Damien
Istand in the entryway, dripping onto the worn rug, while Lyla guides her mom down the hall toward the bedroom.
“Let’s get you into something warm,” she says gently. “I’ll bring you some tea.”
Her mom nods, her movements slow, the edges of her smile soft but unsteady.
I’ve seen Lyla in a hundred different moods — stubborn, sharp-tongued, laughing so hard she can barely breathe. But this? This quiet patience, the way she holds her mother’s hand like it’s the most precious thing in the world… it twists something in my chest.
She’s always been like this. Even when she was fourteen and I was sixteen — the day I wrecked my bike trying to pop a wheelie in the Lawson driveway, skinning my knee so bad it bled through my jeans — she came charging out with a first aid kit before I could even get my bearings. I told her I was fine, but she ignored me, cleaning the scrape with the kind of care that made me feel seen in a way I didn’t know I wanted.
I drift toward the hallway, my boots leaving faint damp marks on the floor.
The first door I pass is closed. The second is cracked open, the air inside heavy and still. I push it wider and flick the light switch, but the bulb doesn’t come on. Enough light from the hall spills in to see the room anyway.
Aaron’s room.
It’s exactly the way I remember it — the crooked poster of the Seahawks, the shelf with a few sports trophies gathering dust, the bed unmade like he’d just gotten up. Time stopped here.
My throat tightens as I step inside. The air smells faintly of old laundry and something I can’t quite name — maybe just memory.
“Damien?”
I turn. Lyla’s in the doorway, her sweater sleeves pushed up, a tired softness in her face.
She steps into the room slowly, like she’s crossing into sacred ground.
“You found your way in here,” she says quietly, her voice carrying a thread of something fragile.
I glance at the rumpled bed, the dust on the dresser. “Looks like no one’s touched it since…”
“They haven’t,” she finishes for me, her gaze fixed on the football sitting on the desk. “Mom won’t let me change a thing. Says it’s the only way she can still picture him.”
I nod, because I get it. I’ve left pieces of Aaron untouched, too — just in my head.
“I used to crash in here sometimes,” I say. “When my parents were fighting. He’d give me the bed and sleep on the floor just to make me stay.”
Her lips curve faintly. “That sounds like him.”
Silence fills the room for a moment, heavy but not uncomfortable. We both know what we’ve lost. And for the firsttime tonight, I’m not thinking about what we’ve been pretending to be — I’m thinking about what we actually are. Two people tied together by someone neither of us could save.
I meet her eyes. “You were always good to him, Lyla. Better than he deserved sometimes.”
She shakes her head, her throat working. “He was my brother. I’d give anything to have one more fight with him, you know? Even the stupid ones.”
I swallow hard, the ache in my chest deepening. “Yeah. I know.”
She takes a step toward me, her hand brushing mine — not intentional, maybe, but it lingers.
She clears her throat and steps back toward the door. “You’re still soaked. Come on — I’ll get you something dry.”
I follow her down the hall, the air between us thick with things neither of us said in that room. She pushes open the door to her bedroom, and I step inside.
It’s warm here — not just from the heat, but from the way the space feels lived in. Soft lamplight spills over the bed, the nightstand stacked with books, a mug half-full of tea gone cold. There’s a blanket draped over the chair in the corner, a sweater on the back of the door.
She crosses to her dresser and pulls out a black T-shirt. “This should fit,” she says, holding it out.
I take it, my fingers brushing hers. She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t look at me either — like she knows what’s about to happen and she’s pretending not to.
