Chapter 6
Harvey
From my mother’s porch, she came into view.
Aria Blake still stood in front of the house, exactly where she’d been when I spoke with her earlier.
The place in front of her carried two different histories—the kind I used to envy and the kind I used to dread.
As a kid, I’d heard the good parts drifting across our lawns: music floating through open windows, her mother humming off-key, her father laughing at something small and ordinary.
On those nights, the porch glowed warm, light spilling out like the house was trying to welcome the world in.
But I remembered the other nights just as clearly.
The nights when her father’s temper snapped like a dry branch.
When her mother disappeared with some man who wasn’t her husband.
Those were the nights Aria would slip out the back door barefoot and shaking, pretending she wasn’t scared, and I’d sneak over to stay with her until things settled.
Sitting beside her in the dark had once felt like the only thing I could offer.
Now, that house didn’t offer anything—not warmth, not noise, not even lies. Silence wrapped around it like a warning, cold and unforgiving, yellow tape snapping in the wind where comfort used to live.
And Aria stood there taking all of it in, staring at the pieces of a life that used to break her in different ways. Grief clung to her shoulders, heavier than the cold, and something inside me pulled tight in response—an old instinct, too familiar to ignore, echoing through a decade of distance.
The wind lifted strands of her hair, brushing gold through the dying autumn light, and something in my chest pulled tight, sharp enough to steal my breath. She looked like someone the world had taken too much from—like she’d been standing in the ruins long before today.
My hand found the railing without thought, steadying the weight that had been sitting in my chest ever since I’d left her standing there earlier.
She didn’t look my way this time—didn’t need to, not after the conversation we’d already stumbled through.
And maybe she wouldn’t have wanted to even if she had noticed me.
Hard to blame her for that. The apology I’d forced out before barely skimmed the surface of what she deserved.
Ten years of silence didn’t dissolve just because I finally found the guts to say sorry.
Not when I’d left her in tears the night everything inside her broke.
The house dragged my gaze next—dark windows, curtains pulled tight, grief pressed into every board.
Scenes like this were familiar from work: homes left behind after tragedy, after sirens and questions with no real answers.
But none of those homes ever belonged to the girl whose world I used to orbit.
This was where she grew up. Where she learned to tiptoe around shouting. Where she used to show up barefoot on my porch when her father’s voice boomed through the walls. Where my flashlight beam turned her ceiling into constellations so she had something else to look at besides fear.
Now it was a crime scene.
And she stood at the edge of it, arms wrapped around herself, trembling in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.
A crack opened in my chest.
Ten years hadn’t dulled it. If anything, it sharpened the edges.
The floor beneath her.
The bruises.
Mascara smeared where tears had carved their way down.
That was all it ever took.
A flicker. A hit to the gut.
Back then, loving her had felt instinctive. Protecting her, automatic. Until pride stepped in and smothered what should’ve come naturally.
I hadn’t asked.
I hadn’t stayed.
I let anger decide for me.
Now, watching her fold in on herself beside the wreckage of a life she’d rebuilt without me, the guilt wasn’t memory anymore—it was alive. Hot. Persistent. Breathing down my spine.
The door behind me creaked softly.
“She came back,” my mother murmured, voice gentle in a way she’d always saved for wounded things.
A small nod formed before the words did. “Yeah.”
“She looks… lost.”
“She’s been through hell,” slipped out before I could swallow it. “First what happened back then, and now this.”
Mom stepped beside me, cardigan clutched tight. Her sigh was quiet, heavy with a kind of knowing she’d carried since the night Aria had cried on our porch. “You can’t change the past, Harvey.”
Her words slid inside the ache, settling where regret lived. “Maybe not,” I said, low, “but I can damn sure stop pretending it doesn’t haunt me.”
Her hand squeezed my arm—brief, warm, understanding—before she slipped back inside, leaving me alone with the sinking sun and the girl who’d once been my whole world.
Aria stood unmoving as the detective walked away, shoulders curled inward like the weight of the house behind her pressed against her spine.
The sky deepened, orange bleeding into gray, shadows stretching long over the yard.
She brushed a tear from her cheek, distracted, almost unaware of her own grief.
My feet moved before permission caught up.
Gravel shifted beneath my boots, each step cutting through the hush that wrapped the evening. She didn’t turn. Didn’t flinch. Just held herself tighter, as if her arms were the only barrier left between her and collapse.
At the edge of the property, I paused.
The space between us hummed—thick with memory, regret, and a pull I hadn’t outrun in a decade. Every instinct I’d spent ten years trying to smother pushed me forward.
Another step.
Then another.
Leaves crunched underfoot, the sound too loud in the quiet. Breath scraped through my chest, uneven. The hesitation that had ruled my life where she was concerned finally buckled, giving way to something I hadn’t let myself feel since we were seventeen:
Hope.
One slow breath steadied me before I moved closer. My hands hovered near her sides—not touching, not yet—afraid to break something delicate, something already hanging by threads the world kept cutting.
I took the smallest step behind her.
She stiffened the moment my arms slipped around her, shoulders locking up like her body braced for impact. The reaction gutted me—but she didn’t pull away. Didn’t flinch out of my hold. Just stood there, trembling, testing the fragile edge of trust she hadn’t given me in years.
Little by little, her tension loosened, softening into me like exhaustion had finally stolen her strength.
“I won’t leave you,” I whispered, voice rough with ten years of words I’d never said. “Not this time. I promise.”
Her breath hitched. A small, broken sound. Her shoulders sagged as if the fight to stand tall had finally drained from her bones.
“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do next,” she whispered, voice trembling. “I can’t go in there. I can’t even look at that house without seeing what they say he did.”
The pain in her voice carved through me.
“Then don’t,” I murmured near her temple. “At least not tonight.”
She looked so young in that moment—like the seventeen-year-old girl who’d tried to hide bruised memories behind makeup and forced smiles. The girl I should’ve held tighter. The girl I never should’ve let walk away alone.
Standing there with her in my arms again, grief and longing collided hard enough to make my chest ache. Ten years stretched between us—years full of anger, silence, and everything we didn’t say—but for the first time, it felt like maybe the distance wasn’t impossible.
Maybe the pieces could be picked up.
Maybe not all at once.
But together.