“And she thought she was doing the right thing. She thought she was keeping Grace safe.”
“I know!” The words exploded out of him, harsh and raw, echoing in the quiet room. “I know all of that. I understand that she was drowning. That she was making impossible choices with no good options. That she was trying to survive in a world that was trying to break her. But understanding doesn’t make it hurt less. Doesn’t make me less angry that she took my daughter from me. Doesn’t give me back those twenty years. And I am fucking angry, Trudy.”
He looked at me, his eyes blazing with an emotion so intense it took my breath away. “I’m fucking furious at Christina. And the fury feels like betrayal because how can I be angry at a woman who suffered so much? How can I be pissed atsomeone who’d been doing the best she could in impossible circumstances? What kind of monster does that make me?”
He stood and began running his hand through his hair, agitated and struggling to contain the fury beneath the surface. The anger radiated off him in waves, making him pace like a caged animal. “The fucking guilt is eating me alive.” His voice was raw, ragged, like he was pulling the words up from somewhere deep inside him that hurt. “I hid her away thinking I was keeping her safe. Instead, she was fucking raped over and over until she was so broken down, until she felt she had no other option than to give her body willingly to men she didn’t want because it was the only way to keep our daughter safe.”
I watched him pace, watched the anger and guilt warring across his face, each emotion fighting for dominance. He stopped suddenly, staring at nothing for a moment, his jaw clenched so tight I thought he might crack a tooth.
“Stephen,” I said softly, my voice cutting through his spiral. “You can be both. You can understand what she went through and still be angry. Those feelings don’t cancel each other out.”
“I don’t fucking want to understand,” he admitted, his voice breaking slightly, the cracks in his armor finally showing. “She ran, Trudy. She took Grace and disappeared without giving me a chance to fix it. Without letting me be there for her, for our daughter. Without trusting me enough to tell me the truth. She made that choice for me. Decided on her own that I couldn’t handle the truth. That I wasn’t strong enough or good enough or worthy enough to be let in.”
He started pacing again, restless and raw, his boots heavy against the floor. “Twenty years, Trudy. Twenty fucking years I can never get back. Her childhood. Her teenage years. Watching her grow up. Teaching her things. Being her dad. All of it gone. All of it taken from me because Christina decided I wasn’t good enough. Wasn’t safe enough.”
He sat back down heavily, the anger draining into exhaustion, leaving him hollow and spent. “I’ve been grieving a woman I never really knew. Built her up in my mind as the love of my life who’d been stolen from me. I’d convinced myself that what we had was real and deep and worth mourning for two decades. That if I’d just been there, if I’d protected her better, if I’d loved her harder, if I’d been more of what she needed, everything would have been different. But maybe it was all a lie. Maybe I was mourning a ghost who never existed.”
“Stephen, you couldn’t have known?—”
“I should have known,” he said bitterly, his voice full of self-recrimination. “I didn’t see any of it because she never let me in. She kept all the important parts of herself locked away.” He rubbed his face, frustrated and defeated. “Maybe that was my fault. Maybe I was too focused on my own shit to really see her. Maybe I wanted her to be soft and quiet and easy because that’s what I needed at the time. A woman who didn’t challenge me. A woman who made me feel like a man because she was weak enough to need my strength. Maybe I didn’t want to see the real her.”
He stood again, moving to the window and staring out at the darkness beyond. “Or maybe she hid it on purpose. Maybe she knew that if I saw the real her, damaged and scared and broken, I wouldn’t have loved her. Maybe she was trying to protect me from the truth the same way she was protecting Grace. Maybe she thought I was too weak to handle it.”
“Sometimes we don’t get the answers we’re looking for,” I said quietly, my own voice thick with emotion. “Sometimes the people we love take their truths to the grave, and we’re left to make peace with that. We’re left with questions that will never be answered and choices we’ll never understand.”
