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Last night comes back to me in pieces. Everything I shared with her and the way it felt. Once I started telling her about Wayne, it actually wasn’t that scary anymore to share it with someone. On the contrary, it felt like a small part of the burden I’ve been carrying alone all this time had been lifted.

Is this what being vulnerable with people feels like? Because if it is, I understand why people do it.

Later, I told her I was in love with her. I felt it with a kind of certainty I’ve never had before, like I’d finally reached an understanding that had been waiting for me all along.

And even though she didn’t say it back, I felt… free.

She kissed me, stayed wrapped around me afterward, and now she’s still sleeping in my bed like nothing I told her made her want to put any distance between us.

I turn my head toward her again.

That’s enough. More than enough, actually.

Quinn’s eyes open a few minutes later, blinking slowly before they settle on me. “Are you staring at me?”

“Maybe,” I admit sheepishly, because I definitely was.

She squints at me, still half asleep. “Creep.”

“Morning, Peachy.”

“Morning.”

We lie there for a few more minutes before getting up for breakfast.

Later, I look down into my coffee for a second before meeting her eyes again. “You know what the weirdest part about last night was?”

“No. What was?”

“How it didn’t feel weird at all, talking to you about Wayne and everything that happened.”

“I’m sure it was hard in the beginning.”

I think about it. “It was. But it’s like standing on top of a diving board. At first, when you look down, you’re scared, but once you jump, you just feel free.”

She seems to mull this over for a bit. “Well, I’m proud of you, Wyatt. You were very brave.”

“Well, thanks.” I take another sip of coffee. “I think I just never learned how to talk about it, you know? For a while after Wayne died, nobody in our house really knew what to do with each other. My mom cried all the time, my dad barely talked, and I mostly tried to stay out of the house because being there was fucking awful.”

Quinn stays quiet, so I keep going.

“My parents might’ve already been struggling before that. Honestly, I have no idea. When you’re a kid, you don’t exactly pay attention to the state of your parents’ marriage, but after Wayne died, everything went to shit pretty fast. My mom wanted to talk about him, and my dad didn’t. She wanted us all together, while he started working later and later, and then they’d fight because he wasn’t home. When he was home, they’d fight because neither of them knew how to talk to each other anymore.”

“That must’ve been awful.”

“It wasn’t great.” I stare down at my coffee. “I kept thinking it would pass. That we’d all be fucked up for a while, and then eventually we’d go back to normal, except there wasn’t really a normal to go back to anymore. My dad moved out within a year.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”

Quinn reaches for my hand, and I let her take it, watching her fingers slide between mine.

“He never told me he blamed me,” I say after a moment. “Not once. I want to be fair about that because he never said Wayne dying was my fault, never yelled at me about the lake or told me I should’ve checked it. Nothing like that.”

“But you felt like he did.”

I look at her. “Yeah. He stopped looking at me the same, or at least that’s how it felt. Maybe it was real, or maybe I already blamed myself so much that every time he looked at me, I was waiting to see the same thing from him. I don’t know anymore.”