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“We didn’t tell anyone,” I said over Mom before she started on how she didn’t know. “She didn’t want anyone to know. She said… she said it’d be the only time we had alone before everyone wanted a part of our kid—being a Byrne and all that. She wanted a bubble. She needed the fucking bubble. So, I gave it to her. The cold season made it easy to hide. We built a nursery, we picked out a name, and we made plans. We fell into this… ridiculously fake routine where we pretended everything was okay as if my entire life wasn’t fucking falling apart outside our fucking front door.
“I couldn’t…” My voice caught in my throat. That familiar burning anger ebbed through my veins. Every time I thought about the fucking spiral, it crept up on me. I cracked my knuckles and shifted in my chair, needing to do something with the restlessness. “I couldn’t tell the truth. Nothing on God’s green earth could make me do that to her, but what the fuck was I supposed to do? I couldn’t get a job anywhere around Cedar Harbor, so how the hell was I supposed to take care of my wife and kid? Genevieve wouldn’t fucking entertain the thought of leaving. That was our home. We fought all the time. My drunk ass picked fights. I was… angry doesn’t feel like the right word.”
Running my hands over my face, I leaned forward in my chair. I was fucking exhausted. And what came next… fuck, I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to fucking talk about it.
“Killian, what happened?” Mom reached for me, but I pulled away.
“Please, don’t,” I replied, my voice breaking. “She was twenty-five weeks when… fuck.”
I got to my feet, unable to sit still any longer—not with Mom looking at me the way she was. Instead, I paced. It was about the only damn thing I could do.
“Killian, you don’t have to,” Mom said. The gentleness in her voice was nauseating. I didn’t fucking deserve it. Not after what I’d done.
“Genvieve wasn’t feeling good, and I felt like shit that night after drinking too much, so we went to bed earlier than usual. If anything, she said she’d call Charlotte in the morning, but then… she… she woke up in the middle of the night, bleeding. I was still fucking drunk, but I managed to get her into the car and drove her to the hospital. They said… they said…” I couldn’t say the fucking words. My throat clogged with emotion, and my eyes burned. Would this ever get easier? Unsteady waves rolled through me, dragging me right back down—not that I had far to go. “I just…. I just…”
I couldn’t fucking look at them. I didn’t want to see the looks on their faces. Pity. I couldn’t handle the fucking pity.
“I just…”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Mom rushed to say and hurried out of her chair. She intercepted my pacing and took my face in her hands. The tears started up again, and, even as I tried to push her away, she remained close.
“I can’t…”
“You don’t have to say anything, baby boy,” she said, her voice breaking. “I know. We know. You don’t have to say a word.”
“I left her,” I sobbed. “I just… I left her. I just…. I left her there. I just couldn’t… I couldn’t take it anymore. He was my son too, and I just… all I could think was what they’d say I did to her… to him. I just fucking broke. I didn’t have anything left to fucking give, so I walked away. I shouldn’t have walked away, but I just… I wasn’t strong enough.”
“No, Killian,” Mom replied. “It’s not about strength—”
“It is.” I pulled away and dropped back into my chair, burying my face in my hands. Hiding was so much fucking easier than facing them. I took a few deep breaths before forcing myself to continue. “I left her there to go drink. I blacked out and ended up in Iron Falls. I just… stayed. I didn’t know what the fuck to do. I just wanted to fucking drown.”
Drowning wasn’t a good enough word for what I wanted. I was fucking destroyed—broken in pieces I had no hope of fucking picking up.
“On the first anniversary, I just… I quit. I just quit fucking trying. Everything hurt, and I was so fucking tired of hurting…” I rubbed my eyes with my sleeve, but the tears wouldn’t fucking stop. It was like fucking floodgates had been blown apart. I had no fucking hope of getting my shit together. “I tried to kill myself.”
“Killian—”
“I just couldn’t fucking do it, Mom,” I said over her. I knew she’d be disappointed—why wouldn’t she—but she had to hear it. She had to. “I agreed to go into a psychiatric facility as long as Brady didn’t tell you. I couldn’t do that to you… not after before.”
“What happened before?” Nolan asked. Finn and Lucas echoed the question with him.
“I tried to kill myself when I was sixteen—”
“You were sick,” Finn stated, but I shook my head. At least not sick like that.
“No, I’m bipolar,” I replied, the words damn near sticking in my mouth. I glanced at Mom. “Early onset bipolar type two. That’s why I see David. I was diagnosed two years ago. I take a mood stabilizer and an antidepressant, and I have an anti-anxiety medication if I need it.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me this?” Mom asked. “I could’ve helped, Killian.”
“I didn’t want you to stop loving me,” I answered pathetically.
“Oh, baby boy, no, no, no.” She knelt and dragged my hands from my face, holding them tight. That pity on her face? I couldn’t handle that pity. “That’s not how that works, Killian. I’d never stop loving you because you’re struggling.”
“It’s so much more than fucking struggling… I just… I get inside my fucking head and I… I sink…. I don’t know how to…. I don’t… I’m just so fucking tired of feeling like this.” I broke down, a sob clawing its way out of my fucking chest.
A strong arm snaked around my shoulders and held me tight. Declan pressed his forehead to the back of my head as I latched onto his forearm. I squeezed my eyes shut as chairs scraped on the hardwood. I had no clue who was who, but I felt them—hands on my shoulders and my arms offering unspoken support.
It fucking shattered me.
