Page 114 of Carrick
He was still, but his eyes—his eyes burned with something I couldn’t name.
“I didn’t know if he was okay. If he was safe. If he remembered me. I used to lay awake at night imagining every terrible thing that could’ve happened to him. And then I’d imagine him forgetting my face. Forgetting our secret codes. Our bedtime songs.”
My chest ached.
“Eventually, the system put us back together. Said it was a clerical error that kept us apart that long. Like losing my baby brother was apaperwork issue.”
Carrick exhaled, sharp and quiet.
“I swore I’d never let anyone take him from me again,” I said. “Not social workers. Not teachers. Not cops. No one.”
I paused.
“But he changed. He was never the same after those years. More guarded. More angry. He started rebelling early—skippingschool, picking fights. He hated rules. Hated being told what to do. The only person he’d ever really listen to was me.”
I laughed. Bitter. Hollow. “And even that stopped working when he hit sixteen.”
Carrick leaned forward a little, his expression soft.
“I tried everything. Every resource. Every counselor. But he didn’t want help. He wanted escape. He wanted to belong somewhere, and the kids who offered that fastest were the ones who used him.”
My hand tightened around the edge of the blanket. “He got pulled in deep. Drugs. Petty theft. God, he nearly went to juvie twice before he even graduated. And I kept bailing him out—figuratively and literally—because I knew he was a good kid. I knew the boy who used to make me mud pies and sing me off-key lullabies when I was sick.”
My voice cracked again. “But he got good at lying. Really good. And I got tired. Tired of wondering if I was doing more harm than good by making him stay.” Carrick reached out and took my hand, and I let him.
“Every time I told him to stay clean, stay low, stay out of trouble… I wondered if I was just waiting to bury him.” A tear slipped down my cheek. “And now? I might still have to.”
The words trembled in the air between us. And for the first time since I met Carrick, I didn’t feel like I had to apologize for being too much. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t look away. He just held my hand tighter. Like I’d given him a piece of something sacred, and he knew better than to drop it.
The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was full. Heavy with everything we’d just confessed, everything we couldn’t take back. And maybe that was the strangest part—neither of us wanted to. Because for the first time in a long time, it didn’t feel like I’d over-shared or opened the wrong door. It felt like maybeI’d finally said the right things to the right person at the right time.
Carrick still held my hand. His thumb brushed slow, absent circles across the back of mine. No rush. No expectation. Just grounding. I couldn’t remember the last time someone touched me like that. With no agenda. No edge. Just… care.
I let my eyes close for a moment and breathed in deep. His cabin smelled like sawdust, old books, and whatever soap he used—something dark and clean, like cedar and wind. I didn’t want to move.
When I opened my eyes again, he was still watching me. Not studying. Just seeing.
“I don’t talk about any of that,” I said quietly.
“I know.”
“So why did I?”
He was quiet for a second, then he spoke softly. “Because I didn’t look away.”
Something in my chest folded, gentle and sharp all at once. I dropped my gaze to our joined hands. “I’ve spent so long trying to hold it together for other people. For Rayden. For the people who didn’t see the cracks. Sometimes I forget how heavy it’s gotten.”
Carrick nodded, his voice low. “You’re not the only one carrying too much.”
That landed deeper than I expected.
“Maybe we could learn how to carry some of it together,” I said before I could talk myself out of it.
His head tilted slightly, his expression unreadable—but not cold.
“Even if this isn’t forever,” I added quickly. “Even if this is just until I’m not in danger anymore. I don’t know what happens after. I just… I know that right now, I trust you. More than I probably should.”
He didn’t smile. But his eyes softened. “Then that’s where we start.”
