Page 98 of Oh, Puck!
He looks at me, and I lose about ten seconds to the way his eyes drag over my face, like even wrecked and exhausted he can't help staring at every inch of me.
My pulse kicks up and I suddenly feel like I'm burning up.
Apparently my body doesn't care that this man just told me his family is imploding. It just cares that Declan Morrison is close enough that I can smell his cologne again, close enough that I remember exactly what those blue eyes look like from underneath him.
I close the door behind him, and the click of the lock feels louder than it should.
"Declan." I fold my arms, not out of anger, but because I genuinely don't know what to do with my hands right now. "What's been going on? And I meanactuallygoing on. Not the 'vibes are fine' version."
He drags a hand down his face, exhales long and slow, then sinks onto the edge of the bed like his legs have finally given out.
"My parents are getting divorced," he says.
And…BOOM.
The words land like a fucking bomb. Hard, fast and like he's been carrying them so long they've just exploded.
I sit down beside him, careful not to crowd him. "Okay."
"That's not even the—" He laughs, short and humorless. "That's not even the worst part. Zoey called us five days ago. Right before that meeting, actually."
So that's when it started.
The timeline clicks into place, and something in me softens even further as he begins explaining everything. He spends thenext ten minutes telling me about his own father, about the endless betrayal that his mother refused to believe.
He tells me how he's been holding all of this together foryears,and by the time he's done, I can barely breathe.
"…and I told her, but she—" He shakes his head, clenched fists squeezing tight in his lap. "She didn't believe me. Or she didn't want to. I've never known which one's worse."
"Declan—"
"I'd never said anything to anyone," he says, and his voice cracks. "Now Zoey knows about what he's been doing, and we don't know how to handle it. How to tell the other two."
I reach over and take his hand, lacing our fingers together. He looks down at our hands and grips me tighter.
"I'm sorry I've been shitty. I just kept thinking if I just held it together," he says, quieter now, "if I held everyone together, then it would all go away. Beck could keep believing we had this perfect, chaotic, loud,happyfamily. Mason could keep being steady. Zoey wouldn't have to carry it either, she's got enough on her plate. I guess I just… I learned really young that if I said the thing out loud, it would break something. So I stopped saying things out loud. About anything. Ever."
"Declan, you don't have to wear this by yourself. That's a lot of weight for a twelve-year-old to carry."
"Yeah, well." He finally looks at me, and I hate the expression he gives me. "Turns out it's a lot of weight for a twenty-nine-year-old too. Who knew."
A small, watery laugh escapes me before I can stop it. "Groundbreaking research, Morrison."
"Trust me, I have a PhD in emotional repression. Should've led with that on my dating profile."
"You don't have a dating profile."
"Well if I did, that'd be the headline. Right under 'enjoys long skates on the beach and disappointing his father.'"
I laugh again, and it actually feels good.
Because that's the thing, isn't it? We're sitting here, two people raised to swallow their own storms so no one else got wet. And now I'm sitting here in his pain, aching for him the same way he did for me, and I feel something settle instead of break.
We're not fixed. But at least now we'reunderstoodby someone.
We're broken in matching places.
And somehow, that feels nice.
