is

hen... just to live

ood ra

iate myself before he said a single word about it. Since when? From the moment I walked through that door? Or had

get to finish forming

y cheek on the way off. Pain bloomed bright and immediate, a thin line of fire where the pla

o..

t sound of it before his hand closed around my chin, hard e

say my

it was flat and cold and final, the voice of a man who had already dec

stones into still water, "can someone who died fal

on my cheek. *Died.* He thought I h

ing a version of the truth that was almost kinder than the real one, and now here I was, breathing and warm and kneel

b pressing hard enough into the hinge of

ds scraping out of me in pieces

iding at once, none of them winning. Then his hand fell away like I'd burned him, and without that grip holding me up, my body fo

own trembling hands, gathering whatever was left of m

et still hanging open, every line of him coiled tight with something

those five years were like? Do you have any idea what I d

a canyon. *I had no choice* would only make it worse, because from where he stood, I'd clearly had every c

that hurt more than the cold flatness had. "I had men diving in freezing water for your body. I told my own father I had failed to

roke. I tried again. "I d

nted. You're on your knees in a mask in a stranger's club, about to sell yo

ok exactly as ugly as what he had just described. He didn't know about Milo. He didn't know about the surgery, the fever, the blue tint that crept into my son's lips whenever his small heart wo

understand,"

ed his face since the last time I'd been allowed to look at it this closely. "Five years, and the first thing out of your mouth

t smaller than I meant it to, more honest tha

una and five years of a grief he'd built an entire life around. But it didn't stay. It hardened back into something unreadable a

that to me," he said. H

you do it?

than every cruel word h

't tell him. I couldn't tell him about Milo. I couldn't tell him about the hos

ecame my o

laugh es

disappeared five years ago... j

d sliced t

nother ste

k at

efus

d look

I lifted

e man who used to smile at

aybe I'd be generous enough to pull you out of

s curled i

need you

row li

ispered, even though the lie tasted l

something shattere

it f

t's how

ecame fright

o proud of yo

age outside the VIP r

women like you c

truck harder

ed, but I forced

rom me as though

ing back. "Convince me this life

art st

into a suffoc

time since walkin

again hurt far more than