My Son Is the Secret That Will Break Them novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Why He Never Told

We walked up the hill to the pack hall in the early light, two feet apart, not touching.

The healer's tin was in my bag.

I had not said a word since her kitchen.

"Say it," Torin said at last. "Whatever it is. I'd rather have it before we go in."

"You never came after me."

"I know."

"Not once. Five years. I changed my number, but I didn't change my job or my name. Mercer & Veil is in the phone book. A claimed mate would have been easy to find."

"I did look."

I stopped walking.

"Twice," he said. "The first year, I drove to the airport and sat in the car and didn't go in, because the note said not to look for you. The second year I wrote you eleven letters and burned them."

"Why?"

"Because I had a note in your handwriting telling me you'd gone to Talbot, the man who slapped you in a dining room." His voice was even. "I thought I was the one thing you were trying to get away from."

"I took your shirt."

His eyes came up.

"The night I left. It was on a hook in the boathouse. I took it with me." I said the rest fast. "It's Arlo's blanket."

For a moment he didn't move.

Then he made a small, rough noise and looked away across the harbor.

"I thought you left me," I said. "I thought you let Cora put your name on a freeze and call it a mistake. I raised a child alone on that thought."

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