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“Good. Good. I’m glad. Because that means I played the game right.” Tyler offered a grim grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “High school hero. Big man. What a joke. My therapist said I probably just shut down. Dr. Bailey, I mean.”

“You were just a kid, Tyler.” Josh pulled him closer, holding him carefully and stroking his hair. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said firmly.

“I almost killed him. True story. Bare hands and a belt.”

Josh didn’t react. Maybe he didn’t know how to react.

Tyler took a deep, shaky breath. “One night when I was twelve, he was worse than ever. He had Mom cornered, hitting her again and again while he foamed at the mouth. I just… lost it. Completely lost control. He raised his arm, I caught the belt he was swinging at my mom, and I took it away. Zip. He hadn’t noticed how big I’d gotten. I hadn’t even noticed, I think, until I caught the strap in my fist and just yanked it out of his hands. He turned, shouting ugly crap, and I started hitting him back, with the buckle end. And I meant it. I beat him and beat him until he fell down with blood running into his eyes, until he begged. Then I threw that evil bastard out into the street. I thought I was protecting us, but….”

The room felt dead silent, as though even the moon had stopped rising. Josh’s face was wet too.

Tyler’s voice broke. “He left two days later. Emptied the accounts, smashed the house up, and abandoned us. And Mom, she… she was never the same. We don’t even know if he’s still alive. I assume, but….” He shrugged. “It broke her heart, him walking out. I thought I was saving her, but I just destroyed our family.”

“That’s not true.”

Tyler finally met Josh’s calm eyes, tears streaking his cheeks. “I’m like him, you see. You must think I’m a monster too. But I promise, I just—”

“No,” Josh said firmly. He cupped Tyler’s face in his hands. “You listen. Tyler, look at me. Do you know how young twelve is? You were a little kid. What you did was impossible. You stopped him from hurting people you loved. Your father was the monster, not you.”

“I never wanted to hurt anyone. I think about that belt all the time.” Tyler twisted his fingers together to stop the shaking.

Josh nodded. “Violence. That’s what you meant, before. If you could have talked to someone like Dr. Bailey back then, it might have helped you deal with it.”

“Sucks.” Tyler took a shaky breath, composing himself. “I always figured football would be my ticket out. A chance to do right by my mom and Nadia. A way to prove I wasn’t like that son of a bitch, that I could be something good. And it was, for a while. But now….” His face crumpled, and he looked down.

“You’re okay.”

“It’s just slamming people around because I’m so big and nuts. How am I different?” He gestured at his chest, at the heart ticking like a bomb inside him. “It’s wrecking me. So when they want me back out there, it’s not just my heart holding me back. Here I am: thirty-three, busted up, held together by scars. And I can’t help thinking, is this punishment for what I did as a kid? Karma finally catching up.”

“It’s not a trade. You can’t think that way,” Josh said. “You were a kid forced into an impossible choice. No one should have to go through that, especially not alone.”

“Maybe. But I still wonder if just keeping quiet would have been better. She didn’t mind so much. If we’d suffered a little longer, would my father have stayed? Would Mom have been happier?” Tyler’s eyes stung.

“Don’t do that to yourself.” Josh squeezed his hand. “No. You were so young, just defending your family. You can’t blame yourself for any of this.”

“You make it sound noble. All that blood. They had to sew his face back together. It didn’t look noble when I was twelve.”

“What you did was impossible. Brave. At twelve years old I was afraid of changing in the locker room, and you fought an ogre.”

“Maybe.”

How do you lose years of pain and shame?

“You saved them, Tyler. I have never lied to you, and I never will.”

Dim as it was, the bedroom felt too bright. Tyler pressed the heels of his shaking hands into his eyes and let out a sob. “I didn’t know.”

“Don’t. You did know. You knew what was right.” Josh held him as he wept, murmuring at him. “I’d give anything to take all that back, what he did, but you didn’t need me or anyone. You were strong.”

Tyler took a shuddery breath. “So sorry. What a mess.”

“Listen to me. Tyler? I will never, never think less of you for protecting the people you love.” He kissed Tyler carefully, brushing their lips together.

He got so quiet that Tyler finally looked up into his eyes.

“I love you.”

Tyler’s breath hitched. No. You can’t. You shouldn’t.