Page 74 of Freestyle
Her breath catches, not enough to be a gasp, but enough to give him a crack in her armor.
“The social worker’s notes,” he continues. “The ones they thought no one would ever bother to dig up. I hacked into the archives. We—”
“How could you? I didn’t give you permission for that! That’s private information!” she snaps.
“I know.”
“But you did it anyway.” She crosses her arms over her chest defensively.
He nods once. “Yeah. Because we needed to understand. The way you looked at us over the summer? Like you were already bleeding and dared us to make it worse. We had to know where that fire came from, and then we saw his name.”
“Alberto.” She spits it now. No fear, just venom.
I feel my grip on patience fray. “He touched you, Rowyn. Hurt you, and he’s probably still out there thinking he can own you.”
Rowyn’s eyes flicker. Her voice is quieter now, but no less cutting. “So what, this whole time was some twisted savior complex? You playing heroes to fix me?”
“No,” I say. “We’re not here to fix you. We’re here to make sure no one ever breaks you again.”
“Break me the way you both did, you mean?”
It hits like a blade; not wild or angry, but precise. Surgical.
I don’t move. I don’t even try to defend myself.
Because she’s right.
I see Phoenix shift beside me, his jaw tightening like he’s grinding glass between his teeth but I keep my eyes on her, even though I can barely stand what I see reflected back: the version of me only she sees. The boy who threatened, mocked too easily, whose words left marks no one saw.
I want to speak. I want to fix it, but there’s no fixing this. Not with apologies. Not with promises.
So I don’t speak to defend, I speak to bleed.
“You’re right,” I say quietly. “We broke you before anyone else could.”
Rowyn blinks, just once. The air changes. Her armor doesn’t drop, but something in her stutters.
“And maybe we thought if we controlled the damage,” I go on, “if we were the storm, no one else could get close enough to ruin you.”
I shake my head.
“But that doesn’t make it less cruel. We didn’t protect you. We claimed you without ever earning you.”
Phoenix finally steps forward, slow, quiet. His voice is low. “You don’t owe us forgiveness. We’re not here for that.”
I swallow down every instinct that tells me to ask for it anyway.
I meet her gaze.
“We’re just here, and we’re not going anywhere.”
The silence that follows feels less like a pause and more like the eye of a storm.
Then slowly, she lifts her chin.
She just looks at me.
And it’s so much worse.
