21. Alex #2
“How long has this shit been happening? The calls. The notes. The photos. Preston being here when you told me you left him.” His voice cracks around Preston’s name, and that crack does more to me than his anger.
“How long have you all known there was something fucking sinister happening, while I didn’t? ”
No one moves for a second. Mom stops pretending the food on the stove needs attention. Dad’s hands rest flat on the island. Nia leans her hip against Josh’s side, her shoulder touching his arm.
Ryder looks at me.
Not at Josh. Not at my parents. Me.
Waiting.
That nearly does me in, because yesterday I accused him of turning every wall into a warning sign, and today he’s standing in a room full of people who would probably let him answer everything if he tried. But he doesn’t.
I breathe through the pressure in my chest and start with the easiest truth, because the whole truth is too big to lift at once.
“I left him because if I didn’t, he’d kill me.
I thought I was done. That I was safe. And I was…
for a little while.” I glance at Ryder. “There were calls first that came from blocked numbers. Then I had flowers left outside my door. White roses. I didn’t report them because reporting flowers sounds ridiculous.
” I wrap my fingers around the edge of the counter and keep my eyes on the coffee tray instead of my mother’s face.
“Then someone opened my bedroom window. Ryder saw it when he was driving by to check on me.”
Josh makes a sharp sound.
Nia presses her elbow into his side. Hard.
I keep going before he can turn that into something else.
“There was an SUV downtown following me more than once. Someone pretending to be maintenance here at the apartment, who didn’t actually do anything.
A photo left in my car at Mason Ridge. Preston came to Lucy’s and grabbed me under the table.
Ryder got him off me. Later, there was a photo taped to my apartment door of Ryder and me kissing outside at the same time. ”
Mom sits down.
Not hard. Not dramatically. She just reaches for the closest chair and lowers herself into it with one hand pressed to her mouth.
Dad moves behind her, his hand settling on her shoulder. His eyes stay on me, wet and furious in a way I don’t know what to do with.
“The fence was only a few nights ago,” I say.
“Preston painted a message where the cameras couldn’t catch him.
The power went out during the storm. I panicked, and Ryder helped.
Yesterday morning I went to work. Then I stopped at my apartment because I needed clothes and chargers and normal-person things because I haven’t been living here.
Just staying here because I’m so damn scared.
I called Ryder before I got out of the car.
I was still on the phone when I saw the door was open. ”
My voice fades.
Ryder’s hand curls into a fist at his side. He doesn’t reach for me.
Nia moves first. She picks up my abandoned coffee, puts it back into my hands, then steps away before it can become a fuss. Small. Clean. Helpful without trapping me inside gratitude.
I take a sip because my mouth has gone dry.
“A man came out of my apartment. He had a ski mask and gloves. He grabbed me. I fought. Mrs. Vance came out with her cane and hit him until he ran.”
“She said she had him,” Dad says.
Despite everything, a laugh almost breaks loose. “She did say that. She hit him with her cane.”
“She also said his shoes were cheap,” Nia says.
“They were,” I say. “Terrible choice for crime.” I didn’t see the shoes. But Mrs. Vance saved my life, so whatever she said is what I’m going to defend.
Josh turns away and presses both hands to the back of his neck. His elbows point out. His shoulders rise and fall once, then again. Nia watches him for a second before taking his coffee from the counter and putting it back into his hand after physically moving his arm.
He drinks because she told him to without using any words.
When he turns back, his face is worse. Less angry. More hurt. “Why didn’t you tell me? About the abuse? About any of this?”
I grip the coffee cup tighter. “Because I knew you’d look like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like my pain is something you can punch your way through.”
The words hit him. I see it happen. His mouth opens, then shuts, and for a second he looks like the kid who used to stand between me and neighborhood boys when they teased me for being small. My brother, who always wanted to protect me and sometimes forgot I wasn’t an extension of his guilt.
“I’m your brother,” he says.
“I know.”
“You should’ve called me.”
“I know that too.”
His eyes flash. “Then why Ryder?”
The kitchen goes silent.
Ryder’s attention sharpens, but he still doesn’t speak. Mom looks between the two of us, exhausted and afraid. Dad’s hand tightens on Mom’s shoulder. Nia closes her eyes for one second like she has seen this part of the disaster coming since the driveway.
