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Eilish stirs next to me. Slowly, she disentangles herself and sits up in bed, hugging her knees.
Her shoulders shudder with a heavy breath, and I frown.
“Eilish—”
“He killed my mother.”
I sit up.
“My dad, I mean,” Eilish says quietly. “She died young. Neve and I were only eleven and nine. And we were always told it was just one of those random things. A brain aneurysm. But I found out later she knew he’d been cheating on her, for years and years. She was going to leave him, with Neve and I…”
She turns her face just enough for the moonlight to glint off the pained look etched into her face and clamped jaw.
“…So he killed her.”
Her voice is leaden, her body stiff and clenched.
“He injected an air bubble into her bloodstream, which popped in her brain.” She turns her head a little more, the green in her eyes glinting like venom as she looks at me. “That’s why I did what I did that night. What you saw…” Her eyes shut as she shakes her head at the memory. “I just… I wanted him to die.”
She shudders, drops her head, and looks away.
“Does that make me a terrible person?”
“No.”
I know this kind of pain and regret. And I know it doesn’t always get better from physical touch or closeness. But just the same, I’m incapable of seeing her like this without doing something. I reach for her, just lightly putting my hand on her back and rubbing. Her muscles unbunch a little, and she melts back against my hand.
“No, it doesn’t,” I repeat quietly.
“Neve doesn’t know. I mean, neither of us were close with him at all. But she doesn’t know about any of it. The cheating, or—”
She stiffens again before she turns to look at me with a haunted expression in her eyes.
“Gavan…” she swallows. I can see the question in her eyes before she even asks it.
“Did my father kill yours?”
Her voice is frail and so fucking tiny when it croaks out that I almost want to lie to her.
But I can’t.
“Yes.”
Her whole body crumbles in on itself, her face falling, a haunted look in her eyes.
“Oh my God, Gavan…”
“They met alone in a warehouse in Queens. I have no fucking idea why,” I growl, feeling like my voice is coming from somewhere outside my body. “And I don’t know what about, but they argued. Then Declan pulled a gun and shot him.”
She starts to cry, taking my hand in hers as we both sit there cross-legged on the bed.
“He called me,” I choke. “I drove faster than I’ve ever driven in my entire life, and I got to him, but it was too late.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “He died in my arms.”
Tears roll down her cheeks as she reaches for mine, touching my face with so much anguish in her eyes that it breaks my heart.
“Why…” she keeps her face turned away from me. “Why didn’t you slaughter my family for what my father did?”
A wry smile twists my lips.
