“Can you explain that, please?” I ask.

Another long silence follows, and his breathing grows more anxious with every passing moment. I press my lips against his shoulder and shift so I can touch them to his neck, his cheek, his chin, and finally his lips.

“I just want to understand, Lance. I don’t want to use the information to cause you pain.”

He can’t look me in the eye, and I don’t push for it, knowing whatever he’s about to tell me must be hard.

“When I was a kid I used to play ball hockey with some guys after school. I always told my mum my brother and I had stayed for the after-school tutoring or math stuff or whatever, and she never checked, ’cause math was my thing.

“One afternoon I got a little caught up and didn’t realize how late it was, or maybe I ignored how tight time was getting. My mum was going through a bad phase—not sleeping all that well, probably drinking too much, maybe not taking the pills the doctors gave her. Plus, my dad was away on another business trip, so she was on us more. On me more.”

He pauses, eyes still glued to the ceiling.

“Being late meant bad things. Not for Quinn. He was a good kid. Always did what he was asked, followed the rules, didn’t give anyone a hard time. We lived in a nice part of town. We had a big house and nice clothes. My parents drove expensive cars, and we had private education with uniforms. I took it for granted a lot; I still do. But there was an area close to where we lived that wasn’t so nice, a lot of poverty there. That’s where some of the gang kids came from. Sometimes they’d graffiti our school walls, hang out and threaten some of the mouthy kids, stuff like that.”

Lance pauses again. He picks up my fingers, studying them, and I wait, because the end of this story is devastating. It marks a loss that I’m positive changed this man in a lot of ways, and will fill in so many missing pieces of the puzzle that is Lance.

When it seems like he’s struggling to continue, I finally ask, “Did you get mouthy with them?”

He shakes his head.

“What happened, then?”

I get another headshake, more playing with my fingertips. His voice cracks when he finally speaks again.

“We were gonna be late ’cause I’d played hockey too long. Quinn, he’d just sit there watching, ’cause he was good like that. Real patient. He’d read a book sometimes if he was bored, but that day he told me more than once that we needed to go, and I ignored him, told him five more minutes. I just wanted to beat the other guys, and I did.”

He swallows hard. “By the time we left, we only had fifteen minutes to get home. It usually took at least twenty, and that was keeping a good pace. Quinn had asthma, so he wasn’t great at running, and he had puffers. I said we should take the shortcut. He didn’t want to at first, ’cause my mum said never to go that way. But then I reminded him we’d be late, and I’d get in trouble. He knew what that meant when Mum was having one of her bad spells.”

“So you took the shortcut?” I ask.

Lance looks out into the darkness as he nods. His glassy eyes are glued to a spot on the wall, and his throat bobs.

“There was this alley we had to go down; once we were through there, it wasn’t so bad. There were stores and stuff. But that alley, it was dark. I’d gone a couple times with some friends, but never my brother. We got about halfway before we were swarmed.”

He sounds so tortured. “Back home they make their own weapons.”

My heart lurches.

“They’ll take off their socks and fill them with rocks. Then they beat you with them. Usually you come out with bruises and shit, but it fucking hurts like hell. They tried to take Quinn’s bag, and he knew if he came home without it we’d get in real shit with Mum, so he tried to hold on to it, and they went at him. Hit him right in the temple. One second he was screaming, and the next he was just…gone.”

Lance’s haunted gaze finally lifts to mine, fear and regret making his eyes shine. “It’s my fault he’s dead. I took him away from her. I broke her.”

The her he’s referring to can only be his mother. I see clearly that the blame has become a blackness inside that he can’t erase.

I curve my palm around his cheek, his sadness my own. “Oh, baby, that’s not your fault.”

“I took him there. I was the reason we were late.”

“You were a child.”

“I knew better than to go that way. I should’ve just dealt with the beating I’d get, but I didn’t want to, and then they fucking killed him, and I lost everything.” A choked sound leaves him, and he closes his eyes, fists clenching as he tries to control the shudder that passes through him. When his eyes open, there’s a vast emptiness that makes my heart ache. “I shouldn’t have told you any of this.”

I don’t ask why. I already know. It’s same thing he said the last time he gave me insight into his past. He thinks I’ll do what it seems like everyone else in his life has. I push up so I can look at him, even though he’s focused elsewhere. I touch his cheek, and he turns toward my hand.

“I’m so sorry the people who should’ve helped you through this weren’t able to cope with the loss. I’m so sorry they made you feel like it was yours to own.”

“It is mine.”

“Lance, look at me.”

His eyes shift, wary and afraid.

“How old were you?”