Page 19 of Connor

Quinn:You could’ve gone anywhere else, Summer. Why the hell did you choose the college I’m going to?

Chapter 5

Connor

Laughter filled the apartment—soft, warm, familiar. It curled around the edges of the room, seeping into the walls, sinking into the furniture. If I closed my eyes, I could almost pretend things were normal. Almost.

Aiden sat across from Mom, legs stretched out, his cane balanced against the coffee table. He was shaking his head at something she said, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. She was laughing—really laughing. The kind that made her eyes crinkle.

I watched them from the hallway with hands balled into fists at my sides. Mom’s sweater sleeve slid up as she reached for her glass of wine, exposing the dark stain blooming across her forearm. A perfect imprint of Dad’s fingers, like he’d branded her.

My stomach twisted. I swallowed, forcing down the bile creeping up my throat.

Aiden saw it too. His gaze flicked to the bruise, his smile faltering for half a second before he forced it back into place, keeping the moment intact. But I caught it.

We weren’t going to talk about it.

Because we never did.

I ran my tongue along my teeth, jaw tight. One week. That’s how long I’d been here, sleeping on Aiden’s couch, pretending like I wasn’t suffocating under the weight of it all. I should have been grateful. He let me crash without asking for anything in return. But every time I stepped through that door, I felt the walls pressing in on me, felt the silence creeping in through the cracks.

Felt the fucking lie we were all living.

Mom caught me staring. Her laughter softened, then faded, replaced by something unreadable. She pulled her sleeve down over the bruise like that would make a difference, like it would erase the fact that I had already seen it.

“Connor.” Her voice was too gentle. “Come sit with us.”

I couldn’t.

Not when I knew exactly where that bruise had come from. Not when I could still hear my father’s voice in my head, cutting through the phone call that had ended with me slamming my fist into the wall.

She had told me she fell.

Like that made it better.

Like I hadn’t heard her voice tremble when she said it.

“I’m heading out.”

Aiden’s brow lifted slightly, but he didn’t say anything. He just leaned back into the couch, twirling the stem of his glass between his fingers, waiting for me to get to the part where I told him where I was going.

I wasn’t going to.

Mom frowned. “Connor, it’s late.”

I forced a smile. “That ever stop me before?”

Aiden sighed, shaking his head like he was already tired of this conversation. Maybe he was.

Maybe I was too.

Mom hesitated, like she was debating whether or not to insist, but I could see the answer written in the bruises she was trying to hide. She wasn’t going to fight me on this. She never fought anyone on anything.

I grabbed my jacket from the hook near the door. “Don’t wait up.”

And before Aiden could tell me how fucking stupid this was, before Mom could try to convince me she was fine—I walked out, pulling my keys out of my back pocket as I headed to my car.

I slid behind the wheel of my car. I barely registered the action of turning the key in the ignition, didn’t notice the engine's hum as it roared to life.

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