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We stayed for a while longer. Mira brought us drinks—a lavender latte for me that she remembered I used to love, and a black coffee for Harry because she’d taken one look at him and somehow known. She asked about Montana and what I was studying at Clark Fork University, and I answered without holding back because downplaying my life to Mira felt impossible.

Every so often she’d get pulled away to help the barista, and she’d squeeze my hand before she left like she was afraid I’d disappear while her back was turned. I couldn’t blame her. I’d disappeared on her once already.

Harry was quiet through most of it, but never once seemed bored or like he wanted to leave. He’d ask questions every so often, but mostly he just let Mira and me catch up. But even when he wasn’t talking, his presence was always felt. He didn’t try to fill the space—just existed in it beside me like something solid I could anchor to, and I didn’t have to pretend to be okay because he already knew I wasn’t.

After a few hours of catching up, I hit a wall. I didn’t know how else to describe it—one second I was fine, and then I took a breath and I knew if I stayed much longer, I was going to unravel. When there was a natural lull in our conversation, I told Mira we needed to head back home, even though home was the last place I wanted to go.

“You have to come back before you head back to Montana,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “Promise me, Sam. I’m not…” She pressed her lips together, and for the first time since we’d arrived, her composure cracked. “I don’t want to lose you again. Not after today.”

I opened my mouth to say something noncommittal, but the words died in my throat. Because this was Mira, who had loved my brother with her whole heart and yet she didn’t blame me for his death—she’d made that crystal clear.

“I promise,” I said, and meant it. No matter what, I’d come back and visit her before we left.

She hugged me again at the door, tighter than the first time, and whispered something in my ear that I’d carry with me for the rest of my life. “He’d be so proud of you.”

Tears gathered in my eyes as I squeezed her back, my throat too tight with emotions to say anything else. But when we pulled apart, she could see the gratitude in my eyes.

When Harry and I stepped outside, I took a long pull of the cold Seattle air. It was warmer here than in Montana, and the air didn’t feel quite as clean and crisp as in Dunridge, but it was enough to help clear the emotions that had clogged my throat.

We walked in silence for a few blocks. I didn’t really have a destination in mind, but Harry matched my pace without question, his presence once again solid and grounding beside me. My gaze scanned the area, and I quickly realized we were nearing one of my favorite parks when I was a kid. There weren’t any people here right now—probably too cold and the weather looked ominous like it was about to rain—but that worked just fine for me. There was a bench that overlooked a stretch of empty grass and I sat down. Harry sat beside me, resting his arm along the back of the bench behind me.

For a few minutes, neither of us said anything. Then I leaned sideways until my head rested against his shoulder, and his arm wrapped around me instead of resting on the bench. He was warm despite the cold, and so solid despite everything in my world feeling like it was made of sand.

And God, it felt so good to just be for a minute. To not have to perform or deflect or pretend I was fine.

I’d gotten good at it, but it didn’t mean it was never exhausting.

It had been a long time since I’d been able to just exist next to someone who didn’t need me to be anything other than what I was right now.

Even if right now I felt like a mess.

The thing about carrying a secret for five years is that it becomes part of you. It fuses to your bones and wraps around your organs until you forget where the secret ends and you begin. Telling the secret feels less like sharing information and more like peeling your own skin back and showing someone what’s underneath.

But Harry had walked into my family’s house without blinking. He’d held me in an alley while I fell apart. He’d sat across from Mira and been exactly what I’d needed without me having to ask. He’d done all of that without knowing why everything was such a disaster.

He deserved to know. And more than that, I wanted him to know. I was so tired of carrying this alone.

“I started figure skating when I was four,” I said, figuring I should start at the very beginning so he could truly understand the weight of it all.

Harry turned his head, his gaze burning into the side of my face, but I couldn’t look at him if I was going to get all this out.

“I was good.” I huffed a hollow laugh. “Like, really good. I’m not saying that to brag—it’s just a fact. By the time I was twelve, my coaches were talking about me going to the Olympics someday like it was a real possibility, not just a pipe dream. Junior Grand Prix, qualifying events, the whole track, and I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything.”

The memories I’d kept buried rushed in—the cold bite of rink air, the sound of blades on ice, the feeling of leaving the ground in a triple lutz and hanging suspended for one perfect, weightless moment before landing clean. The roar of a crowd. The weight of a medal around my neck. God, I’d lived for those moments.

“Bryce was two years older than me,” I continued, and my voice wavered on his name but I pressed on. “He was my biggest cheerleader and came to almost every competition. He’d sit in the stands with this ridiculous homemade sign—” I had to stop and swallow hard. “He’d scream so loud that my coaches used to joke they could hear him over the music.”

Harry’s thumb rubbed circles along my arm as I took a breath, fighting against the urge to stop talking. I had to get this out.

“There was a competition I wanted to go to.” My voice dropped. “I was seventeen. It was a crucial event for Olympic qualifying and I needed to be there. But there was a bad storm rolling in, and my parents wanted me to pull out because they didn’t think it was s-safe.” My throat nearly closed as I stuttered out the last word, staring at the grass in front of us and remembering the fight I’d had with them like it was yesterday.

It’s not safe, Samantha. There will be other competitions. My parents had been dead set, despite even my coach telling them this competition could be the difference in whether or not I qualified for the Olympics. I’d been seventeen, stubborn, and so goddamn sure I was invincible and that they were just trying to ruin my life.

“Bryce offered to drive me,” I choked out, pushing through the emotions building in my throat and the tears burning in my eyes. “I’d threatened to go alone if no one would take me, because that’s the kind of selfish teenager I was. So Bryce said he’d do it. My parents didn’t agree, but they caved because…” My voice cracked. “Because Bryce had a way of making everyone feel like things would be okay. Like if he said it would be fine, it would be fine. And no one, not even my parents, could say no to Bryce. He was the favorite.”

I closed my eyes, grounding myself, focusing on the coldness of the bench beneath me, the warmth radiating from Harry’s body as he held me slightly tighter against him, and the quiet surrounding us. No one was here but us to hear my greatest shame. To hear how I’d ruined everyone’s life and killed my brother.

“I placed first.” The words tasted like ash. “I skated the best program of my life that night. I remember being so happy when they read the scores that I cried. Bryce was in the stands going absolutely insane.” I closed my eyes. “And afterward we drove home.”