“That’s the worst part,” he said, his voice rough and broken. “The not knowing is what’s killing me. Because how the fuckdo I grieve someone I never truly knew? How do I carry guilt for failing someone who never let me in? How can I be angry at someone who was just trying to survive? How do I forgive someone for taking my daughter away while also understanding why she did it? How do I hold all of that at once without losing my mind?”
He turned back to me, exhaustion and confusion etched into every line of his face, making him look older than his years. “The answer is, I can’t. Not cleanly. Not simply. All I can do is accept that Christina and I were both flawed, broken people trying to survive in a world that didn’t give us many options. That we both made mistakes. That we both hurt each other in ways we can’t ever take back. That love doesn’t always look like we think it should. That sometimes the people we love hurt us in the worst possible ways, even when they’re trying to protect us.”
He sat back down beside me, and I watched the defeat settle into his shoulders, saw the way his whole body seemed to collapse inward. I let the silence settle between us for a moment, heavy and thick. Let him breathe through the anger and the pain. I had learned, in the decades since Terry died, that sometimes the kindest thing you could do for someone was simply witness their grief without trying to fix it. Without offering empty platitudes or easy answers that didn’t really help.
“You’re allowed to be angry,” I said finally, breaking the silence.
He looked at me, surprise flickering across his face, as if he’d expected me to defend Christina or tell him he was wrong to feel what he was feeling.
“You’re allowed to be angry at Christina,” I continued, my voice steady and sure. “Even though she suffered. Even though she was trying to protect Grace. Even though she was doing the best she could. You’re allowed to be hurt and furious that shetook your daughter from you. That she didn’t give you a choice. That she didn’t trust you enough to be honest.”
I watched something crack open in his chest, saw the way his shoulders sagged as if I’d given him permission to feel what he’d been fighting against. As if someone had finally told him it was okay to be human.
“You’re also allowed to grieve for her,” I said gently. “To feel guilty that you weren’t there. To wish you could have saved her. To mourn the woman you thought she was and the life you thought you’d have together. Those things can exist at the same time, Stephen. Anger and grief. Rage and guilt. Love and resentment. They don’t cancel each other out. They’re all just part of loving someone complicated.”
I thought about Terry, about the years I’d spent angry at him for dying and leaving me alone. About how I’d felt guilty for being hurt by a man who’d had no choice in the matter, who hadn’t wanted to leave us. About how I’d eventually learned that love was complicated, that grief was messy, that you could hold a thousand contradictory feelings about someone and all of them could be true. That you could love someone and be angry at them. That you could miss someone and resent them. That being hurt by someone didn’t mean you had to stop loving them.
“I don’t know how to hold all of it,” Stephen said, his voice rough with emotion, vulnerable in a way I’d never heard from him before.
“You don’t have to hold it alone.” I moved closer, my hand finding his again, gripping tight this time so he couldn’t pull away. “That’s what I’m here for. To help you carry it. To hold some of the weight when it gets too heavy.”
He looked at me then, really looked at me, and I saw the moment he understood. This wasn’t just about Christina anymore. This wasn’t just about Grace or Samuel or the past. This was about us. About what we were building together. Aboutthe fact that I wasn’t going anywhere, no matter how messy or complicated or painful things got.
The walls I’d spent six months building, the defenses I’d carefully maintained, the distance I’d insisted on keeping—all of it crumbled in that moment. Because this man, this gruff old biker who’d driven me crazy with his cocky grin and his refusal to take no for an answer, needed me.
And I needed him too. I needed his rough edges and his fierce loyalty and his ability to make me laugh even when I was trying to stay annoyed with him. I needed someone who understood that love was complicated and messy and didn’t always look pretty. Someone who knew that you could be broken and still be worth loving.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Trudy
“Grace knows,” he said quietly, his voice hoarse and strained. “About Samuel. About Caroline. About all of it. Every single detail. I told her today. That’s why I left the bakery without saying anything, without explanation. I had to get to her immediately. Had to know what she knew, what she remembered, if anything, about what Christina had written in her journal. Had to be there when she processed everything.”
