Page 222 of The Night Shift

She holds in a breath. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Because of your eyes, I think.Because they haven’t left me alone since that day. Because I wake up remembering the slope of your shoulder before I remember my own name.

“Because I asked you to tell me your story without fully sharing mine. That wasn’t fair.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to —”

“I want to,” I cut in. My eyes fall to her mouth like they always do when I’m trying not to think about kissing her. “I want you to know me as well as I know you. But mostly I just want you to know me for me, and not the version you’ve built in your head that you hate so much.”

A pause.

She opens her mouth to say something — some kind of rebuttal, judging by the familiar spark in her eyes — but then she shuts up just as quick, leaving me clueless and lost all over again.

A swallow travels down her throat.

I decide not to press.

“The day of the mixer,” I say, straightening my posture to get a better look at her face. “The day I first saw you, it was the day I got a call from my dad telling me my mum had passed.”

Holly freezes. She stares at me like I’ve gone insane for real this time. Tossing a live grenade into a casual conversation like this and walking away without flinching.

“I had no idea,” she says, dumbfounded. Her hand moves slightly like she wants to reach out. But she stops herself.

She doesn’t say she’s sorry. Doesn’t lean in or touch me or offer any soft, useless platitude. And I’m grateful for it. The last thing I want from her is pity. I’ve lived enough of my life being seen for my damage. It’s boring, demeaning, and unimaginative.

Holly is anything but.

“She went peacefully,” I continue. “And in his defense, Dad did say I could come home for the funeral. If I wanted to.”

“Did you?” her voice dips.

I shake my head once. “Too much had happened already. My dad and I, we don’t exactly have a relationship, so to speak. He’s what one might call a raging narcissist. It sounds clinical now, but it fits. He has this way of making you feel so small, like nothing you do can ever be good enough. And then, just when you start to believe it, he’ll flip the switch. Put you on a pedestal. Praise you in public. Tell people how brilliant you are. But only when it serves him. Only when your light makes his shadow longer.”

“He sounds like a dick,” Holly says.

I smile, my hand tightening at her waist. “Oh, he still is.” My thumb keeps tracing faint, absent-minded circles over the fabric of her cardigan like I’m checking if she’s still real. Still here and still mine. For however long she’ll allow it.

“As a child, I could never tell if he loved me or not,” I say. “Deep down, I knew he had to love me out of obligation, I just…I never felt it. We were always walking on eggshells around him. Me and Emily. His mood dictated everything. Whether it was safe to speak. Whether we were allowed to laugh. There was this one time when I was ten. We were planning to go to Alton Towers. It’s an amusement park in England,” I add, knowing she won’t know, and somehow that detail matters. I want her to know everything. Even that.

“I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. Counting the days like a fucking idiot.”

“And?” Holly asks.

“And we didn’t go. Because I left a mug unwashed in the sink. That’s it. That’s all it took for him to call me ungrateful and spoiled, hit me a few times, and then cancel the whole trip in front of everyone. Just like that.” I shake my head. “I mean, who does that? Who cancels a family trip over something that petty?”

Her amber eyes stay locked on mine. Faint artificial light threads gold through the darker parts, like molten metal. I want to go blind staring at it.

“I left home the day I turned eighteen and never looked back. I loved my mum, but she would never stand up for us. Not once. She expected us to stand up for her, to protect her, but she never did the same in return. My dad destroyed her, too. Stripped her down until she believed she was nothing. I wanted to help her, but there was nothing I could do. She didn't want to be helped. She just wanted his approval. Would’ve died chasing it before ever defending her kids. My only regret is leaving Em behind. I hate myself for it. For walking away and leaving her in that house to deal with him. I’m terrified that one day she’ll hate me for it.”

Holly starts to speak. “Theo, you can’t actually believe that.”

“I do. And I’m also not done.”

“Oh.” She shrinks a little, folding her arms tighter across her chest.

I slide my hand into the back pocket of her jeans and pull her closer. “When I got the call about my mum, I was wrecked. Not sad. Not grieving. Just…suspended in space. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to think about home or funerals or whatever performance my dad expected from me.”

I look at her then. Really look.