I stayed quiet. Let him fill the space.
“We didn’t come from money,” he continued. “Not like Cal or Holland. Dad was mean when he drank. Mom worked doubles. I was the oldest.” His fingers tapped absent patterns against the floor. “So I protected her. Took the hits. Made sure she studied. Saved every cent from our garbage high-school gigs and sent her to community college. Then university. She graduated. Got out.”
His voice softened near the end, pride bleeding through the exhaustion.
“I’m proud of her,” he added quietly. “Every time she calls, I feel… lighter. Like maybe I didn’t screw everything up.”
“You didn’t,” I said softly.
He looked at me then. Really looked. His gaze lingered a second too long.
“You remind me of her sometimes,” he said. “The way you hold everything together. The way you keep moving even when it hurts.”
My throat tightened. “I don’t always feel like I’m holding it together.”
“You are,” he said firmly.
He hesitated.
“Cal doesn’t deserve your emotional depth. He never learned how to hold it. He just… takes.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them. I saw the regret flash across his face immediately.
“I don’t mean that like it sounds,” he added quickly. “I just... I see how much you give. And I worry he’ll never give it back the way you need.”
My breath caught somewhere between my lungs and my ribs.
I looked down at another photo in my hands. Young Cal. Young Kei. Young Sydney wedged between them, laughing with her head thrown back like she owned the world.
“You were there,” I said quietly. “In Mexico.”
Kei nodded once. “Yeah.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He gave a hollow laugh. “Not really.”
He stared at the floor.
“But I think you already know enough,” he said after a moment. “It was bad. We were kids. Terrified. We clung to each other in ways that weren’t healthy. Sex. Drugs. Whatever numbed it. And it didn’t stop when we got home. The five of us just… kept it going. Because facing it meant admitting we were broken.”
I swallowed hard but didn’t look away.
“I regret not getting help sooner,” he admitted. “For all of us. Cal especially. He shut down hardest. Became this shell. And I let him stay there.”
I traced the edge of the photo absentmindedly.
“He’s trying now,” I said.
“I know,” Kei replied softly.
His eyes met mine again. Something complicated flickered there. Something that felt dangerously close to crossing a line, but stopped just short of it.
“And if he loses you,” he added, “it won’t be because you failed him. It’ll be because he never learned how to hold something without breaking it.”
The words landed deep. Heavy. Too honest.
I didn’t respond.
