Page 77 of Grizz

I frown, reaching to touch his forearm.“I don’t understand.You got something good in there.A real moment of connection.I know it was hard, but—you should be grateful for the pieces you still get.”

The words barely leave my mouth before I see they land wrong.He stares at me like I’ve just missed the entire point of what’s been tearing him apart for years.“I didn’t get a goddamn thing in there except history rewritten.”

“But—” I gesture over my shoulder, back toward his room.“Those stories…”

“They weren’t real,” he says.His voice isn’t loud.It’s gutted.“None of those memories happened.”

I blink, thrown completely off balance.“What?”

“The fishing trips.The birthdays.”He shakes his head once, dismissive.“None of it.”

I open my mouth, then close it again.

“There were no fishing trips.There were no tender bonding moments between father and son.What I remember mostly is that he made me skate until I threw up,” he says, the words clipped and raw.“Over and over.When he rammed into my ten-year-old brain that pain and suffering meant progress.”

My stomach drops.

“If I lost a game, he locked me out of the house,” he continues.“Middle of winter.Told me champions don’t come home losers.”

I feel dizzy.

“He broke a stick over my back once,” he adds flatly.“Split it clean.Said it was my fault for being weak.”

My breath catches audibly now, but he keeps going.

“He told me if I cried, I’d never be good enough.That toughness was the only thing that mattered.”His eyes move away for half a second, then back to me.“So don’t tell me to be grateful for lies.Those stories are easier for him because he doesn’t have to remember what he actually did.He’s got the benefit of living in la-la land.”

I’m horrified.My skin feels too tight and my chest burns.I can’t reconcile the gentle man in that room with the father he’s describing, and the worst part is knowing both versions exist in the same body.

“It’s just… it’s not fair,” he says.“I know he’s sick and I know he needs help, but the reality is, he treated me like shit my entire childhood, and now I’m still dealing with the scars and as far as he’s concerned, there’s nothing but rose-colored history.”

He falters, and for a moment, I sense he might even shed a tear.I step into Grizz fast and wrap my arms around his torso, hard, pressing my face into his chest like I can anchor him there by force alone.It’s not delicate or cautious.

It’s desperate and instinctive.

For a second, he freezes.Arms locked at his sides, breath shallow, like his body doesn’t know what to do with comfort when it isn’t earned through endurance.

Then—slowly—he exhales.His shoulders sag a fraction.His hands lift, hesitant, unsure, before settling against my back.One arm comes around me, then the other, and he pulls me in.

Just enough to let his weight rest against mine, like he’s borrowing my steadiness because he’s run out of his own.His forehead drops toward my hair, his grip tightening.It doesn’t come off as possessive but ratherneeded.

And for this one moment, he lets himself be mine.

I hold him and don’t say a word.

I don’t try to fix it.I don’t offer perspective or silver linings or gratitude for what remains.I just stay, arms locked around him, heart breaking open wide enough to hold everything he’s never been allowed to put down.

And I know, with absolute certainty, that I want to help him mend these scars.

And I will.

Chapter 22

Grizz

It’sbeenacoupledays since Daisy and I got back from Saskatchewan.New York feels harsher than it did before, but it has nothing to do with sirens or traffic or the endless churn of people moving too fast.It’s as though the city noticed I left and decided to remind me exactly where I am the second my feet touched Manhattan concrete again.

We haven’t spent a night apart since we returned.