Hestopped speaking?
Recognizing the confusion in my pause, he nods. “Not a word left my lips. You want to know why?”
His image is distorted by my tears.
“Because having a voice makes you vulnerable.Wordsmake you vulnerable.”
I shake my head. “No…”
“So I didn’t use them,” he concludes. “For fifteen years.”
Fifteen years?Suddenly, the sky feels too low. The stars too bright.
“I didn’t know,” I say quietly through my fingers.
“Youbrokeme,” he says finally, and my heart cracks. “My brothers had to live with that for most of their lives. And you’restanding here asking why I didn’t take you to a family wedding?”
More tears slide from my eyes as my whole world bottoms out. I’m not a bad person. I never set out to harm anyone. It’s against my very nature to inflict pain. I’ve spent my whole adult life trying totake awaypain. Which is why, now, I can only speak my truth.
“I had to,” I whisper.
He spears me with a resigned look, like he expected an excuse.
“It washim,” I plead. “Callum. He would threaten to do things to me if… if I didn’t do things for him.”
His jaw ticks and he regards me. “What kind of things?”
I breathe deeply. “I don’t remember a lot.”
He begins to roll his eyes.
“It’s only now you’ve described a specific event that the memory has returned,” I say, hoping he can understand.
“Go on.” The muscle jumps in his jaw as he grinds his back teeth.
“He would tell me to seek out the kids whose fathers were in the mob. I had to watch them, follow them, report back to him everything I heard and saw.”
“You didn’t watch me. I’d have noticed.”
His expression backs up every word.
“Because Ialwayswatched you.”
“I—” I want to argue but I can’t.
“You didn’t watch me because you didn’t know I existed, did you?”
There’s nothing I can say to that, because it’s true. No one ever paid attention to the quiet boy at the back of the classroom. More fool all of us.
“I’m sorry, Fiero. I’m sorry. Please… can you forgive me?”
His eyes flash and his voice cracks like thunder. “Can I forgive you?”
He flings an arm toward the club, a symbol for everything he’s achieved despite what I did.
“I became a fuckingMUTEbecause of you! And you’re asking forforgiveness?”
“Yes,” I cry. “You’ve been able to get past it this last month…”
