Porter doesn’t knock.Just strides in, as though lifetimes of silence hadn’t created the space between us. As though forgetting me for decades didn’t revoke his right to walk through my door like nothing’s changed.
I don’t look up. I don’t acknowledge him. I busy myself with pointless adjustments, a deliberate attempt to keep him at arm’s length. Straightening a sleeve, smoothing a lapel, fussing with a pocket square that doesn’t need fixing.
But still, he lingers. His silent, unwavering stare burrowing under my skin until it’s impossible to ignore.
“Don’t you have anywhere else to be?” I mutter, voice flat.
Porter doesn’t take the bait. He just remains rooted in place, arms crossed, staring at me as if I’m the final puzzle piece in some riddle he can’t solve.
Ihateit.
I glance up, ready to snap at him, but his expression stops me.
It’s concern. Real, unmistakable concern.
It only pisses me off more.
He exhales through his nose. “I’m genuinely worried about you, Hayden. More than I probably have a right to be.”
I swallow hard, my voice sharp when I finally find it. “You don’t get to do this.”
Porter tilts his head. “Do what?”
My eyes snap to his, unruly shadows sputtering at my feet. “Pretend you suddenly care. Like you and Zane didn’t spend lifetimes proving how easy it is to forget me. To move on. To live your bright little mortal lives while I kept drowning in the dark.”
My brother’s jaw tightens but I don’t stop.
“Where was this brotherly love when I lived in this isolation, chasing a solution to a disaster that wasn’t even of my making?”
My breath comes harder now, my hands clenched into fists.
Porter doesn’t flinch, but his voice shakes slightly, honest in a way that disarms every defense I’ve ever built. “You’re right, Hayden. We failed you. I failed you.”
I blink, momentarily stripped of my anger by the raw sincerity of his admission.
I narrow my eyes. “What?”
Porter sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I said you’re right. We left. We didn’t check in. We didn’t fight for a way back. Because unlike you,” he says, taking a deliberate step forward, “we moved on. Moving on was easier than looking back. But that doesn’t make it right.”
I grit my teeth, starting to turn away because I’ve carried their absence like proof. Proof that even gods can fade if no one remembers them.
But he doesn’t let me.
“That was selfish, Hayden. We should’ve been here for youmore.” He catches my shoulder, steady. I hate that it steadies me. “But we’re here now,” he says, moving his hand from my shoulder to my face. “And yeah, maybe that doesn’t mean shit to you right now, but it’s the truth.”
Silence hangs between us, thick and suffocating.
I go to turn back to my work but Porter won’t let me, his pale blue eyes pouring into mine. “Have you ever considered,” he says softly, almost carefully, “that maybe what’s eating you alive right now isn’t about the Fates at all? Maybe you’ve been fighting to go back for so long you forgot to ask if it’s even what you want. Maybe it’s about finally admitting what you do. Want is not betrayal, Hayden. It’s direction.”
I freeze.
Because that’s the thought that’s been slithering at the edges of my mind, the one I’ve been shoving down, refusing to acknowledge.
And here Porter is dragging it into the light.
He pulls me into a hug and I want to resist. I want to keep the distance that’s grown familiar between us all these years. To stick with the status quo.
But I’m incapable of doing that anymore.
