Gone. Removed. Ended.
I looked at Vincent.
My throat tightened. I waited for grief. It did not come properly. Only a thin, exhausted sadness for the father Daniel had never been—for the little girl who once wished he would sober up, apologize, and become someone else. That girl deserved to mourn. I did not know how to do it for her.
Vincent stepped closer.
I lifted a hand. “Don’t, I need a moment.”
He stopped.
Thank God. If he had touched me, then I might have leaned into him, and I could not survive knowing that about myself so soon after hearing Daniel was dead.
“You should have told me,” I said. “Before.”
“Maybe.”
“That was one of my terms. Why didn’t you tell me first?”
“Because if I told you, you would have tried to stop me. And then you would have spent the rest of your life hoping for him to return in the way you needed him to.”
I hated Vincent, but I also loved him. No—not love. Not yet. Not that word. But something dark and grateful and horrified had moved inside me, and it wore his shape.
“You don’t get to decide what threats disappear from my life,” I said.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
His voice was quiet. “I know I shouldn’t.”
I looked away toward the window. Rain had begun again, soft and endless against the glass. Daniel was dead. Katherine was dead. My father had become another secret folded inside this apartment, another body between us, another reason the rest of the world would never understand what Vincent and I were becoming.
Then I remembered my mother.
My hand flew to my phone. Vincent watched but did not stop me.
She answered on the third ring, her voice tired and warm.
“Selena?”
The name undid me, and I could not speak.
“Mom,” I said finally.
“What happened?”
Nothing. Everything. He’s gone. You’re safe. I’m sorry I couldn’t make him disappear sooner. I’m sorry someone else did.
“I just wanted to hear your voice,” I said.
After a brief silence, her voice softened. “Are you all right?”
I looked at Vincent. He stood across the room, still as a dark thought—the man who had destroyed everything that threatened me and called it love without ever saying the word.
“No,” I said truthfully. “But I think I will be.”
My mother exhaled quietly. “Come see me tomorrow.”
