Page 84 of Crown of Thorns
Somewhere along the way, I cut my hand.
Blood drips down my wrist.
I stumble back from the wall, vision blurring. I grip my glasses. I am still here.
My phone buzzes.
Love of your life: Are you already at the shed? I’ll make us coffee. On my way.
Goddamn him. He changed his name in my phone again.
I laugh.
The laugh dissolves into something like a sob.
I look around, and the weight of it hits me.
Photos everywhere. Childhood on display. A shrine to a boy I barely remember, to moments frozen in time while everything else collapsed.
“No one needed to see this,” I mutter, voice rough. “Least of all me.”
I grab a stack. Birthday parties. Field trips. Grainy Polaroids. One of me and my granddad walking in the woods. His hand on my shoulder, mine clutching a stick like a sword. I was smiling.
He used to take me out here.
It was his refuge.
Now it’s my reckoning.
Why did he keep these?
Was he trying to remember me? Or remind me of who I used to be?
I want to scream. I want it to stop hurting. I want to burn the whole fucking place down just to feel in control of what I’ve already lost.
I swipe my arm across the table, sending the photos crashing to the floor. Glass shatters. Memories scatter.
Then I kneel.
Start picking them up. Slowly. Carefully.
He can’t see this. Louis. He’ll ask questions.
And I don’t have the answers. Not yet.
A crunch behind me.
“Noah?”
Louis steps into the doorway, two steaming coffees in hand. He walks in like he owns the air I breathe. Kisses me on the mouth like we’re already in love. Like this is normal.
He walks into the shed and lets out a low whistle.
“Holy shit. Is that your family? ‘Noah, eight years.’ ‘Noah, eleven.’ Damn…”
He trails off when he sees the knife. The blood.
“Jesus, baby, what the hell? You bleeding on my floor now?”
