Page 173 of Dear #47, You're the Worst
The locker room feels almost too quiet without the rest of the team around. Just the three of us again. I drop onto the bench with a groan, chug half a bottle of Gatorade in one go, and tip my head back against the wall.
For a while, the only sounds are us breathing, bottles cracking open, water dripping somewhere in the background.
Jett finally breaks the silence. “Remember that night Dad died?” His voice is low, not playful for once. “We went straight to the rink. We skated until the sun came up.”
I swallow, throat tight. “Yeah. It was the only place that made sense.”
Silas kicks his feet out, still in his gear, arms folded across his chest. “I was a kid. I didn’t even know how to process it. You two kept moving, so I did too.”
“You looked pissed the whole time,” Jett says.
“I was,” Silas admits. “At everything. Mom. God. At the fact that Dad wasn’t coming back. Hockey was the only thing that didn’t lie to me.”
We sit with that. The ache of it never fully goes away.
“You know what I remember?” I say. “That you both showed up for me. Even when Mom was feeding me bullshit about being her golden boy. Even when she turned it around and tried to break me. You never left.”
Jett shrugs, but his eyes are sharp. “We’re the Huxleys. We don’t leave each other.”
Silas nods once. “We survived because we had each other. That’s not nothing.”
For a second, I can’t breathe around the lump in my throat. The three of us are scarred as hell, but we’re still here. Still together.
I look at them, really look, and feel it settle in my chest like solid ground. Whatever else happens, I’m not alone in this world.
After a quick shower, I drive home wrung out emotionally but clearer than I’ve been in weeks. When I walk into the apartment, Juliet’s in my bed reading a paperback, wearing one of my old team shirts.
My heart does something funny in my chest at the sight of her.
She looks up when she hears me. I can see the exact moment she registers that something’s different.
“Everything okay?” she asks, setting her book aside.
I’m in my jeans and Henley, my hair still wet, but I climb into bed beside her and pull her close.
“It’s been a long day.” I say against her hair.
She doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t push for details. She holds me, her fingers tracing patterns on my chest.
“You’re different,” she murmurs. “Are you okay?”
“Different how?”
“Quieter. But not in a bad way. It seems like you’re actually here instead of thinking about seventeen other things.”
I push her hair back from her face. “Talking to my brothers helped.”
Her lips quirk. “Good. They love you, you know. Even when you’re being impossible.”
“I know.” I press a kiss to her temple. “And I have you. You tolerate me.”
“I do more than tolerate you. I would say that I like you.”
“Yeah?”
She shifts in my arms and she whispers, “You make me feel too much and it scares me. I hate it. I need you and I don’t know what to do with that.”
The vulnerability in her voice, the admission that she needs me, breaks something open in my chest.
