Chapter Twenty-Six
Kincaid
We stumbled into the shower together. After we changed into comfortable clothes, we relaxed on the couch. Tori ordered pizza for delivery and made us both mugs of hot cocoa. I called my mom to check in and told her I’d be home tomorrow.
I could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “Well, I’m glad you’re with Tori.”
I just shook my head, biting back the urge to tell her to ease up on her hopes for my relationship. “See you tomorrow, Mom.”
That night, falling asleep with Tori curled soft and warm against me was heaven. During our time out in the wilderness, some of the guys talked about how being gone made you really feel the absence of the people who mattered. I understood that now on a bone-deep level.
My fingers sifted slowly through her hair, and I savored the soft gust of her steady breath against my skin, where her head rested on my shoulder.
Into the darkness, I mouthed the words, I love you.
Over the following days, I spent every night with Tori. That wasn’t our usual rhythm. Before, it had been every third night, sometimes less. It had felt unspoken, like a quiet agreement. But this time, we didn’t talk about it. I just stayed with her. Night after night after night.
Maybe it wasn’t a decision. Maybe we both just needed more. As good as it felt—and it did feel good—I sensed a subtle barrier between us. Not big, or dramatic. Just a tiny divide neither of us was quite ready to cross. I told myself it was because we were both feeling a lot. Maybe too much.
I also talked to my father again. A video call, this time. He looked tired, and frankly, sick. He looked surprisingly like me, only older, with grayer hair and a hollow look around his eyes. He looked like the kind of tired that seeps into the bones.
Even though I was braced for disappointment, for blame, for him to say something that would crack the fragile bridge we were building, he didn’t. He owned his responsibility for what he hadn’t been to me. Paradoxically, that made me a little angry.
Because if he was adult enough now to own what he’d done, to say it was his fault, then he’d been adult enough to do that years ago. Yet, he hadn’t.
“You can’t change the past,” my mom kept reminding me.
Every time I spoke with him, she was more at peace. She seemed steady in a way that only time and distance, and lived experience could offer. Maybe it was age, or maybe it was just wisdom.
On maybe more than a whim, I decided to go visit him for a weekend. I didn’t want to be away from Tori, but something in me was telling me I needed to go. I knew the time for me to actually meet him face to face had an end date. Maybe that date wasn’t certain, but it was close.
When I told Tori about visiting him, she angled her head to the side and nodded slowly. “You need to, Kincaid. Not because I think you should,” she said, her voice quiet. “But because that’s how it feels for you. You’re not going to have forever.”
I watched her as she spoke, sensing the emotion flickering in her eyes.
“I’m the first to say,” she continued, “I think everybody has to stumble their way through things like this. I was so angry with my father for a long time. I still am in some ways. Things could have gone very differently. I honestly wish, in hindsight, I’d had at least a less stilted connection with him at the end.
But I didn’t, and I can’t change that because he’s gone now.
” She exhaled. “I’ve known people who find peace without reconnecting, and others who find peace by building a bridge, even when it’s a messy situation.
But no matter what, there’s a clock ticking, so you kind of have to face what choice you feel you need to make. ”
“I know,” I said gruffly.
I pulled her into a hug, holding her close. Because no matter what was coming next, I didn’t want to let her go either.