Page 46 of Beautiful When He Breaks

That does it. That’s the line that tears something right open in me. Not bastard child, though that hits like acid. Not even play house. It’s that he says our blessing, as if love were ever meant to be conditional on my obedience and not just freely given because I’m his son.

My father keeps talking, I think. Or maybe that’s my mother crying harder. I can’t tell anymore because all the sound in the car has turned strange and far away. My whole body has gone cold except for the tears burning down my face. I’m still holding the phone. I’m still technically in the conversation. But something in me has gone so quiet it feels almost outside my own body.

Then the front door opens hard enough that I can see it even through tears. Julian comes out fast without hesitating, zeroing in on my car with that terrifying, focused certainty he gets when something’s wrong, and he already knows it before anyone explains.

I don’t remember ending the call, but I know at some point, the phone isn’t at my ear anymore. I know the driver’s door opens. I know Julian is there, saying my name, and I can’t answer him because the first actual sob hits me before words do.

“Eli,” he says again, terrified and trying not to sound it. “Hey. Hey, look at me.”

I can’t.

He reaches in and gets both hands on me before I can even think about resisting. One of them goes to the back of my neck, the other to my shoulder, and then he’s pulling me out of the car with enough force to make it clear there was never another option. My legs nearly give out under me the second I hit the driveway.

Julian catches all of it.

He doesn’t ask first. He doesn’t wait for permission. He drags me straight into his arms, right there beside the car, and the second his chest hits mine, I break.

I don’t mean I cry harder. I mean, I actually break.

All the control I was holding together through practice, class, the drive home, and the call itself just shatters. The sob that comes out of me is ugly and full-bodied and humiliating, and if it were anyone else holding me, I might fight it. With Jules, I can’t. My face ends up jammed against his shoulder, both hands fist in the back of his shirt, and the grief comes out so hard it feels like vomiting something poisoned.

“They don’t—” I choke on the words and try again. “They don’t want her.”

Julian’s arms tighten around me so fast it almost hurts. “What?”

I shake my head into his shoulder because there’s too much and none of it fits right. “They said marry her. They said I should marry Celeste. They said if I don’t, they’ll—” The sentence collapses under another sob. “They called Mila a… a bast—”

“No,” he says into my hair, voice shaking with fury now. “No. Fuck them. Fuck that.”

I cry harder at that, which is pathetic, but I can’t help it. Because it’s not just what they said. It’s that some part of me knew they’d say it, and I still called, hoping anyway. Hoping my mother would hear the fear in my voice and choose me. Hoping my father would hear the word daughter and remember I’m his son before I’m an embarrassment. Hoping for one miracle too many.

Julian’s hand stays firm on the back of my neck, fingers in my hair, anchoring me. “You are not marrying her. Do you hear me? You are not marrying that woman. You are not giving her one more thing. Not your body, not your name, not your life, not one fucking day of your future.”

I shake against him, trying and failing to get enough air. He draws back a fraction again, enough to force eye contact. “Breathe, Liefling.”

The first inhale stutters, the second works a little better.

“That’s it,” he says. “Again.”

Somewhere behind him, I’m dimly aware of movement in the doorway of the house, but. I can’t think about that. I can’t think about anyone seeing me like this. The only thing in the world right now is Julian’s face in front of mine and the way his hands refuse to let me fold in on myself.

“They called her a—” I start again, and my voice breaks so badly I can’t finish.

His expression turns even darker, if that’s possible. “Don’t repeat it.”

I sob once and press my face back into his shoulder because that’s easier than letting him see every piece of me breaking. He keeps one arm around me, and one hand at the back of my head, shielding more than holding now.

“You and Mila are not losing anything worth having,” he says. I know he means it to be comforting, but it wrecks me more because it’s true, and I hate that it’s true. “You hear me? Not a fucking thing worth having.”

I’ve never felt this hollow in my life.

I let out a wrecked sound that might’ve been a laugh in another life and tighten my grip on him. I can feel his heart hammering through his shirt, fast and hard. The knowledge that he ran to me—that he saw me through glass and came without thinking—hits me somewhere so tender it almost creates a whole second wave of tears.

“Mila is safe. She is inside with people who already adore her. You are safe. You are not alone in this. Killian will handle whatever legal thing comes next if you want him to. Luca’ll help. I’ll help. We all fucking will.”

I know every word of it is true. So I hold on and cry into his shoulder in the driveway of the Sin Bin while the rest of my life rearranges itself around the fact that my parents chose shame over me, and Julian keeps me upright through all of it.

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