“For what?” I asked, my voice rising. “To take something that isn’t yours?”
He flinched, then steadied himself.
“Your mother wants you to apologize.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“For what?”
“For calling the police,” he said. “For creating this spectacle.”
I laughed—a sharp, humorless sound.
“They brought a moving truck to my doorstep. That was the spectacle.”
He looked at me for a long moment. Something in his eyes softened unexpectedly, something like exhaustion, like defeat.
“I don’t know how we got here,” he said.
“I do,” I replied. “It’s been like this my whole life. You just didn’t notice.”
He swallowed but didn’t argue.
We stood there quietly as the wind rustled through the pines.
He finally pulled away.
“Your mother will reach out again.”
“I don’t want her to,” I said.
“She will anyway.”
I nodded.
“Then I’ll be ready.”
He turned toward his truck, paused.
“I never wanted this to turn ugly,” he said.
“It didn’t have to,” I replied softly.
He opened the truck door, hesitated one last time, then got inside and drove away.
I stood on the porch long after his taillights disappeared into the tree line. The cold seeped through my clothes, but I didn’t move.
Not until the stars came out.