Page 24 of Heart of the Race

And my life, just then, at that second, finally started. I stood up, walked down the steps, and then halfway down the path, lifting my face to the sun.

“Brian?”

“You do?” I asked shakily, a new emotion rolling through me. Hope.

“I do. I’m sorry. Turns out I’m kinda clueless. Forgive me.”

“Varro—”

“And then I was scared, ’cause, like I said, what if I lost you and then that was it?” His voice sounded like his throat was full of broken glass. “Can’t come back from that. Nothing would ever be the same.”

I missed things sometimes, and the fact he was really hurt had flown right over my head. “I left to punish you,” I confessed.

“I know.”

“And it worked.”

“Yes, it did.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re all I have. You’re the only one who knows me,” Varro admitted.

“You have your family. They love you.”

“But you get me. You know how my mind works. You see all of me.”

“And now you know why.”

He muttered something.

“What was that?” I pinned him down.

“I said yeah, I know why.”

“Do you?”

“Again, I’m not fuckin’ stupid.”

The whimper was involuntary. “Please, just⁠—”

“Shut up. I’ll be right there. Just wait for me, all right? Don’t take off again.”

“I’m home—where the hell am I gonna go?”

“Maybe somewhere with that guy,” he grumbled.

“What guy?”

“You don’t know your own guy?”

“I don’t have a guy.”

“I think you do.”

I was at a loss, and then it hit me. What it would have looked like if he saw it from the outside looking in. “How do you know about Graham?”

“Oh, so suddenly you remember his name?”