Pain hits his eyes, and I know he felt it, too. “It felt good tonight,” he says, “but it’ll feel like shit in the morning.”

I shake my head, not caring. I don’t care.

“I’m lonely and an emotionally stunted child, and you’re the first woman I’ve been around long enough to get connected to in the past twenty years.” He stands up straight, running a hand through his hair. “And you’re just a neglected orphan, desperate for attention. That’s all this is.”

“Desperate…” I stare at him, my face cracking.

No.

I’m not desperate. I’ve had opportunities, but I never wanted it. Until now. I chose this.

But he looks at me hard. “You scream at night,” he says. “In your sleep. You never talk about them. You’re running from that life as fast as you can, and I won’t be your gateway drug. I’ll hate myself.”

I chew on my lip. He hears me at night?

“This is acting out.”

“It’s not.” I shake my head, hearing a door slam shut upstairs.

He inches close again, speaking low. “You threw away your candy,” he says. “You don’t accept Noah’s invitations to the track when he goes to practice. You don’t engage Kaleb when he’s fighting you. You still barely join us for meals or in front of the TV at night.”

I drop my eyes and clench my teeth, overwhelmed. Why is he doing this? Everything felt so good a minute ago.

“You don’t laugh or play or want anyone or have passion for anything,” he goes on. “You have no hobbies, no interests, no boyfriends at home… Ever, am I right?”

I look away, but he comes in and cups my face. I jerk away, but he holds tight, and I can’t stop it from spilling over. Tears starts to stream.

“You never smile,” he says quietly as the music and noise rage in the faraway recesses of the house. “You never feel joy. No dreams for the future. No plans. You have no fight in you. You’re barely alive, Tiernan.”

I struggle for air, sobbing as he holds me.

“It wasn’t always like that, though, was it?” he asks but doesn’t wait for me to answer. “It couldn’t have been. You must’ve loved things. Wanted things. Things that made you happy.”

He kisses my forehead.

“You are beautiful,” he tells me, “and pulling my body away from yours was the most pain I’ve ever been in, but I did it, because it was the right thing to do.”

“It didn’t feel that way.”

“Because feeling anything felt good,” he throws back. “You have a lot of big emotions going through that young mind of yours right now, and you needed a release. You broke. I could’ve been anyone.”

I shake my head, pulling away from him. “It was more than that.”

But he looks at me sternly. “Why did you throw the candy away, Tiernan?”

What?

“I…” I search for my words. “I didn’t want it. You…you made me get it.”

“That’s bullshit. Why did you throw it away?”

“Because I didn’t want it!” I say again. “It’s just candy. What the hell? What does it matter?”

“You threw it away, because it did matter,” he barks.

I start to walk away.

But he grabs my arm. “Don’t you see? That’s what happened.” He turns me around, but I turn my head away, refusing to look at him. “At some point, you started denying yourself anything that made you happy. Out of spite, maybe? Or pride? Candy? Toys? Pets? Affection? Love? Friends?”

I flex my jaw, but I’m breathing hard as he shakes me.

“And I know that, because I did it, too,” he tells me. “You don’t want to smile, because if you do, it means everything they did to you didn’t matter. And it has to matter or else they’re off the hook, right? And you can’t have that.”

I shake my head, but I still can’t meet his eyes.

“They need to know what they did to you,” Jake says, acting like he knows me. “Showing them how they hurt you will hurt them, right? They need to see how they ruined your life. You can’t just let it go like it was nothing, because you’re angry. You need them to know. You need someone to know.”

No. That’s not…

I have hobbies. I have things I like. I…

“So you’ll waste your life,” he continues, “blow off your future, going through the motions, and diving into anything that makes you feel good for even a moment…”

I shake my head, the tears pooling more and more.

No. I have interests. I let myself enjoy things. I…

“And then someday after the fights and the job you hate and the divorces and the kids that can’t stand you…”

I just keep shaking my head. I don’t care what they did or didn’t do. I don’t need this.

But the memory of our vacation to Fiji when I was eleven pops into my head and how they only took me, because the press had caught on that I was rarely ever with my parents.

And how one morning I woke up in the suite alone and waited for them for two days, because they took an overnight trip around all the islands and forgot about me.

I was so scared.

“You’re going to look in the mirror at the seventeen-year-old girl in a fifty-year-old body and realize you wasted so much time being devastated at how those fuckers didn’t love you that you forgot there’s an entire world of people who will.”

I crack. My eyes close, my body shakes, and I just sob, letting it go. The anger, the pain, the exhaustion of them taking up nearly every ounce of my brain, because for so long, there was nothing else I lived for, than for them to notice me.

He’s right.

I look up at him, tears spilling down my face. “They didn’t leave me a note,” I say, “Why did they do that?”

He picks me up, sets me on the countertop, and wraps his arms around me again, one hand gripping my hair as I bury my face in his neck.

I cry so hard it’s silent, and I can’t keep it back even if I try.

“Because they were fuckers, baby,” he says, his voice thick. “They were fucking fuckers.”

“I don’t know who I am,” I sob.

“Shhhh…”

He soothes me, rubbing his fingers in my hair and holding me tight. My arms hang limply at my side as every speck of energy drains, everything I’ve been holding in over the years and didn’t want to feel. It hurts.

“Shhhh…” he whispers in my ear. “It’s okay.”

He keeps me there, and I don’t know how long I cry, but when the tears start to slow, embarrassment warms my cheeks.

I try to lift up, but his hold stays firm, not letting me escape.

And just like that. I let it everything go. The worry, the doubt, the shame… I’m a fucking basket case, but he’s not going anywhere.

Slowly, I circle his waist with my arms, locking my hands behind his back as I breathe in the scent of his neck.

Warm. He’s so warm and they’re so warm. Everything is warm here. And even if we’re not finishing what we started, this feels just as good. I think Mirai was the last one to hug me. I let her do it on my last birthday, but I don’t think I let her give me a real one in years.