Page 20 of Killing Me Softly

The response came so loaded it made the air go cold.“Kenny, it’s Janna. From the care home.”

Kenny felt the ground shift beneath his feet. “Hey, everything okay?”

Aaron was still standing there in the rain, hands stuffed into his jeans’ pockets, waiting for some cue. A look. A word. Anything. Their eyes met through the glass.

“I’m afraid not, love.”Janna’s voice was gentle, apologetic.“We’ve been calling. Your mother passed away last night.”

The words felt distant. As if spoken from some other reality. The distant hum in his ears faded to nothing. Kenny opened his mouth, but the air caught. His mother.Gone.Just like that.

Aaron tapped the window, concern etched into every line of his face.

Kenny let his head fall back, eyes fixed on the ceiling of the car, as if he could anchor himself there, as ifnot movingwould keep the ground from splitting beneath him as the words settled in his chest like a stone.Gone.The finality sat heavy on his ribcage.

“Fuck,” he whispered, too quiet for anyone but himself. A bitter lump burned in his throat as he realised the line was still live. “Sorry, Janna… I’ll be there in twenty.”

He ended the call with an exhale, bracing himself before winding down the window.

Aaron crouched beside the car, dipping to meet Kenny’s gaze, hair plastered to his forehead in golden strands. The rain streamed down his cheeks, trailing over his jaw like tears. His T-shirt clung to his frame, useless against the relentless downpour. Utterly drenched, and utterly beautiful. A perfect, fragile contrast to the grief hollowing Kenny’s chest.How can you look like that when everything is falling apart?

“You all right?” Aaron’s voice was soft, hesitant.

“No.” Kenny blinked, struggling to tether himself to the moment, to Aaron, instead of the abyss opening up beneath him, but he had to pull himself together to add, “My mum died last night.”

Aaron drew in a sharp breath, his face crumpling with sympathy. “Oh, fuck, Ken—”

“I have to go there now. Sort it out.” Kenny’s words came out too fast, too sharp. They weren’t enough to describe the chaos inside him, the way his thoughts collided without landing.

“Yeah. Okay.” Aaron’s hand reached toward the window, as if he was considering whether to touch Kenny. “Do you want me to—?”

“No.” Kenny shook his head, the word tasting wrong in his mouth. “Fuck. Sorry. Head’s gone.” He forced himself to restart the engine, the hum vibrating through his seat. “I better go.”

Aaron stood, shoulders sagging. “Yeah. Sure.”

But as Aaron straightened, the rain caught him again, soaking into his skin, turning him into something almost unreal. A boy shaped from storm clouds and sorrow. Kenny watched him, torn between staying and driving away. There was so much he wanted to say—don’t go, stay with me, I can’t bear to do this alone—but the words remained strangled in his chest. Instead, he clenched the steering wheel and forced himself to look away.Because if he didn’t, he’d crumble. Today wasn’t for him. It was for what was left of his mother. He couldn’t put Aaron through that.

He’d lost his mother years ago.

If he’d ever really had one at all.

So he pulled out of the parking spot, tyres splashing through shallow puddles, watching Aaron’s figure blur in the rearview mirror, a golden ghost in the rain, standing exactly where he’d left him.

Chapter Six

Heart of Glass

Aaron watched the taillights of Kenny’s car disappear into the gloom, the world constricting around him, darkness pressing in far heavier than the weather. The warm rain had soaked through his clothes, clinging to his skin like the emotions he couldn’t shake.

Fuckingfeelings.

Rationally, he knew this wasn’t about him. He could hear the echo of countless therapy sessions and Kenny’s own patient explanations:You have attachment issues, Aaron. You need to understand that people have lives outside of you.But knowing didn’t dull the ache twisting through his chest. Knowing didn’t stop the surge of old, familiar feelings churning inside him like a storm. Feelings that told him he wasn’t enough.

He’d never be enough.

Not for someone like Kenny.

But that was his pattern, wasn’t it? The fallout of realising the world didn’t revolve around him. That it never revolved aroundhim. Not like how it had used to, and then he had to learn the hard way that people left, sometimes without warning, andthe void they left behind was an abyss he was always teetering on the edge of. But knowing that didn’t make the feeling of abandonment any easier to swallow. If anything, it made it worse. Because he knew the terrain too well.

His thoughts spiralled, picking at the fragile threads of his self-worth. The whispers of his trauma seeped in like poison:He doesn’t want you because you’re not enough. You’re just a nice fuck. A distraction. Someone to pass the time with until he has something real to hold on to.

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