Chapter 25 #2
“It was loud,” he says, like he’s sorting it out as he goes. “Too many things happened at once. I knew what I was supposed to do, but I couldn’t get there.”
I nod, stepping closer until I’m standing right in front of him.
“You don’t have to explain it,” I say softly, taking his hand in mine.
We stay in the silence before I gently press on.
“How did you even get in?” I ask, still holding his hand, still trying to piece together how he ended up sitting in Grandma’s room like this.
He glances toward the window. “You said your grandmother leaves it open sometimes.”
I follow his gaze, letting out a short laugh, the sound slipping out before I can stop it. “Before we unpack the pros and cons of breaking and entering,” I say, stepping a little closer, “what is going on?”
He pulls his hand from mine, not abruptly, but like he needs the space, like even that small point of contact is too much right now. His fingers go back to the ring, spinning it once, twice, faster.
“I had it.” His voice is low, controlled in that way that isn’t actually controlled. “It was fine at first. They were watching a movie, it was quiet, I knew what I was doing…” He stops, shakes his head.
I don’t interrupt.
“I couldn’t track it,” he continues, words starting to come faster now, like he’s trying to get ahead of them.
“They were talking, moving, asking questions, and then the volume spiked and something hit the floor and there was a parent asking me what the plan was and my phone kept going off and I just—”
He exhales sharply.
“I couldn’t pick what mattered most. I knew what I was supposed to do,” he adds, quieter now. “I just couldn’t get there.”
I take a step closer. “That doesn’t mean you messed it up.”
He lets out a short, humorless laugh. “I left, Vivian.”
“Yes,” I say gently. “You did.”
“In the middle of it,” he pushes. “I left Liam with a room full of kids and a parent who already thought I didn’t know what I was doing.”
His jaw tightens.
“That’s not someone you rely on,” he says. “That’s not someone you build anything with.”
My stomach drops. “Ty—”
“I can’t even get through one afternoon without…” He cuts himself off, pressing his lips together hard, like he’s trying to contain it. But it’s already spilling over.
“You allowed me to help you,” he says, looking up at me now, something raw in his eyes. “And I couldn’t do it.”
The guilt I was already holding tightens in my chest. “This isn’t on you.”
“It is,” he says, immediately. “Because I said I could do it, and I shouldn’t have.”
That punches me right in my guts. I shake my head. “No.”
“I knew it was going to be different,” he goes on, pacing now, pushing off the windowsill like he can’t stay still. “Different setup, different expectations, not my system, not my structure. I still said yes because I—”
He stops. The words catch. Because I what?
He drags a hand through his hair instead, frustration edging into something heavier.
“You have everything handled,” he says, gesturing vaguely, like he means the house, the store, my life.
“You walk into a room and it just works. People listen. They follow you. You make it look easy. And I walk into the same room and I need everything to line up perfectly or I lose it.” His voice drops. “And today, it didn’t line up.”
Silence stretches between us.
“I’m a liability,” he says finally, quieter than anything else he’s said. The word lands like something solid. Final.
“If this is what I’m like when things get hard,” he adds, not looking at me now, “then what happens when it actually matters?”
I take another step toward him, closing the distance he keeps trying to create.
“You came here,” I say, steady. “That matters.”
“Because I didn’t know where else to go.”
“And you think that’s a bad thing?” I ask quietly.
He doesn’t answer. Because part of him does.
I can see it. I see it flash across his face and in how his shoulder slump.
“I couldn’t do what you needed,” he says again. His tone is disappointed, like that’s the piece he can’t move past.
“I didn’t need you to be perfect,” I say. “I needed help, and you gave it.”
“For five minutes,” he says.
“For as long as you could,” I correct.
He doesn’t push back right away. But I can see that he doesn’t believe me. He sinks back onto the windowsill like something in him gives out.
His hands fall still for a second, then go back to the ring, slower now, like even that takes effort.
“Part of me,” he says, staring down at his hands, “is questioning why I’d start anything with someone who’s…” He exhales. “Who’s as amazing as you are.”
My chest constricts immediately. “Ty—”
“All I want to do,” he continues, like he has to get it out before he loses the thread, “is hold your hand. Hold you. Smell your scent. Kiss you. Hear what you’re thinking. Know what’s going on in your world.”
My throat goes dry.
“That’s it,” he says. “That’s what I want.”
He takes a beat before going on. “But when you needed me—” His jaw tightens. “I couldn’t do what I expect myself to do.”
I shake my head. “You did what you could.”
“No,” he says, not sharp, but firm. “Not in the way I should have.”
He finally looks at me, and there’s something in his eyes that makes my stomach drop.
“It makes me wonder if this is too much,” he says quietly. “And it’s not because of you. It’s because of me.”
I step closer, grounding myself before I answer. “Ty, if we’re going to be anything—anything at all—there are two of us in it. Which means we get to talk about this.”
He moves his head, but he seems distracted. Like he hears me, but something else is louder.
“I think…” He hesitates, then pushes through it. “I think we need some space.”
The word lands heavy.
“A few days,” he adds. “To—reset. Think.”
My chest tightens, but I hold steady. “Do you feel like this has happened too fast?”
“Yes and no,” I admit. “I think this moment right now is happening very fast.”
Something in his face twists. Like he’s holding too many things at once and none of them fit together properly.
“You look like a storm in a teacup right now,” I say softly. “What can I do?”
His expression eases for half a second, before the storm closes back in.
“Nothing,” he says. “You’ve got to take care of your grandmother.”
“That doesn’t mean we don’t—”
“I don’t want to put my worries on you,” he cuts in, shaking his head. “Not right now.”
“Ty, let’s just—”
“No,” he says, quieter this time, but final. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
I swallow. Nothing I say is going to help right now, and to be honest I’m tired. Exhausted. So I nod, because I don’t know what else there is to say.
He stands, already pulling back, already putting distance between us. Before I can say anything else, he moves to the window and pauses there for half a second, like he might turn back. But he doesn’t. He disappears through the window, back onto the roof, and is gone.
I stand there for a second, staring at the empty space where he was, my thoughts trying to catch up and failing completely. Then I sit down right on the edge of my grandmother’s bed and stare at the wall.
I press my hands into my lap, trying to stay present, centered.
Because, I can see the pain he’s in.
But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.