Page 85 of Shattered

I looked at my hands instead of at her. I couldn’t meet her eyes while saying this. “They said I loved you. That watching you grow up was the best and worst thing about living with your family. That I was terrified my feelings would destroy the people who saved me.”

“Why did you write them if you never planned to send them?”

“Because I was a teenager and desperate, and I needed to put the feelings somewhere.” I forced myself to look at her. “Writing them felt safer than saying them, than letting anyone know.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Her voice got smaller. “As adults. When I was old enough. Why didn’t you say something?”

“Because you were twelve when I figured it out. Then fourteen. Then seventeen. And by the time you were old enough, years had passed and the moment felt impossible.” I took a breath. “I’d become the boy your family took in. The brother figure who couldn’t admit he never felt brotherly about you.”

My eyes turned glassy—something else was happening. My heart was feeling lighter with each confusion.

“I fell in love with you, Delia. The first time you wouldn’t stop talking to me. When I was twelve and you were ten and you followed me around the house chattering about paint theory likeit was the most important thing in the world. I thought you were ridiculous and fascinating and I couldn’t stop listening.”

Her eyes got bright. Too bright. She blinked.

“Is that why you built the museums?” she asked. “The software, the galleries, all of it. Was it because of me?”

“Yes,” I said. “Watching you paint made me want to create spaces where art could breathe. I watched you work and thought you deserved better than bedroom walls and rejection letters.”

She made a sound. Small. Broken. Like I’d reached into her chest and squeezed.

“That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me, and it’s making me feel guilty.”

“Why guilty?”

“Because you spent seventeen years building cathedrals with my name on them, and I spent those seventeen years being completely oblivious.” Her voice cracked. “You were loving me quietly and I was making myself smaller for people who barely saw me at all.”

She picked up the journal again. Held it against her chest like armor. “I’m sorry for pushing you away.”

“You don’t need to apologize for grieving.”

“No, I need to apologize because I told you love wasn’t enough when I was drowning. That was cruel.” Her voice got thick with tears again. “You’ve been drowning for seventeen years and never asked me to save you. You just kept swimming nearby. Waiting.”

“It wasn’t drowning.”

“It sounds like drowning.”

“It was just loving you from whatever distance kept everyone safe.”

“That definitely still sounds like drowning.”

I almost smiled. Almost. “Maybe a little.”

She told me about the other journal entries then. How Elena kept trying to remember what she needed to tell Delia. How the urgency grew as the disease progressed and her mother had fought to hold this truth knowing her daughter needed to hear it before it was too late.

How Elena had run out of time.

“I don’t want to run out of time too,” Delia said when she finished. Her voice was fierce. Determined. “I spent three weeks pushing away the person who’s been building my life into his work. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

“You don’t have to decide anything right now. You’re grieving. You should take time.”

“I’ve been taking time. I don’t want to waste time with you anymore.”

Those words made my breath catch, hope spreading like wind through my chest.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to stay.” She took a breath. “I need you to support me. To keep holding on.”