Chapter 14 #2
The speech ends with a call for donations and a moment of respectful silence that feels anything but silent. It’s full of shuffling feet and awkward coughs. Full of ghosts.
My hand is still on her leg. She’s still not here.
‘Theo.’ I say her name again, firmer this time. I give her thigh another squeeze. ‘Breathe, baby.’
She finally gasps, a sharp, quiet intake of air, as if she’s just broken the surface of water. Her gaze snaps to mine, wide and panicked. There’s a universe of fear and pain in them. A raw terror that has no place at a black-tie dinner.
The clinking resumes as the crowd returns to eating, but the mood has curdled.
A stocky man in his late sixties with a face carved from granite and opinions sits three seats over, whisky glass in hand.
That one, I recognise instantly. Coach MacGill, the dinosaur who ran drills at my first academy camp.
He gestures broadly. ‘Everyone’s bloody depressed these days, aren’t they? Got a ragged cuticle? Depression. Girlfriend dumps you? Depression. In my day we didn’t have the luxury to stay in bed all day and cry about it. We sucked it up and got on with the job.’
Two men next to him burst out in a half-suppressed laugh. Next to me, Theo’s breathing accelerates to shallow pants. Her pupils dilate until the blue is nearly gone.
‘I need air,’ she gasps, pushing back from the table so abruptly her chair scrapes across stone. ‘Sorry. I need—’
She’s gone before I can stand, weaving between tables toward the door.
I’m on my feet, but MacGill’s voice halts me. ‘See what I mean? The kids can’t handle a bit of truth these days.’
White-hot rage floods me. I plant my palms on the damask. ‘That’s what killed Liam Kennedy.’ My voice drops to a growl. ‘Your generation’s “suck it up” and “boys don’t cry” bullshit is why that lad’s in a coffin and not on the pitch.’
His face flushes purple. ‘Now listen here—’
‘Respectfully, sir, go fuck yourself with that attitude.’
I leave him spluttering and follow Theo’s path. The corridors of Stirling Castle are a maze, but I catch a flash of silk disappearing through a doorway to an outside terrace.
Eventually, I find her leaning against the stone balustrade above Queen Anne Garden, arms wrapped around herself, shivering in the January cold.
‘Theo?’ I approach her slowly. ‘Mind if I join you?’
A small shrug. She’s shivering. I take my jacket off and drape it around her shoulders. ‘Wanna talk about it?’
She stares out at the towering, ornate silhouette of the Wallace Monument.
My jacket swallows her. Can’t believe how small and raw she seems now.
Her arms are wrapped tight around her waist. I lean against the cold stone next to her, giving her space and don’t push.
The muffled sound of laughter drifts from the hall.
I’m about to say something daft, but her voice cuts through the quiet. ‘When I was thirteen, my mum stopped getting out of bed.’ Her tone is flat and even. ‘She’s okay now, but for years the situation was tough for all of us. Volatile.’
I stay silent. My job right now is to shut the fuck up and listen.
‘She wasn’t sad or anything,’ Theo continues with her gaze fixed on the dark horizon. ‘Not in the way people think. She’s a sculptor and used to say she could see the outline of things inside the stone. And one day, she couldn’t anymore. It was just stone. Her inner light went out.’
I press my hand flat to the balustrade.
‘My dad’s job was charting the seabed for the Royal Navy.
He was away more than he was home. I told him something was wrong.
That Mum wasn’t eating, that she only stared at the wall.
’ She takes a shaky breath. ‘He got angry. Really angry with me. Told me I was being dramatic, that I was imagining things. That I was never, ever to mention it to anyone outside the house. After that, he left for a survey that took six weeks.’
The rage that was simmering for MacGill finds a new, hotter target. Her father. ‘So you were alone with her?’
‘I was scared she was going to…die. And that it would be my fault for not fixing it. My grandparents had passed. I had no one. No one checked in or even noticed.’
Jesus Christ. She was a kid, holding a collapsing world together with her bare hands while the man who was supposed to help her told her she was crazy. My own teenage years feel like a holiday compared to that. Well, almost.
