Page 55 of Fire and Silk

He doesn’t speak right away. He just breathes, shallow and uneven, one hand cradling the back of my head while the other trembles faintly against my spine.

Then—slowly—he pulls back.

His hands lift to my face. They’re warm and calloused, rough from years of holding things meant to kill. He wipes at my cheeks, gently brushing away the mess I’ve made of myself, and I hate how familiar it feels. I hate that it still makes my heart twist.

“I’m so sorry, Lira,” he says. His voice is quiet but thick, scraped raw. “I—God—I know nothing I say will ever change what I did.”

He stops.

He lowers his gaze and inhales through his nose. When he speaks again, his voice falters.

“It was my fault.”

His hand slips from my cheek and falls into his lap.

“Your brother... Marco,” he says slowly, like the name alone might break him. “He wanted to leave. After Chiara died. He told me he was going to quit the navy. Said he’d pick up something local. Anything, just to stay close to you.”

I watch his throat work through the words. He doesn’t look at me. He looks past me, like the truth is heavy to meet my eyes with.

“I stopped him,” he says. “I told him if he stayed one more year, just one, he’d rank up and get better pay. More stability. More protection for you.”

He exhales hard and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. His shoulders curl in slightly, like he’s folding under the weight of it.

“He agreed. He stayed because I asked him to. Because I told him it was the smart thing to do. And then he—” His voice fractures. “He got shot. In the head. He died... because I asked him to stay.”

A single tear slips down his cheek, tracing the edge of his nose before it drops onto his shirt. He doesn’t wipe it away.

“I’m the reason he never came home,” he whispers.

My lungs ache like I’ve been punched. My skin goes cold, then hot, and my vision blurs again—but it’s not from crying. Not yet.

His hands are shaking in his lap now, curled into fists. He still won’t look at me.

“I’ve hated myself every day since,” he says. “And when I saw what happened to you... what it did to you... I couldn’t face it. I didn’t know how to live in a world where I let both of you down.”

More tears spill down his face, silent and steady.

“I am so sorry, Lira. Please.” His voice breaks again, and he finally looks up. His eyes are bloodshot, wide open and stripped of any defense. “Please forgive me. I was trying to protect you. I was trying to do the right thing, and I destroyed everything.”

I can’t breathe.

My whole body feels numb. Like the pain has pushed me out of myself.

But my hands move on their own.

I lift them slowly, one on each side of his face, and I take his jaw in both palms. My thumbs trace the edges of his tears. His skin is warm, his stubble rough against my fingers.

He stares at me, chest trembling.

“Is this...” I start, but my throat closes around the words. I try again. “Is this the burden you’ve carried? Is this what made you run away from me?”

He nods.

The movement is small, almost imperceptible, but I feel it through my palms. His shoulders shake beneath my hands and when he exhales, the sound comes out jagged and wet. The guilt doesn't leave him when he says it. It folds deeper into the lines around his mouth, into the quiver in his chin, into the tears that won’t stop falling.

And suddenly I laugh.

It escapes me without warning, thin and broken and cracked right down the middle. Not because it’s funny. Nothing about this is funny. But because pain has nowhere left to go. It’s sobbing and laughter tangled together in the same breath, and I can’t separate them.