16. Xander #2
“The girls are the priority,” Callum says. “Penny. Daisy. Any others in Reece’s orbit. We protect them first, prosecute second.”
“Agreed,” Arthur says. “But the protection is the prosecution. Once the case is built, Reece goes down, and the protection becomes permanent.”
Thomas, taking notes: “Timeline?”
Gideon: “Weeks, not months. Daisy is already back in it. We can’t afford to wait.”
The four fathers. Working. The image of adult men using their power and their connections and their particular brands of expertise to protect their children from a threat the children tried to fight alone and couldn’t.
This is what it’s supposed to look like.
This is what having parents is supposed to feel like—not having to carry the weight yourself.
Not having to be the protector when you’re the one who needs protection.
Footsteps on the stairs. Penny.
She comes down in sweats and a hoodie—Iz's lacrosse hoodie, the one that smells like his cologne.
Her hair is in the messy bun. No makeup.
The teal streaks visible. She looks small and tired and beautiful in the particular way that Penny looks beautiful when she stops trying to be anything other than what she is.
She walks through the kitchen. Past the table of fathers. Past the living room of boys. Her eyes find me in the doorway. Hold. The weight of a girl looking at the boy who was inside her last night and is standing in her kitchen talking to her father about drug dealers.
She glares.
Then she turns. And Iz is on the couch. And Penny walks to him. And in front of every person in this room—four fathers, four boys, the audience of the people who love us most—she leans down and kisses Iz.
Not on the cheek. Not on the forehead. On the mouth. Slow. Deliberate. Her hand on his jaw. His hand finding her waist. A kiss that is not for Iz—it’s for me. Aimed at me across the room like a bullet.
Silence. The kind that has mass. Every father at that table has stopped speaking. Every boy in that living room has stopped breathing. Kaiden’s eyebrows are in his hairline. Danny is frozen mid-pace. Ryan’s phone is forgotten in his hand.
Penny pulls back. Doesn’t look at Iz. Doesn’t look at me. Walks to the stairs. Goes up. Her bedroom door closes.
The silence lasts three more seconds. Then Callum clears his throat and returns to RICO statutes, because Callum Monaghan is a professional who has seen everything and is not going to let a teenage love triangle derail a federal drug case.
But I can’t return to anything. I stand in the doorway and feel the kiss burn through me like acid—the image of her mouth on his, in this house, in front of my face, the particular cruelty of a girl who learned from the best how to weaponize intimacy.
She learned it from me. The Bella walk in the hallway. The arm around Bella’s waist. She watched me do it and she learned and now she’s giving it back with interest. And I deserve every second of it.
I walk outside. Backyard. Cold. January air that burns my lungs. I press my palms against my eyes and breathe through the particular urge that is screaming in my bloodstream:
Use. Use. Use. Call Reece. One pill. One line. One hit. Just to take the edge off. Just to dull the frequency. Just to stop seeing her mouth on his mouth in the kitchen where I eat breakfast.
My phone is in my hand. My thumb hovering over Reece’s contact. I call Darla instead.
She answers on the first ring. “Xander?”
“I want to use.” The words come out raw. Unfiltered. The honesty that Darla’s voice pulls from me the way Gideon’s kitchen pulls truth. “I’m in the backyard and I’m staring at Reece’s name on my phone and I want to call him so badly my hands are shaking.”
“But you called me instead.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the program working, Xander. That’s you, working. What triggered it?”
“Penny. She kissed Iz. In front of me. In front of everybody. In the kitchen.”
Darla is quiet for a beat. Processing. “And it made you want to numb the feeling.”
“Yes.”
“Because the feeling is what? Anger? Jealousy?”
“Inadequacy.” The word surprises me. It came from somewhere I didn’t know I had access to—the basement of the basement, where the truths you can’t medicate live.
“Iz is better than me, Darla. He’s kind.
He asks. He’s patient. He’s everything I should be and can’t figure out how to become. How do I become like Iz?”
Darla laughs. Soft. The particular laugh of a mother hearing her son described as a standard and finding it both touching and amusing.
“Xander. I love my son. But Issac Walsh is far from perfect. He has his own issues—things he hasn’t told you, things he’s not ready to tell anyone.
He uses emotional intelligence the way you use fists—as a defense mechanism.
He rescues people because it’s easier than rescuing himself. Sound familiar?”
The parallel hits.
“You don’t need to become Iz. You need to become the version of Xander that exists on the other side of this work.
The version who can be rough without being reckless.
Possessive without being controlling. Present without being suffocating.
That version exists, Xander. We’re building him. One session at a time.”
“What if she doesn’t wait?”
“Then she doesn’t wait. And you keep building anyway. Because recovery isn’t for Penny. It’s for you. The love is a bonus. The sobriety is the foundation.”
I close my eyes. Breathe. The craving is still there—humming, insistent, the dog on the chain.
But the chain is holding. Darla’s voice is part of the chain.
Gideon’s words are part of the chain. The new gym in the basement.
The program. The infrastructure of a boy who is being rebuilt by people who refuse to let him stay broken.
“Thank you, Darla.”
“Always, baby. That’s what I’m here for. Now go inside. It’s freezing.”
I hang up. Stand in the cold for one more minute. Then I go inside. Up to my room. Close the door. Sit on the bed. I pick up my phone. Two actions. First, I text Bella.
Me: We’re done. Whatever game we were playing is over. Stay away from me. I mean it.
Her reply is fast.
Bella: You’ll regret this, X. Nobody drops me.
I block her number.
Third: the group chat. The Elite Five. The chain that has been fraying for months. I type with my thumbs shaking:
Me: I’m struggling tonight. I wanted to use.
Bad. But I called Darla instead of Reece.
I’m telling you guys because I promised no more secrets and this is me keeping that promise.
I want to be held accountable. If any of you see me near Reece or a pill or anything—stop me.
I’m asking for help. That’s the hardest sentence I’ve ever typed but there it is.
Kaiden: We got you, brother. Always.
Danny: Fucking proud of you, X. Seriously.
Ryan: Noted. Filed. If I see Reece near you I’m handling it myself.
Iz—the last to respond. The three dots appearing and disappearing. Appearing again. Then:
Iz: Still pissed at you. But I’m glad you called mom. That’s growth. We’re paused, not done. But I’m here.
I set the phone down. Lie back on the bed. The ceiling of the MacHale guest room, the same ceiling I’ve been staring at for weeks. But tonight it looks different. Not because the ceiling changed. Because I did.
I wanted to use and I didn’t. I wanted to numb the pain and I chose to feel it instead. I wanted to run and I stayed.
That’s not strength. It’s not bravery. It’s just the thing that happens when you have people who won’t let you fall without catching you. A doctor on the phone. A father downstairs. Four brothers in a group chat. A program that says one day at a time and means it.
Tomorrow will be hard. The craving will come back. The image of Penny kissing Iz will play on the carousel alongside all the other images I can’t delete. But tonight—just tonight—the chain held. One day at a time.
I close my eyes. Sleep comes. Not easily—it never comes easily. But it comes. And for the first time in a long time, the last thing I think about before I fall asleep is not a pill or a fist or a cage.
It’s a girl with teal streaks and a friendship bracelet and the frequency that I will spend the rest of my life trying to deserve.