Page 13 of The Promises We Broke
The kindness in her voice, when she had every right to hate me, was almost unbearable.
Their cautious smiles somehow made this harder than if they'd both walked in ready to tear me apart.
"How are you feeling?" Trace asked, settling onto the couch across from me while Delaney chose the chair beside him, one hand resting unconsciously on her rounded belly. "You look pretty banged up."
"I'm... better," I said, still trying to process the surreal normalcy of this conversation. "Billie's been keeping me in line."
"She's good at that," Delaney said with a laugh. "She doesn't let anyone get away with being a difficult patient. Just ask Booker about his physical therapy after the stampede."
They were talking like this was normal. Like I was just another brother who'd been hurt and was recovering, not the person who'd helped orchestrate the worst thing that had ever happened to them.
I could feel my heart racing, the room was starting to close in. I couldn't do this. I couldn't pretend we were a normal family, that I hadn't...
"I need to say something," I said suddenly, the words forcing their way out of my chest. "I need to apologize for..."
"No," Trace interrupted, his voice firm but not unkind. "You don't."
"Yes, I do. What I did to you, to both of you, what I helped Regina..."
"What Regina manipulated you into doing," Delaney said quietly. "Gage, we know the whole story now. We know what she threatened, and most of all we know exactly the person she is. You were seventeen years old and terrified. She was your mother, the one person in this world you should have been able to trust."
"That doesn't excuse..."
"You were a kid," Trace said, leaning forward in his chair. "A scared kid being manipulated by someone who'd had decades of practice destroying people. Do you think I blame you for that?"
"You should," I said desperately. "You should hate me. I cost you ten years with your son. Ten years of his childhood that you can never get back. Birthdays, Christmas mornings, first days of school..."
"Gage." Trace's voice cut through my spiral like a knife. "Look at me."
I forced myself to meet his eyes, expecting to see the anger and blame I knew I deserved. Instead, I saw something that looked almost like pity.
"The person responsible for those lost years is Regina," he said slowly. "Not you. Regina, who threatened to destroy our family if you didn't help her. Regina, who convinced a terrified teenager that the only way to protect the people he loved was to betray them. Regina, who spent years perfecting the art of manipulation and psychological warfare."
"But I still chose..."
"You chose to try to protect your family," Delaney said gently. "You chose to sacrifice your own happiness rather than let her destroy everyone you cared about. Yes, it was the wrong choice, but it was an understandable choice for someone your age in that situation."
I shook my head, unable to accept the forgiveness they were offering so freely. "You don't understand. I knew what I was doing would hurt you. I knew it was wrong, and I did it anyway because I was weak and desperate for Regina's approval."
"You were seventeen," Trace repeated. "Seventeen and trying to survive in a house where love was conditional on meeting impossible standards. Of course you were desperate for approval. Of course you made mistakes."
"This wasn't a mistake," I said, my voice breaking. "This was..."
"This was Regina winning," Trace said, his voice suddenly hard. "This was her getting exactly what she wanted. One of her sons destroying himself with guilt over something she orchestrated. Don't give her that satisfaction, Gage. Don't let her win again."
The room fell silent except for the soft sounds of the house around us. The distant hum of the refrigerator, the tick of the old clock on the mantel. I stared at my hands, trying to process what they were telling me, trying to reconcile their forgiveness with the guilt I'd carried for so long.
"We've been looking for you," Delaney said quietly. "Ever since we learned the truth about what really happened, we've been hoping you'd come home. Not so you could apologize or punish yourself, but so we could tell you we understand. So you could be part of our family again."
"Cade asks about you," Trace added. "He wants to know when he's going to meet his Uncle Gage. He's excited to have more family."
The mention of Cade hit me like a physical blow. This ten-year-old boy who should have grown up with his father, who should have had years of family birthday parties and bedtime stories and baseball games, backyard cookouts, summer days on the ranch. How could he be excited to meet me?
"How?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "How can you forgive me? How can he want to meet me when I'm the reason you weren't there for the first ten years of his life?"
"Because holding onto anger and blame doesn't bring those years back," Trace said simply. "Because family forgives. And because we love you, and we want you home."
"And," Delaney added with a small smile, "we're too busy building our future to waste time being angry about the past."
