Chapter 16 Watching Him Break
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WATCHING HIM brEAK
Within eight weeks of the explosion, the restoration had begun to take shape. Colin and Joshua had gone back to work, striving to recreate a semblance of their old routine—their old life.
At the house, the air still held a faint whiff of char and dust. The drywall was gone, and the floors had been pulled up. Exposed studs formed a skeleton of what had once been their dining room. Afternoon light slanted through open window frames, and the silence buzzed with absence.
Joshua lounged near the doorway, arms crossed. His sweater sleeves were pushed to his elbows, a thin layer of dust clinging to the fabric. Mara stood beside him, clipboard in hand.
“First wall’s up. Graham says they’ll get the rest framed by Thursday. He’s got reclaimed oak flooring coming—something warm. We thought maybe you’d like that.”
Joshua nodded, barely hearing. His eyes drifted across the empty space. Empty. The same way he felt inside.
Mara lowered her clipboard, watching him. He didn’t move—just stared, unfocused, like he was seeing ghosts.
“I thought he might come today,” she said quietly. “I saved the floor samples. Just in case.”
Joshua dropped his head, swallowing a sob. “He’s not ready,” he whispered.
A soft creak echoed from upstairs—just the house settling. But Joshua’s head snapped up anyway, heart lurching. For one absurd second, he thought it might be Colin. Coming down the hall. Coming home.
But there was only silence. Heavy. Hollow.
“ I-–I keep hoping,” he murmured, wiping at his face. “But… I don’t know anymore.” His voice broke. “I’m starting to wonder if he’ll ever be ready.”
“Josh, he’s broken. And grieving. I’ve seen it before.”
“Dammit, Mara, so am I!” Joshua blurted out.
“But—but all this?” he indicated the ongoing restoration.
“It’s nothing without him! This house needs him!
It’s waiting for him! I need him! It’ll never be a home until he blesses it, breathes it in, touches it with his presence.
It can’t be!” He turned and slammed his fist against a new wooden strut.
“Josh, sometimes it just takes time. Hang on. The girl who died? The police officer? It hit him hard.”
Joshua leaned his forehead against the wooden beam, breath catching again and again. Silence followed, broken only by the faint hum of a saw in the backyard, Graham’s crew steadily working, trying to stitch a wound that went far deeper than drywall and studs.
When Colin broke, it happened slowly.
Not in a single blow, but in small, quiet retreats.
Little by little, it took him, like dusk swallowing light—until the man who once lit every room now crouched in shadow.
Guilt wrapped around Colin like fog, soft and suffocating, whispering lies that part of him believed: that he’d caused the fire. That he’d failed her. Failed Hannibal. But most of all––failed Joshua. That he no longer deserved this house, this life, Joshua’s love. That it no longer belonged to him.
Joshua watched it take him—quiet at first, like breath fading.
Not rage. Not collapse. Just the steady folding inward of the man who once carried them all.
Joshua's faith in Colin never wavered.
But his love can't stop Colin's nightmares.
And now the man he loves is fading into shadow.
Lost. Beyond his reach.
Colin stopped reaching. Stopped laughing. He wore guilt like a second skin, convinced he’d lit the fuse, that he hadn’t done enough, that her death and Hannibal’s lived on his shoulders, that the destruction of their home was his fault.
And now this house—their house—stood empty. Waiting.
Not for furniture. Not for paint. Not for boards and bricks and tiles.
For him.
Joshua pressed his forehead to the beam, the ache in his chest as raw as the day they carried Sarah’s body away.
They had all come—every one of them. David, with his quiet strength, showed up with blueprints and bottles of brandy, pretending not to notice when Joshua cried over samples of tile.
Nate, gentle and perceptive, organizing meals and hovering in the background, always knowing when to speak and when not to.
Trent and Jeff arrived in work clothes, offering hands and hammers.
Trent made dozens of trips in his van, carrying undamaged items to their storage unit.
Even Lenny had come by unexpectedly, a quiet presence who sat with Joshua in the half-gutted living room, one hand on his shoulder—saying nothing while tears slid down his cheeks.
And, of course, their mothers came—Bracha, brisk and efficient, quick to set boundaries and quietly wipe tears, and Brianna, gentle and steady, always ready with a soft word or a touch.
They sorted through boxes of smoke-damaged memories, wiped down kitchen utensils, and divided the salvageable from the ruined.
