Page 32 of Never After Us
I look away, jaw tightening.“I don’t want to get attached to people who disappear.She’ll be gone in a year.She should pack now and leave before I get used to that joyful warmth.”
“So, fear.”
I open my mouth.
Close it.
He nods, as if that says everything.
“I don’t know what to do with all of this,” I finally admit.“Lina’s gone.The niece is here.The kid called me broken.Twice.”
“She sounds perceptive.”
“That terrifies me too.”
He chuckles softly.“She’s a child, Alec.”
“A child who notices things.”
“You noticed things as a child, too,” he says.
Sure, but if I ever made an observation I would either get kicked out, slapped, or ...something.My lungs pull tight.
You noticed things as a child, too.
You learned to survive by noticing.
Then I regret telling Mara to leave that I’d pay.Maybe her kid needs the stability I never had and living in Lina’s house is the way to do it.And yeah, a part of me wonders what their situation is—if there’s a father somewhere, if there’s support.Then I shut that thought down fast, because it’s none of my business.And because caring about any of it feels dangerous.
It’s not my problem, and so I look up at him.“So what do I do?”
“You grieve,” he says.“You allow space for this loss.And for the fear underneath it.And maybe ...you allow for the possibility that connection doesn’t always end the way you think it will.”
“I’m not ready.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“But she’s next door,” I mutter.
“Yes.”He nods.“And maybe that’s not a threat.Maybe it’s an invitation.”
I shake my head hard.“I can’t?—”
“You don’t have to do anything today,” he says gently.“Just acknowledge that your grief and your fear are speaking loudly.And neither is wrong.”
I stare at the floor, jaw clenched.
“Come back tomorrow,” he says quietly.
I look up.“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.Let’s work through this.One day at a time.”
Something moves in me—small, fragile, terrified.
But it’s enough.
“Okay.”I stand too, my limbs stiff, my mind a mess of too many thoughts, too many emotions I don’t know how to categorize.
