have you talked to her about what she wants?” I ask.
“There’s not a single doubt in my mind that she wants you. She needs you. She has needed you for a very long time. What you did hasn’t changed that.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I point my finger between us. “Does she want this—us?”
“She does.”
“Are you sure?”
“Without a doubt.”
“And do you?”
“Killian, both Jenna and I have been fully on board for a long time. You’re the one we’ve been waiting for. Still are.”
“I’m in,” I say with a clarity that trumps everything else.
“I’ll do anything to make this work. But I want more.
I want us to share on equal terms. I want to have a say in what she wears, eats, and plays.
When she does.” My voice rises with the surging need to dominate her—to make her mine.
Ours. But that’s not even the most pressing need right now. “I want her sleeping in my bed.”
A wide, satisfied smile lights up his face. It’s goddamn annoying, and I know what’s coming even before he says it. “I knew you’d get there.”
I roll my eyes. I hate his smugness. But part of me also finds it surprisingly uplifting, knowing how much he’s believed in me—knowing I haven’t disappointed him the way I always thought I would.
But I don’t feed his self-satisfaction by letting it show.
Keeping my expression serious, I continue, “I-I know you’ve had her in your bed every night for the past six months a-and it will be hard to give that up, but I need her in my bed some nights as well.
” I need her in my bed every night, I want to say, but as much as I crave to have her by my side every hour and every minute of the day, I want to share her more, and to do so, I need to make compromises.
That’s another thing I won’t say out loud, knowing it would get me another smug comment.
“Okay,” he simply says. “If she’s good with it, take her upstairs tonight.”
I’m not sure why I’m so surprised that he agrees so easily. Or maybe I do know. “You’re not afraid I’m going to cross a line?” Saying those words, I realize that I’m afraid I’ll hurt her, and I need his reassurance.
“No,” he says with a clarity that immediately eases the tightening worry around my chest. “You’ve broken out of your shell.
You’ve learned your lesson—a very hard one at that.
I know you won’t hurt her again because you’ve finally accepted your emotions for her.
” He pauses, voice softening. “I know you don’t want to see her like that again. ”
I breathe through the weight of his words and let them settle deep within me.
It’s so damn hard to hear it out loud from another person—embarrassing—but he’s right.
I do care about her—so damn much—and she’s all that matters now.
I still don’t understand how it happened.
It’s like something cracked, irrevocably, that night when I humiliated Jenna and came downstairs to find her broken and unresponsive.
It’s like I woke up from a bleak nightmare that had gone on for years—the numb shell broke and I could suddenly feel again.
All those feelings are about to get the better of me each and every day, threatening to drag me into crippling uncertainty.
But I won’t linger on them. Because none of that matters when I remember the sight of Jenna’s frozen body and her distant gaze.
Dad is right. I don’t want to see her like that again. Ever.
I must have zoned out, lost in thought, because Dad snaps me back to the present with a change of subject.
“It’s only two weeks until the competition. You and Jenna have to start practicing “Die Moldau” together. She has her part down to a tee—we’ve been working on it this week—but you need to play together before the big day.”
“I know,” I say. “Tonight, after dinner, I’ll bring her upstairs, and we’ll practice. Then, if she wants, I’ll keep her up there.”
He gives a nod of agreement, and I turn to leave, suddenly overwhelmed by all the honesty and long-unspoken things I’ve opened up to.
But it’s not the baring of my vulnerabilities that sits heavy in my stomach when I go upstairs and practice “Die Moldau”—the melody that I know she loves.
It’s something else. A feeling of having taken from her and still doing so.
This competition is all about me and my selfish need to win.
I don’t want that. I want to do what’s best for her.