It was Bracha who insisted on making an insurance list: “because you’ll forget things you lost, and the bastards will underpay you, trust me.
” Brianna and Bracha set up a small ‘comfort zone’ in the basement that had become Colin and Joshua’s home, hanging beloved photos that had survived and lining up their favorite mugs, determined to create a bit of solace and safety in this borrowed space.
Abel came too, joining Joshua in the yard, raking up blackened leaves and shattered pieces of Joshua’s flower pots, pausing now and then to salvage a rock or a twisted, half-burned garden gnome.
Abel offered no platitudes, just took the rake from Joshua when his hands shook too hard to hold it, and wrapped a strong arm around his shoulders, murmuring words only a brother could speak.
They asked after Colin, of course. Each one, in their way. But no one pushed. No one judged. They knew.
In the end, the only one who could reach him was his mother.
Brianna led her son to David’s backyard and the old picnic table, the evening light pooling quietly around them as they sat together.
She didn’t speak—not at first. She simply covered Colin’s hand where it lay clenched on the scarred wood.
Joshua watched from the kitchen window. He saw Brianna lean in, murmuring softly to her son, her fingers gently brushing through Colin’s hair.
He saw Colin’s head drop to his arms, shoulders shaking as he surrendered to his pain. Brianna’s hand never left her son’s hair as the tears came—his grief and anguish finally allowed to flow–safe beneath his mother’s touch.
Joshua lowered his head, silent tears streaming down his cheeks, overwhelmed by a blend of gratitude and dark despair.
Colin had tried to be there—more than once. He had driven down West River Road and parked a block away, hands frozen on the wheel. Joshua saw the tracks in the gravel. Felt the air shift, like a held breath. But Colin couldn’t come in.
The house was weighed down with memories, filled with fire and the ghost of a scream.
Now, Joshua stood in the doorway of the half-finished kitchen, watching Nate unpack floor tiles beside David. Laughter flickered at the edges of the room, soft and strained.
He didn’t move.
Nate noticed. He always did. He came over quietly, brushing plaster dust from his hands.
“You good?” he asked.
Joshua gave a slight shrug, eyes still fixed on the doorway. “You all keep showing up,” he murmured. “Coming back. Staying. You don’t give up.”
Nate was quiet for a moment. Then: “Neither does he, Josh.”
Josh’s breath caught, a sob rising too fast to swallow.
“But walking through that door? It’s too much for him right now. Too close. Too raw.”
Joshua turned, stepping into the living room, and Nate followed, his hand steady on Joshua’s shoulder.
“He hasn’t given up, Josh. He’s out there—wounded, bleeding—but still fierce in his love for you.
He needs this house, but he’s too filled with pain to let it touch him, to let anything touch him.
You know him, Josh. He won’t stop loving, even though he’s struggling, even though he’s battered and broken inside. He won’t stop loving you.”
And I won’t stop loving him,” Joshua whispered. “Not now. Not ever.” He placed a hand on the new fireplace and leaned against it, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Come home, love. Just… please, come home to me.”
Across town at the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, Colin sat hunched over a case file, staring at words, times, dates, places, names—but none of it registered. He searched himself for the passion he once had for this work, for the pursuit of justice. But all he found was a bitter, hollow shell.
There is no justice, he thought. It’s all a lie. A farce. Just a play we act out, and no one even cares about the script.
The longing for what he’d lost burned like a raw, open wound. But worse—far worse—was what had crept in to fill that empty space. The anger. Fierce. Constant. Terrible. It had become his solace, his armor, his refuge.
He fought it. Tried to reason with it. Push it down. But it rose again and again, a monster he couldn’t kill. And sometimes, when no one else was around, he yearned to scream. Just to make it stop.
Later that day, he stood before the jury box, shoulders stiff, voice low but sharp. Razor sharp.
“So, the defendant expects you to believe he just happened to be in the alley with a crowbar, just happened to run when approached by police, and just happened to have the victim’s wallet in his backpack?”
The defense attorney shifted uneasily beside her client. She opened her mouth to object—but hesitated. The judge shot a sharp glance Colin’s way, brows furrowed, uncertain of what he’d just heard.
Colin rested his hands on the railing and leaned toward the jury.
“We can pretend there’s some gray area here.
We can pretend this is complicated. But it’s not!
It’s simple! He hurt someone! And now he wants to hide behind excuses.
” His fist slammed down against the wood with a sharp crack. “Don’t let him walk away from this!”