I set the coffee down because I don’t want it in my hands for this.
“Because I wanted him.”
Josh flinches.
Not because he didn’t know. He isn’t stupid. None of them are. But knowing and hearing are different things, especially with Ryder three feet away staring at me like I’m the center of his universe. And our relationship status is something my brother didn’t want confirmed.
I make myself keep going. “I called Ryder because he believed me before I believed myself. Because he didn’t make me prove I was scared enough or that the threat was real.
Because when I told him something felt wrong, he didn’t ask me whether I was sure.
He said I wasn’t paranoid. He didn’t have to be told about the abuse, because he saw the changes in me that no one else did.
None of you even knew about Preston and what he did to me.
How could I just come out and say all of that on top of what’s happening now?
It’s ridiculous and unbelievable and there’s no chance in hell that I’d tell you and risk the look on your face that said you didn’t believe me. ”
Ryder looks down.
Good. Let him feel it. Let everyone feel it.
“And yes,” I add, before Josh can aim the pain he’s feeling at the wrong person.
“Ryder knew more than you. Some of that was because I told him. Some of that was because he paid attention in ways we are absolutely going to keep having conversations about. But he did not steal your place, Josh. He did not make me choose him instead of you. I chose who I could breathe around, and who made me feel alive when all I’ve felt is death at the edges of my mind for so long.
He made living easier than wanting to die. ”
Mom makes a small sound and presses her napkin to her eyes.
Dad looks at Ryder then. Really looks at him. “Did you know Preston was back before Alex told you?”
Ryder’s shoulders go still. He answers without looking away from my father. “I suspected after the window. I knew after the photo in her car.”
“And you didn’t call us.” There’s the accusation. The man who was like a son to my father, choosing not to tell him.
Ryder shakes his head. “No.”
Josh takes one step toward him. Nia’s hand shoots out and catches his belt loop, yanking him back with a precision that says she’s done this before.
“Joshua Harmon,” she says, calm and lethal, “do not make me trip you in front of your mother.”
He doesn’t look at her. “He had no right.”
Ryder’s face hardens, but his voice stays controlled. “For that, I had every fucking right.” His voice drops. “What I had no right to do was tell Alex’s trauma to anyone before she was ready.”
That quiets Josh for half a breath.
Then he looks at me, and the hurt comes roaring back. “Is that what this is? You two decided I was the problem?”
“No.” My voice rises, and for once I let it.
“That is exactly what I’m talking about.
You keep trying to make this about where you belong in the chain of information here when it’s not about you.
I was the one being abused. Fucking stalked.
I was the one on the floor yesterday with Mrs. Vance holding a cane over me like a medieval knight in rollers. ”
Nia mutters, “Iconic, honestly. That woman is like the first generational badass.”
“Nia,” Josh snaps.
“She is,” Nia says, softer now, rubbing her thumb along the back of his wrist. “And Alex is talking. Let her.”
Josh looks at her. The anger in him catches against the way she’s looking back. Not scolding. Loving him enough to stop him. His shoulders drop a fraction.
I breathe.
“I know you’re scared,” I say. “All of you. I know finding out this way was awful. But I am not evidence. I’m not a case file. I’m not a family failure everyone has to solve before breakfast gets cold.”
Mom reaches for my hand across the island, then stops herself halfway there. The effort costs her. I can see it in the way her fingers curl back against her palm.
“Can I?” she asks.
My throat burns but I still nod because I need my mother.
She takes my hand carefully, lifting my borrowed hoodie and turning it just enough to see the faint mark near my wrist. She doesn’t grab or pull me closer. She only touches her thumb to the unbruised skin beside it and starts crying in silence.
That is worse than every question she could have asked me.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“Mom—”
“No.” She shakes her head once, then another time, sharper. “Not because this is my fault. I know you’ll say that, and you’re right. But I’m sorry you had to carry any of it alone. I’m sorry you thought protecting us from fear was easier than letting us love you through it.”
I can’t answer through the sheen of tears and the boulder now sitting on my chest.
Dad comes around the island and wraps one arm around Mom’s shoulders, but his eyes are on me. “Tell us what you need.”
The simplicity of it nearly takes my knees out. Not where are you staying. Not what are we doing. Not what did Ryder do. Just need.