Page 89 of Harbor

“I’m fine, though.”

“Now,” Jordyn said sharply.

Both of her mother’s hands came up then to grab Lucia on each side of her face to hold tight. It forced her to look her mother right in the eyes—there was no looking away. She could see the tears shining back, and her own unfeeling expression reflecting in her mother’s wet irises. Lucia couldn’t help but suck in a sharp inhale.

Not at how terrified her mother looked, or how tightly Jordyn was holding onto her like she was scared Lucia might bolt again … but because of how unaffected she felt in those moments. Dead, almost. There was a part of her that was missing, now. In her heart, it felt empty. Her soul? Entirely gone.

She couldn’t feel anything.

They took it away.

“Now, baby,” Jordyn repeated. “But you might not have been. Don’t you understand that?”

Lucia shook her head, but said nothing. Jordyn finally let her go, and like she was defeated, took a step back from Lucia. She might have been grateful for the distance, but she couldn’t focus on it long enough to feel anything but contempt as her father finally glanced her way. Since she stepped up on the porch, the only thing her father had done was stay quiet and look out over the driveway.

Into the darkness.

The void.

Now, he was looking at her.

“For what, Lucia?” he asked softly. “You did this for what—a man? All for him, hmm?”

“I—”

“For a man who will spend the unforeseeable future stuck in a prison cell,” her father continued like she hadn’t tried to talk at all. “That’s what you did this for. And you have the nerve to stand there without an explanation or an apology for your mother. Fuck me—I don’t need anything. But you don’t even have anything for her, Lucia. But that’s what you did all of this for—a man who is destined for a prison cell. How does that feel?”

If she felt cold, then her father was ice.

Lucia’s heart crumbled, sure, but not for her father.

Only for Ren.

Instead of replying to Lucian—he didn’t really want a response, anyway—Lucia headed past her parents, and disappeared into the house. No one followed behind her. She didn’t stop to take off her shoes, or to appreciate the home that had raised her. She simply navigated familiar halls and stairs until she found the room that no longer truly felt like hers.

She closed the door behind her.

She sat on the floor instead of the bed.

Only then did her heart shatter.

Only then did she cry.

And she broke.

All apart.

Into tiny pieces.

Alone.

Without.

And so empty.

She broke.

• • •