Chapter 131
Kieran's POV
The apartment was cold. Not the kind of cold that came from broken heating—though ours was shit—but the kind that seeped through the walls, through the floorboards, through your skin until it settled in your bones. I sat at the cramped kitchen table with my physics textbook open, but I wasn't really reading. The words blurred together, equations dissolving into meaningless symbols.
That countdown I'd been dreading had finally hit zero. Drake was out. Mom had been acting restless lately. The nervous energy. The way she kept checking her phone. The perfume she'd started wearing again.
Lily was asleep in the room we shared, her breathing soft and even through the thin wall. The TV flickered in the corner, the signal cutting in and out, turning the screen into a mess of static and distorted color. Mom sat on the couch, staring at it like it was showing something other than snow.
Outside, the first flakes had started falling. The weather report said it would keep going until morning.
"I'm going to check the cart," Mom said suddenly, standing up. Her voice had that careful quality it always got when she was lying. "I think I forgot to lock it."
I looked up. She'd already put on her coat—the cheap one with the broken zipper that she always wore when she didn't want to look like she was going anywhere important. She'd sprayed on perfume too, the kind that came in a plastic bottle from CVS. The smell was too strong in the small space.
"It's locked," I said. "I checked it this morning."
"I just want to make sure." She wouldn't look at me. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons on her coat. "The wind's been bad. The tarp might've come loose."
I stared at her, trying to read what was underneath the words. There was something in the way she held herself—shoulders too straight, chin too high, like she was bracing for an argument. Like she'd already decided to do something she knew I wouldn't approve of.
"Mom—"
"I'll be right back." She was already at the door. "Twenty minutes. Keep an eye on Lily."
The door closed behind her with a soft click. Not a slam. That made it worse somehow.
I sat there for a long moment, listening to her footsteps fade down the stairs. The building was old enough that you could hear everything—Mrs. O'Brien's TV through the wall, the couple on the second floor fighting about money, the drunk regulars stumbling out of the Irish pub downstairs. But Mom's footsteps were deliberate, careful. Not the quick, nervous pace of someone checking a lock.
I went back to my textbook. Tried to focus on the problem set Coach Anderson had assigned for the weekend. But my brain kept circling back to the way Mom had avoided my eyes, the perfume, the careful lie. To that countdown that had been ticking in the back of my mind for weeks, and the terrible certainty that it had finally reached its end.
Twenty minutes turned into thirty. Then forty-five.
I got up and went to the window. From here, I could see the cart parked across the street, covered in its blue tarp, snow already starting to accumulate on top. The padlock glinted under the streetlight. Locked. Just like I'd said.
Two years of peace. Two years of not looking over my shoulder every time I heard footsteps behind me. Two years of Lily not flinching at loud noises, of Mom not wearing sunglasses indoors to hide bruises, of being able to sleep without keeping one ear open for the sound of the door opening.
Two years that were about to end.
I grabbed my hoodie off the back of the chair and pulled it on. Checked Lily's room one more time—she was still asleep, clutching the stuffed rabbit Summer had given her, her face peaceful in a way that made my chest hurt. Then I headed downstairs.
The cold hit me as soon as I stepped outside. The snow was falling harder now, fat flakes that melted on contact with the sidewalk but stuck to everything else. I could see Mom's footprints leading away from the cart, down the street toward the corner.
I followed them.
The neighborhood was quiet, most people already inside for the night. The streetlights cast orange pools on the snow, making everything look surreal and disconnected. I kept my hands in my pockets, my breath fogging in front of my face.
The footprints led me around the corner, past the shuttered bodega and the empty bus stop. And then I saw them.
Two figures under the streetlight at the end of the block. One was Mom, her coat pulled tight around her. The other was taller, broader, wearing a jacket that looked too thin for the weather. He had his arms around her from behind, his face buried in her neck.
They were kissing.
I stopped walking. My brain went blank for a second, refusing to process what I was seeing. Then the man turned his head slightly, and I saw his profile—the shape of his jaw, the gray eyes that were too much like mine, the way he held himself like he owned every space he occupied.
Drake.
My father.
Mom must have felt me staring because she jerked away from him, spinning around. Her face went white when she saw me. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Drake turned more slowly, like he had all the time in the world. Snow had settled on his shoulders and in his hair, making him look almost ghostly under the streetlight. When he smiled, it didn't reach his eyes.
"Kieran," he said, like we were running into each other at the grocery store. Like it had been days instead of two years. Like he hadn't spent those two years in prison for putting me in the hospital. "Look at you. You got tall."
I didn't say anything. Couldn't. My right hand had curled into a fist in my pocket, the damaged fingers sending sharp jolts of pain up my arm. I barely felt it.
"Son, don't—" Drake started, taking a step toward me.
"Don't call me that."
My voice came out flat and cold, nothing like the rage burning in my chest. Drake stopped, his smile faltering for just a second before he plastered it back on.
"I know you're angry," he said, spreading his hands in a gesture that was probably meant to look harmless. "I get it. I do. But I just got out, and I didn't have anywhere to go, and I ran into your mom—"
"Ran into her." I looked at Mom. She was crying now, silent tears running down her face. "Is that what happened?"
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked at Drake like he could give her the right answer.
"It's cold out here," Drake said, his voice taking on that reasonable tone I remembered too well. The one he used right before he stopped being reasonable. "Why don't we go inside and talk about this like adults?"
"No."
"Kieran—"
"You're not coming inside." I took a step forward, putting myself between him and the direction of our apartment. "You're not coming anywhere near Lily."
Drake's jaw tightened. "I'm still your father—"
"You're nothing." The words came out sharp enough to cut. "You're a fucking stranger who happens to share my DNA. That's it."