Page 33 of Shattered

I couldn’t look at Delia. Couldn’t risk seeing her expression. Or let her see mine.

After dinner, Delia escaped to the kitchen with a stack of plates. I followed because leaving her alone after that felt wrong, even though we’d barely been speaking.

We fell into the familiar rhythm—her washing, me drying. She scrubbed each plate like it had personally offended her. I dried them while trying not to think about Elena’s words echoing in my head.

“That was weird, right?” Delia said finally, not looking at me.

“Your mother seemed to be in her good days, that’s not weird,”

“That’s not what I mean.” She scrubbed harder. “I mean what she said. About us. That was weird.”

My heart was doing something irregular in my chest. “Elena probably meant we’re getting along well given the circumstances.”

“Right. The circumstances where we’re barely speaking and you’re passive-aggressively following my instructions by not helping me at all.”

“I was giving you the space you asked for.”

“I asked you to stop reorganizing my life. Not to stop existing in it entirely.”

The distinction apparently mattered. I’d missed it.

She rinsed a plate and handed it to me. Our fingers brushed. I dried the plate and tried to focus on something other than the way my chest felt tight.

She sighed. “Maybe mom is just confused because she’s used to seeing us fight for years and now because you live with me she thinks we’re destined for each other.” Delia’s mouth quirked slightly. “Remember when she tried to set me up with that guy from her book club who collected toenail clippings just because we got along for thirty minutes?”

“I don’t think he collected them. I think he just mentioned he kept them once.”

“Once is too much, Axel.”

It was the first almost-normal exchange we’d had all week. It made the knot in my chest loosen. Just slightly.

“We’re not fighting,” I said.

“What would you call it?”

“Adjusting.”

“Adjusting is a generous word for whatever this hostile silence has been.”

“I was giving you space.”

“I wanted you to ask before doing things—not disappear entirely.”

I set down the dish towel. “What do you actually want from me?”

She was quiet for a long moment, hands still in the soapy water. When she spoke, her voice was smaller than usual.

“Honestly? I don’t know. I need help but I resent needing it. I want you there but I hate feeling like a charity case. I appreciate everything you’re doing but I wish I didn’t need any of it.” She pulled her hands out of the water and grabbed a towel. “I’m a mess of contradictions and I don’t know how to be anything else right now.”

The honesty was unexpected. Raw in a way Delia usually avoided.

“I’m not keeping score,” I said. “I’m not there because I pity you or because you’re an obligation.”

“Then why are you there?”

Because I’ve loved you since I was fourteen years old and watching you fall apart is unbearable.

“Because Daniel asked me to. And because I want to be.”