Page 140 of Discordant Cultivation

I wished he was dead. I wished I’d never met him.

The memory tightened Kieran’s chest with guilt and confusion. How could he hate someone who was holding ice against his injuries, who’d carried him upstairs when his legs wouldn’t work, who kept telling him he was good and beautiful and perfect?

He loves me. He tells me he loves me every day. This is just what it takes to create good music.

Vale’s expression shifted, his face tightening with some emotion Kieran couldn’t read. He adjusted the ice pack, fingers pressing against the cold surface with more force than necessary.

“What’s wr-wrong?” Kieran whispered, the question escaping before he could stop it.

Vale blinked, as if surfacing from somewhere distant. “The cold on my hands,” he said quietly. “It reminds me of something.”

Kieran waited, watching Vale’s face for clues about whether he should press or let it go.

“When I was thirteen, maybe fourteen—before competitions, my mother would make me practice for six, seven hours at a time. My hands would ache so badly I couldn’t sleep.” Vale’s gaze remained distant, staring down at his hand. “My father would bring ice water to my room in secret. I’d hold my hands underuntil they went numb, until the joint pain turned into something manageable.”

“That sounds—that sounds sad.” It was an inadequate response to what Vale was telling him, but he was already stripped bare like an exposed nerve, and if he let himself think about it too hard he was worried he would burst into tears. How could Vale’s parents be so cruel to him?

“Does it?” Vale’s smile was strange, distant. “I thought so too, at the time. But it’s what made me good at it. Learning to push past discomfort, to understand that temporary pain serves a greater purpose.” His eyes refocused on Kieran, warm again. “It’s how I learned to help others make beautiful music. How I learned what you need to access the places that matter.”

Vale’s hand found Kieran’s hair. “You don’t talk about your parents much,” he said, quietly, almost tentatively, like it was an invitation. “Beyond what you told me that first night. You don’t talk about your foster care or about what it was like before.”

Kieran’s fingers found his left eye automatically, seeking an eyelash to pull, but Vale caught his wrist gently.

“Talk to me,” Vale said. “I want to know you. All of you.”

Maybe it was the pain still radiating through his torso, or the way Vale was looking at him with interest that felt like being seen for the first time in years, but the words started coming before he could stop them.

“They d-died when I was sixteen,” Kieran said quietly. “I t-told you that. Car accident.”

“I remember.”

“I was al-alr-already…I felt ost-ost-ostra—felt like I didn’t belong. The epilepsy, the st-stutter. I didn’t want to be known as the k-kid with dead parents too.” Kieran’s thumb found his bottom lip, his teeth worrying at the skin. “So I let myself grieve, hard, for three days. And then I m-moved on.”

Vale’s hand tightened in his hair, not painfully, just present.

“It wasn’t a b-big event, in hindsight. One day I-I-I was at home, alone, and the next day they were g-gone. No drunk dr-driver or great injustice. Ju-Just a skid on the ice and an unfortunately placed tr-tree.” The words felt mechanical, like reciting facts from someone else’s life. “I loved my m-mom and dad. But m-my seizures got worse aft-after their deaths. The st-stress, I think. And I was—I was intentionally distancing myself from p-people who wanted to m-make me ‘the tragedy kid,’ and then years of being p-passed around foster homes and group homes that st-struggled with my medical needs...”

Kieran trailed off, staring at the ceiling because looking at Vale felt too vulnerable.

“My m-memories of them feel distant now. L-like people I knew and rem-m-membered, but like people on film.” His voice cracked. “I wonder if—if someone had c-cared enough to give me stability, enough time to let my brain process instead of constantly m-moving me, the seizures would have c-calmed down and I could hold on-n-n to who I was. Who they were.”

“But m-my brain doesn’t work like that. The seizures, the c-constant moves, the stress—it’s like m-my brain just... c-couldn’t hold onto them properly. Now, when I think abou-about them, I’m s-s-sad, not for their loss, but for the absence of what they m-might have been in m-my mind if my brain wasn’t so broken.” Kieran’s throat tightened. “So I sh-shunted them to the back of m-my head to survive. Just—pushed them away so I could f-fu-function.”

The admission was as raw and painful as the TENS unit burns.

“Your brain isn’t broken, sweetheart. It’s just been forced to adapt to circumstances that would break anyone.” Vale shifted, pulling Kieran closer against his side. “The foster system failed you. They passed you along like you were disposable.”

Kieran felt tears gathering in his eyes, the validation hitting harder than he expected.

“But you’re not disposable. You never were.” Vale’s hand found Kieran’s jaw, tilting his face up to meet his eyes. “You needed someone who understood that structure and stability are what allow creativity to flourish. Whatyouneeded to flourish as a person. Someone who cared enough to give you the framework your mind needs to process everything you’ve been through.”

“That’s what this is,” Vale continued, his voice soft but certain. “The lessons, the methods—it’s not about breaking you. It’s about giving you the stability and structure to finally process all that pain and turn it into something. Your parents would want that for you. They’d want you to have someone who understands what you need.”

Kieran’s breath hitched, caught between knowing the pain was real and the equally true feeling that this was the first time since his parents died that anyone cared enough to see him as anything other than a problem to be managed.

“I know what it’s like,” Vale said. “To have the people who should protect you hurt you instead. But there’s a difference between cruelty and education. Between abuse that serves no purpose and pain that creates something beautiful.”

“You’re safe with me,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to Kieran’s temple. “I’m not going to pass you along or give up on you when things get difficult. I’m going to give you what you needed all along—someone who cares enough to help you become everything you’re capable of being.”