35. Bad Guy （Kieran） #2
Mom leans in and presses her forehead to my temple, the way she used to when I was little and afraid of thunderstorms. “I’m so proud of you, Kieran,” she whispers.
My eyes burn. I haven’t cried since Dad’s funeral, but I’m close. So fucking close.
It hits me harder than anything else tonight.
Harder than Wren’s absence.
Harder than Reed’s bullshit.
Harder than the scouts or the noise or the dream I thought I owed everyone.
Because finally—
I said it out loud.
I chose something that was mine.
Wren walked away from me tonight. And she was right to.
But maybe—just maybe—if I keep choosing hard things because they’re right, not easy things because they’re expected… maybe I’ll become someone worth coming back to.
For the first time all night, my lungs expand all the way.
The Uber drops us on the corner of Bedford and North 8th.
We walk up the block, past the 24-hour bodega where I used to buy candy with quarters stolen from Dad’s swear jar, past the laundromat that’s been here since before I was born.
Williamsburg’s changed—trust fund kids and craft coffee shops on every corner now—but this block still looks like it did ten years ago.
The building’s a walk up. Five stories, red brick, fire escape zigzagging up the front. The kind of place you don’t notice unless you live here. The lobby smells of old radiators and someone’s dinner. The stairs creak under our weight.
“You okay?” Mom asks halfway up to the third floor.
“Yeah,” I lie.
She gives me that look—the one that says she knows better but won’t push.
The apartment’s dark when she unlocks the door. Small. Familiar. A small kitchen, a living room with a new couch Liam insisted he buy for her.
“I’m going to bed,” Mom says, setting her purse on the counter. She cups my face briefly, thumb brushing my cheek. “You’ll be alright, baby boy.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She kisses my forehead and disappears down the hall.
I stand there in the quiet, staring at the refrigerator covered in faded photos held up by magnets—Erin’s cello recital, Liam’s draft day, me in my Iron Hounds jersey, grinning like I’d already won.
That kid doesn’t exist anymore.
I head to what used to be me and Liam’s room. Mom’s transformed it into her meditation space now—Tibetan tapestries where our Defenders posters used to hang, a Himalayan salt lamp casting soft pink light where Liam’s desk once sat. The familiar scent of sandalwood incense lingers in the air.
One bed remains, layered with meditation cushions in soothing shades of purple and blue. A “Breathe” pillow propped against the headboard.
I sit at the small desk Mom squeezed in by the window—the one she uses for journaling, she says. It wobbles when I lean on it.
I pull out the notebook I’ve been carrying all day—the one I use for engineering problems, sketches, half-formed ideas—and flip to a blank page.
I’m not planning to write to her. I know better. Coach said it. Liam said it. Leave her alone. Let her decide what comes next.
But my hand is already moving.
Wren,
I stop. Cross it out.
Rules,
Worse. I cross that out too.
There’s no opening that makes what I did less ugly. No phrasing that undoes the damage. But I need to say it, even if she never reads this, even if it stays buried in a notebook no one else ever sees.
I start again.
I don’t know if you’ll ever read this. You don’t owe me that. You don’t owe me anything.
But I owe you the truth.
My hand tightens around the pen.
The bet was real.
Isabelle dared me to pursue you at that party, to prove I mattered. When you turned me down in front of everyone, my ego couldn’t take it. So I kept going.
I didn’t see you as a person.
I saw you as a trophy.
Every coffee. Every “chance” encounter. Every excuse to be near you—I engineered it.
I used my access. My status. The fact that you needed the tutoring job and I was the one paying. I created conditions where saying no became harder each time.
That wasn’t romance. It was leverage.
I stop. The apartment is silent except for the refrigerator’s hum and my own breathing.
I keep writing.
I told myself it wasn’t that bad because the chemistry was real. Because you wanted me too. Because somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking about the bet and started thinking about you.
None of that matters.
It doesn’t matter that I fell in love with you. It doesn’t matter that I meant it when I said it.
I built everything on a lie—and I let you trust me anyway.
You gave me things you’d protected.
Your firsts.
Your faith in your own judgment.
I took them without giving you the truth you deserved.
My hand shakes. I press harder.
I wanted to believe I was different from Reed, that breaking his nose made me the good guy. But I helped build the world that taught him he could take what he wanted.
The jokes. The culture. The bet itself.
I made you a target before he ever touched you.
You said I had a silver tongue. You were right.
I learned how to perform early—how to say the right thing, be the right version of myself, get people to give me what I wanted.
And I used it on you.
I engineered proximity. I tilted every interaction in my favor. You never had the full information to choose freely.
That’s on me.
The worst part is that it was real. When I said I love you, I meant it. Which only makes it worse, because I let the woman I love trust a man who was lying.
When the truth came out, I watched you break and walk away, and I knew I’d destroyed the first real thing I’d ever had.
I don’t expect forgiveness.
I don’t expect another chance.
I don’t even expect you to believe me when I say I’m sorry.
But I am.
I’m sorry I made you a game.
I’m sorry I used you to prove my worth.
I’m sorry I poisoned something that could have been honest from the start.
I’m sorry your firsts were with someone like me.
My vision blurs. I blink hard and keep going.
Accountability isn’t the apology.
It’s what you do when you don’t get to give one.
I told the truth. I took the suspension. I’m walking away from pro hockey.
I need to know who I am when I’m not performing.
I can’t undo what I did. I can’t rewrite the beginning.
But I can stop lying. I can respect your boundaries. I can give you space without turning it into another performance.
If that space lasts forever, I’ll live with it.
Because you don’t owe me forgiveness. You don’t owe me closure. And you don’t owe me a second chance just because I finally understand what I destroyed.
I stop writing.
The words are raw. Spare. True.
I close the notebook.
This letter isn’t for her. Giving it to her—asking her to carry my guilt, my growth, my need to be seen—would just be another way of putting my weight on her shoulders.
So I keep it.
This is mine to answer for.