“We were in the front yard.” His palms pressed against my chest, fingers curling faintly into my shirt. “I… had the hose. We were spraying each other. He kept missing on purpose ‘cause he thought it was funny.”
Gray eyes blurred, shifting until they held something darker—something that didn’t belong to the present. It moved through him in silence, locking his expression piece by piece.
“He wanted a popsicle.A fucking popsicle.”
Heat pressed closer without intention, his body folding into mine as if proximity alone could hold him together.
“It was orange,” he said, almost absently, like the detail had never left him. “He always picked red first, but there weren’t any left, so I grabbed orange.”
“I told him to wait in the yard,” he whispered. “We’d already had popsicles that day, and Mom never let us have two. I went without him, so if I got caught… he wouldn’t get in trouble too.”
Air stuttered out of him, catching somewhere in his throat before forcing its way free.
“I was only gone a minute. I counted. I remember counting. Fifty-eight seconds. When I came back…”
My hand shifted fully into his hair, fingers threading through the strands at the base of his skull, holding him there while myother hand steadied at his cheek, thumb moving in slow passes against his skin.
“It’s not your fault,” I whispered.
He shook his head against me, denial already building.
“The hose was still running. It was just… spraying into the yard. His favorite basketball was sitting on a mound of grass. I—I thought he was hiding. I thought he was trying to scare me or?—”
His breath broke, catching somewhere behind his teeth.
“I called him.Screamedhis name over and over and over.”
Silence settled between us again, pressing in from every side.
“I left him there,” he choked. “I told him to wait, and I left him there.”
My grip firmed. “You were gone for a minute.”
“That was enough.”
No.
“That was opportunity,” I corrected. “You were a child, and someone took advantage of that.”
“He—he wasseven, Henry. Seven fucking years old.” Spine straightening, he pulled away from me, tearing his glasses off his face to press the heel of his palms against his eyes. “The clinical, academic Archie knows it wasn’t my fault, but the what-ifs have been on a loop in my brain for fifteen years. She hasn't said it, but I know she blames me. At least a little.”
The fuck?
“She sends those articles as if she thinks they will spark a detail in my memory that I missed. She thinks it’s helpful.”
A bitter taste filled my mouth.
“Archibald,” I said, waiting until he shoved his glasses back on his face and his eyes were firmly on me. “That isn’t awareness, baby. It’s conditioning.”
A flicker of confusion crossed his expression.
“She’s not giving you information. She’s reinforcing a narrative. Same pattern, over and over, until your body stops treating it as external.”
His brows pulled together. “I—I don't think she does it to be cruel. She just doesn't understand how it affects me.”
“Have you told her?”
“How can I? I’m the reason her son is missing.”
