Sebastian had chosen me over his father's instruction for the second time. The first time it cost him nothing. This time it was going to cost him everything, and he knew it, and he still said it.
We stood on the pavement for a moment after he spoke, the early morning grey pressing in around us. I looked at him and saw both versions of the man at once.
The twenty-three-year-old who stood at that altar because someone he trusted fed him a lie. And the thirty-one-year-old in front of me now, eyes tired but steady, making a different choice even though he knew it was going to wreck his whole world this time.
People change. I’d spent years refusing to believe it about him. Now that wall was cracking, and the fear of what lay behind it hit me like ice in my veins.
“Come upstairs,” I said, my
