Chapter 26
luna
I walked upstairs, my body moving on instinct while my mind tried to process everything that had unfolded. Dirks was sitting at the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees. When he looked up and saw me, he shot up.
“What do you need?”
The storm and the calm. That’s what my boys were to me.
Jeremy was chaos, fire, history that never settled. Dirks was the breath I needed. The calm that caught me before I hit the ground.
I walked to him slowly, my voice barely above a whisper. “A hug.”
Without hesitation, he opened his arms, and I stepped right into them, burying myself in the only thing that felt solid in the aftermath.
“He needs me,” I said as I slowly pulled away.
“Not like that—not emotionally. I mean . . . he’s broke.
Everything he had, he spent trying to save Arthur, our foster father.
Now that Arthur’s gone, Jeremy’s stuck with the estate.
But there’s a clause—something Arthur put in, probably when he knew he didn’t have much time. ”
I sat on the edge of the bed, and Dirks sat next to me.
“If the house doesn’t transfer ownership within the year of Arthur’s death, the agricultural company pulls their bid. It’s been a few months already. They void the lease. Jeremy and I are stuck with the property, taxes, insurance, all of it. I’m somehow a beneficiary.”
Dirks’s brows lifted, but he didn’t interrupt.
“He says he’ll be gone after. Just this one thing. He said he wouldn’t ask for more.”
Dirks’s voice was low. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know. I feel guilty and angry, but I also know I don’t want him to disappear—not completely. I know what we all were back then. I know what we tried to be.” Tears pressed at my eyes. “I . . . I don’t want to go back to that house. It’s haunted with things I’ve tried so hard to bury.”
“You don’t have to go alone. Take him with you.”
I blinked up at him. “What?”
“You said it yourself, there’s history in that house. Ghosts you’ve both tried to outrun. Maybe going back with him isn’t about reopening wounds . . . maybe it’s how you finally close them.”
My throat tightened. “It’s not that easy.”
“I know,” he whispered. “It doesn’t have to be that hard either.”
“You’re okay with this?”
Dirks reached over and brushed his thumb under my eye where a tear had escaped. “I’m okay with you healing. However that has to happen.”
“I promised him we’d try to be friends. Over the next nine months . . . enough to work up to finally face that house again.”
He kept his hand on my face, cupping my cheek.
“It’s not just a place, Dirks. That house—it’s full of things I shoved so far down I forgot how heavy they were until he showed up at my door.
” I hesitated, then added, “There are ghosts in there. Memories I haven’t even said out loud.
That’s a secret I’m not ready to tell you yet. Hell, I haven’t even told myself.”
Dirks let out a slow breath, thumb brushing soothing circles against my skin. “Then we’ll take our time,” he said quietly. “Promise me you won’t carry it alone anymore.”
“I’m trying,” I whispered. “I really am.”