‘I started cooking. Paying the bills online from his account. I found where she hid the gin. The box cutter from her studio. I hid all the knives.’ She finally turns to me, and her eyes are two bottomless pools of old pain. ‘I became a good fixer.’
I see it then, all of it, and everything clicks into place.
The lists, the way she handles chaos without breaking a sweat.
It’s not a personality trait. It’s chain mail, forged in a quiet house by a thirteen-year-old girl who learned that if she wasn’t in control, her entire world would shatter.
Her mum could die. And she’d be the one left to clean up the pieces.
Good god. The word ‘fixer’ is too bland for what she’s describing. It’s like calling a bomb disposal expert a handyman. All this time I’ve seen the polish, the precision, the laminated lists, and thought it was simply who she was. An organised, slightly bossy, brilliant woman.
I was wrong. It’s the shell she crafted around herself as a girl. Built in silence, under pressure. And fuck, it held.
‘Theo.’ My voice is scraped raw by everything she said.
Her eyes are swimming with tears that she’s fighting to hold back. She’s still trying to contain the damage.
‘That’s not being a fixer,’ I say. ‘That’s being a soldier.
’ I take a step, closing the space between us until my shoes are touching the hem of her gown.
‘He was wrong. Your da. He was so fucking wrong.’ I reach up, my thumb brushing away the track of her tears.
‘You weren’t being dramatic. You were being abandoned, and you learned how to survive. ’
Her breath catches on a sob she refuses to release.
Her whole body trembles inside my jacket.
I can’t bear it. I can’t bear seeing her like this, so broken and so strong all at once.
I gather her into my arms and pull her against my chest. She resists for a second, then she folds into me, and I forget how to breathe.
Her body against mine, all the fight gone out of her.
She presses her face into my pecs, hands clutching the lapels of my jacket.
A silent, gut-wrenching series of shudders that rack her frame. A grief so deep it has no sound.
I lock my arms around her, rest my chin on the top of her head, and breathe in the scent of her hair.
I’m holding thirteen years of fear in my arms.
The rage I felt before was a spark. This is a fucking inferno. I want to burn the whole world down for her.
Her sob finally breaks, a raw sound muffled by my shirt. The dampness spreads against my skin.
Good. Let it all out, baby.
‘I’ve got you,’ I whisper into her hair, the words feeling small and useless against the scale of her pain. ‘I’m here, my darlin’. Just breathe.’
I hold her, my fingers sinking into the soft waves of her hair, protecting her from a world that’s done its worst. We stand there on that cold stone terrace, a two-person island in a sea of bullshit and kilts.
The polished, perfect Theodora MacMickin is gone. In her place is this trembling, heartbroken girl who’s more real and more beautiful than anyone I’ve ever known. And I’m the one she fell apart with. The thought is both scary and humbling.
She pulls back to look up at me. Her face is a mess. Mascara smudged beneath her eyes, cheeks tear-stained, lips puffy. She’s never been more heart-stoppingly beautiful.
‘Sorry.’ She tries to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand, a gesture of someone trying to pull the armour back on.
‘Don’t you dare apologise.’ I catch her hand and stop her. ‘Don’t you ever fucking apologise to me for your feelings.’ I use my thumbs to gently wipe away the black smudges from under her eyes. ‘We’re leaving,’ I state. It’s not a question.
‘Finn, we can’t. The charity. Charlie…’
‘Fuck the charity. And fuck this whole goddamn castle.’ I keep my hands on her face, forcing her to meet my gaze. ‘I’m taking you home, baby.’
For a moment, she looks like she might argue. I see the fixer trying to reassert control, to do the sensible thing.
Then, a small, exhausted dip of her chin. ‘Okay.’
The relief that washes through me is so intense it almost knocks me off my feet. I keep one arm on her waist as we walk back inside, a line of defence. We rush through the crowd, my hand a firm pressure on her lower back, guiding her in the direction of the exit.
Charlie’s gaze finds us across the room and her smile dies. One glance at Theo’s face and she’s halfway out of her seat. I shake my head. Not now. Brodie registers it too, his gaze narrowing on Theo’s face before flicking to mine. He gives me a short nod. Go.
We don’t stop for coats. We don’t say goodbye.
My girl needs out. So I’m taking her home.