Page 63 of Until The Lights Go Out

“She’s a distraction,” he went on. “A weakness. And you”—his voice dropped again, right in my ear—“do not get to have weaknesses.”

My hands curled into fists at my sides, my vision going red. I didn’t want him talking about her or thinking about her or having her on his radar at all. He was a poison, slowly killing everything he touched.

“She’s not—” I bit back.

The second hit came harder. I stumbled back this time, shoulder knocking into the edge of the desk. Pain flared behind my eyes, sharp enough to make my vision swim.

“She is exactly that,” he snapped. “And you’ve been hiding it from me for six years.”

I didn’t answer this time, afraid I’d say something that would make this worse.

“You think this is a fucking game?” he demanded. “You think you can just…sneak around, write letters, pretend you’re not throwing everything away?”

“I’m not throwing anything away,” I muttered.

His expression went cold. “You’re throwing everything away,” he said, “for a girl. Distractions ruin drivers.”

My chest tightened. “She’s not just⁠—”

“Enough!” he shouted, holding up his hand.

The word cracked like a whip.

He grabbed the remaining letters, crushing them all together in one hand before tossing them onto the desk like they were nothing.

Like they didn’t matter.

Like she didn’t matter.

“You’re done with this,” he said. “You don’t speak to her. You don’t look at her. You don’t write to her. Ever again.”

I stared at the floor, jaw locked so tight it ached.

“You hear me?”

“…Yeah.”

“Say it.”

“I hear you.”

“Good, now grab those,” he said, pointing to the table. My eyes darted to the crumpled-up letters. He grabbed a metal bin from the corner of the room, dropping it on the table with a thud.

“Put them here,” he demanded. I slowly grabbed the letters, dropping them into the bin. My heart squeezed at the thought. My father pulled out his lighter and grabbed one from the top, handing it back to me, then the lighter.

“Burn them,” he commanded.

I could do nothing but obey, feeling like all emotions had been flayed from my body. I lifted the lighter, sparked it to life, and let the flame flicker on the edge of the letter I held. I stared at Maisey’s scrawl as the paper started to burn. I watched it flick up the parchment before I dropped it into the bin with the rest, and everything slowly burned.

My father only grunted with a glare focused on me. He stepped back, like the conversation was over, like this was settled, like he’d just erased six years of my life with a few words and expected me to move on.

“Clean yourself up,” he added. “We’ve got a race.”

The bathroom mirror was unforgiving. I gripped the edge of the sink, knuckles whitening as I forced myself to look at my reflection. The swelling beneath my eye had already begun to darken, blooming into a deep, angry bruise that would be impossible to fully hide. My cheek was flushed, and a faint split shone at the corner of my lip where I’d bitten down too hard. It made me look smaller somehow. Not physically—but something about it stripped away the control I worked so hard to maintain. I looked weak, that’s what he would say. The thought settled heavily in my chest, familiar and suffocating. Weakness wasn’t just something he hated—it was something he punished, something he erased.

I turned the tap on, the rush of cold water loud in the quiet space, and splashed it over my face. The sting was immediate, sharp enough to make me suck in a breath through my teeth. I welcomed it. It grounded me, pulled me out of the spiral of thoughts threatening to drag me under.

You do not get to have weaknesses. The words echoed in my head like they had been carved there. I lifted my gaze again, meeting my own eyes in the mirror, and for a moment, I barely recognized the person staring back. Maisey’s last letter surfaced without warning, cutting through everything else.