The bus engine hums beneath me like a giant, tired heartbeat. Honestly, it matches mine.
I sink into the window seat, forehead against the glass, watching Willowbrook shrink behind us. The pine trees blur into green streaks, the houses into soft shapes, and somewhere in all that, the ghost of the boy I used to be waves a shy goodbye.
I should feel angry. Movies love teaching us that dramatic betrayals deserve dramatic emotions. But my chest feels quiet instead. Like someone finally turned down a radio that had been blasting static for years.
I replay my father's voice. Every confession, every apology, every "I'm sorry you had to pay for my mistakes."
I expected bitterness. Resentment. Something sharp enough to cut through the numbness. But all I feel is a heavy, tired understanding.
He didn't ruin two families on purpose. He didn't mean for any of this to land on me or on Samuel. He was young and stupid and scared, and he was deeply in love. I can't fault him for that without being a hypocrite.
My reflection in the window looks older than last week. Not in a tragic poetic way, just worn in, like a sweater whose shape finally settles.
I think of Samuel.
I wait for the old anger, the defensive tension I always carry around him. But it doesn't show up. Instead, all I feel is a strange, lingering sadness. Not pity. Just sadness for the fact that our lives were tangled together long before either of us knew we were the thread.
He grew up carrying resentment. I grew up carrying confusion. Neither of us deserved the mess.
I pull my hoodie tighter and close my eyes.
New York feels closer now, loud and fast and chaotic. But something in me feels slower. Steadier. Like I can finally breathe around the truth instead of suffocating under guesses.
The bus speeds along the highway. I don't feel like I'm running away; I feel like I'm heading toward something.
⟡ ✧ ⟡
I find Samuel leaning against the wall outside the gym building, scrolling on his phone like he owns the entire campus. He always looks like that. Like the universe should thank him for letting it exist.
The moment he sees me, his eyebrows lift in irritation.
"Oh great," he mutters. "Romeo's looking for attention again. Seems like the rumours weren't enough."
I stop a few feet away. My chest isn't burning. My fists aren't shaking. I'm just tired in a way that feels older than my age.
"I want to talk."
He pockets his phone and crosses his arms. "And I want world peace. We can't all have things."
I ignore it. "Why involve Lena?"
That hits him. His eyes flicker, sharp and quick, before he smothers it.
"Don't pretend you care," he says. "You gave up on her."
"I didn't give up. You know that."
He looks away, jaw tight.
I think he'll stay silent, but something in him deflates. Maybe lying takes too much effort today.
"Fine. At first I did it because it pissed you off."
The words hit harder than I expect, but I don't react.
"You were the golden boy," Samuel says. "You got everything perfect without asking. Loving parents, a supportive girlfriend like Lena… everyone liked you. Everyone rooted for you. And I spent my life being tolerated."
"That's not on me," I say quietly.
"No. It isn't. But you existed. That was enough."
He shifts, restless.
"My father… Daniel… you know what he used to call me?" His voice turns thin. "Maria's debt."
My stomach twists.
"He reminded me every day that he took in another man's son. Every time I messed up. Every time I breathed too loudly. My mother was too busy being broken over someone she lost years ago. And when she couldn't give him another child, I became the heir he hated."
I think of Dad's confession. The regret. The guilt.
Samuel keeps going.
"When I was twelve, I found letters. Heard arguments. I put it all together. I learned who my real father was."
His gaze locks onto mine.
"And I wrote to him. Mark Bennett. Our father."
My breath stutters. "Samuel…"
"I asked him for one meeting. Just one. I told him I didn't want money or a place to stay. I just wanted to see the man who left both of us behind. I just wanted to meet my real Dad for once."
My throat tightens.
"What did he say?"
Samuel scoffs. "Nothing. He never replied."
Dad must have gotten that letter around the same time he confessed everything to Mom. That horrible year when their marriage cracked.
"He didn't know how to handle it," I say quietly. "He was a mess then."
"That's supposed to make it better?"
"No. It doesn't. It just explains him."
For a moment, Samuel looks like he might break. Then the armor snaps back into place.
"Well, that's your tragic backstory update. Congratulations. You're fully caught up."
"I didn't come here for that. I want to understand why Lena is part of this."
He hesitates. And the hesitation answers everything.
"At first," he admits, "she was just the easiest way to hurt you. You loved her. She loved you. It was written all over your faces."
He exhales sharply.
"But… I don't know when it changed. I care about her. Actually care."
His voice lowers, raw.
"I can't lose her."
There is something painfully honest in the way he says it.
Then, of course, he ruins it.
"She chose me. That's what you should understand." His voice sharpens, defensive. "No one forced her. She picked me. On her own. She didn't need another boy drowning in emotions. She needed someone who wouldn't fall apart on her."
He says it like it's a knife he's twisting into himself just to prove he can still feel something.
He straightens. "And I'm terrified of losing her. I've lost enough."
"And you don't have to worry," he adds sharply. "I don't need to ruin your life anymore."
I wait.
He leans in slightly.
"I already took the only thing you cared about. She chose me, Ashton." His smile is thin. "So now we're even."
Once, those words would have cut me open. Now they just feel sad.
I look at him, really look, and I only see a boy full of fractures. A boy raised on resentment and silence. A boy who thinks taking someone's happiness will fill his own emptiness.
I surprise myself when I say, "I don't hate you."
He freezes. The words land harder than anything I could have yelled.
"Good for you, because you of course can't handle messing with me." he mutters, although his voice wavers.
I step back, feeling something shift inside me.
I walk out of the courtyard feeling like someone wrung out every emotion and left whatever was left of me to wander on autopilot.
Samuel's last words echo in my mind.
"She chose me. On her own."
He said it so confidently. Almost proudly. Like he needed me to know he didn't manipulate her, that she really made that choice.
Maybe that should hurt more than everything else.
I shove my hands into my pockets. The campus feels loud today. Students laughing, music playing from a window, people arguing over exam results.
Life keeps moving. My world tilts, but everything else stays upright.
Samuel isn't behind me. Lena isn't beside me. And I am drifting through noise that doesn't feel like mine.
My steps are uneven. My thoughts are heavy.
I expected rage. I expected to want to scream or hit something. I expected all the old patterns, the humiliation, the jealousy, the bitterness.
Instead, something else sits in my chest.
I stop near the fountain and let the spray hit my face. It feels easier to pretend it is water and not everything I have been holding back.
Samuel saying he loved her. Samuel saying he didn't need to ruin me anymore. Samuel saying she chose him.
I should hate him.
But every time I push for that anger, I see him at twelve. A kid writing a letter to a father who never came. A kid who grew up in a house where he was either a mistake or a memory. A kid with the same brittle loneliness I see in Josh sometimes.
I want to smack myself for even making that comparison.
I start walking again, faster, as if speed will untangle the thoughts. It doesn't.
One stays.
Am I seeing him the way I see Josh?
I groan and drag a hand down my face.
"That's stupid," I mutter. "He's not your brother. Not in any real sense. He's Samuel. He's… Samuel."
The boy who tormented me. The boy who dated Lena to spite me. The boy who tried to ruin me.
And yet…
I can't shake the idea that some small part of me softened because of the blood we share, and the fact that as a kid I always wished I had an older brother.
I reach the building door and rest my forehead against it.
"God, Ashton," I whisper. "You're losing it."