Page 14 of Echo’s Secret

“You remember Jack?"

Jack. Tall kid, year younger than Wesley, always getting into fights because he couldn't control his temper.

"The one who punched a counselor?"

"That's him. He aged out a year after I did. I ran into him three years ago. He's married now. Has two kids. Works construction. Coaches Little League."

"Really?"

"Really. He told me getting out of that place was the best thing that ever happened to him. Said it taught him exactly what kind of parent never to be."

I think about that. About turning trauma into purpose. About breaking cycles instead of perpetuating them.

"You remember Sarah?" I ask.

"Girl with the red hair? Quiet?"

"Yeah. I looked her up on social media a few years ago. She's a teacher now. Elementary school. Has this whole Facebook page full of pictures of her classroom and her students. She looks happy."

"Good for her."

We fall quiet again. Outside the room, I can hear voices, the women planning, the men talking. The sounds of people who aren't alone.

"I don't trust easily," I confess. "I don't know how to let people help me. And I'm terrified that if I let myself believe this is real, this second chance or whatever it is, it's going to get ripped away the same way everything else always does."

"I know."

"But Theo needs the surgery. And I'm out of options. So, I'm going to stay, and I'm going to let you help, and I'm going to try really hard not to sabotage this before it even starts."

"That's all I'm asking."

"Do you ever think about what would have happened if they hadn't moved me?" I ask. "If we'd stayed at Sacred Heart together?"

"Sometimes."

"What do you think?"

He considers the question. "I think we would have aged out together. Probably would have tried to make it work in the real world. Would have failed because we were eighteen, broken and had no idea how to be in a relationship."

"That's depressing."

"It's realistic. We needed time to figure out who we were separately before we could figure out who we were together." He pauses. "If we're going to be together at all."

"Do you want that?" I ask. "To be together?"

"Do you?" He shoots back.

I don't have an answer to that. Don't know what I want, what I can handle, or what's fair to any of us—me, Wesley, Theo.

"Can we just be parents first?" I ask. "And figure out the rest later?"

"Yeah. We can do that."

The pressure of having to define what we are to each other lifts slightly. Theo stirs on the bed above us. Makes a soft sound but doesn't wake. Wesley looks up at him, expression softening in a way I've never seen before.

"He really does have your eyes," I say.

"I know. It's weird."