Page 55 of Midnight Between Us
He lifts his head when I approach him, but doesn’t say a word.I hand him the mug.
“After all these years, you still think hot drinks cure everything,” he scoffs.
“Not everything.It helps the soul,” I clarify.“My great-grandma used to say that when I was young.It was probably the first time they—my grandparents—took me away from Nina.Is it silly to say that I still miss her?”
He shakes his head.“She was the only adult who was kind to you while growing up.”
“You mean she didn’t use me as a chess piece to fuck with my mother?”
He flinches.
My grandparents had a great deal of fun doing just that.If Nina did something wrong, they would claim her unfit, force child protective services to take me away from her, and wouldn’t let me go back to Mom until she behaved.They had too much power over the people because Grandpa was besties with God.When I was thirteen, Mom said, “you can keep her; I don’t want her anymore.”Then she disappeared.
“I’m sorry the adults around you never stop to think about your feelings,” he states as if he is talking to that girl and not me, adult Simone.
My mouth goes dry.I want to lie, tell him it never mattered, that they never hurt me.But every time I was moved from one house to another, my heart fractured a little.
Keir finally takes a sip from his tea and he grimaces.“Still tastes like dirt.”
“Still whines like a five-year-old,” I shoot back.
His laugh is quiet.A little broken around the edges.
It’s the first one I’ve heard since we arrived at this house six weeks ago.
We sit like that.Tea cooling between us.The lake outside the window is nothing more than a shimmer of ink and moonlight.
After a while, he speaks again.“I’m sorry.”
I wave a hand as if it doesn’t matter that my family was shitty.Seriously, it’s in the past.I made peace with it.It probably happened when I found Nina happy having the life she couldn’t because her parents dictated every part of her life and she wouldn’t put up with it.She has a home now.A family she loves.And I get it—I understand her choice.
My grandparents ...they retired, and even when I don’t like them, I help cover some of their monthly expenses.They’re family, and if there’s something I learned almost twenty years ago from the people who helped me start a new life, it’s that you don’t leave family stranded.
“It’s okay.My family had issues but I want to believe I learned and I’m a better person for that.”
“No, I meant I’m sorry for hurting you.I’m sorry for leaving the way I did and for?—”
“Stop,” I say.Because if he apologizes now—really apologizes—it’s going to crack something in me I’ve spent years stitching closed.
This would require a visit to my therapist, and that’s impossible.She’s not in this state and wouldn’t take a video conference because her license isn’t valid in Vermont.
“I need you to stop.My job is to care for you and shelter you until they decide it is safe.I’m not going to entertain your ...whatever you’re trying to do, stop it.”
“But—”
“No, Keir.You can’t do this.”
His eyes find mine.They look older than they should—tired, bruised by memories.
“I hurt you.”
I can’t answer.I look away instead, jaw tight, hands wrapped too tightly around the mugs.
“You loved me,” he says, and it cuts deeper than it should—silent, surgical, slicing through the part of me I swore I’d buried, and now it bleeds like it never healed at all.
And what he really meant to say is, “You love me, but I didn’t ...he never did.”
“Don’t do this,” I whisper, voice thinning.“Not tonight.”
