Declan wanted to hate his family. He wanted to hate his father, Niall. For being a bad businessman, for never paying attention to the details, for bullshitting himself to death. For being a bad father. For having favorites. For having favorites who weren’t Declan. But could he blame him for not wanting a son like Declan? Declan hadn’t wanted a father like Niall. He liked to think he hated him, but he knew it wasn’t true, because if it was, he’d have been able to set Niall’s memory down and walk away. Instead, he took it out of the box and poked it. Declan said he hated him, but it was aspirational.

Declan wanted to hate his dreamt mother, Aurora, but he couldn’t justify that, either. She’d adored him; she’d adored all the boys. It wasn’t her fault she was a faulty model. He was increasingly certain she was happily oblivious to her dreamt status. This was probably where the idea to withhold the same information from Matthew had clocked in. Who’d come up with that? Niall? Declan? It had happened too long ago. In any case, it wasn’t Aurora’s fault that, deep down, Declan had always suspected she was untrue. A trick. A blarney-filled bedtime story for three boys. He didn’t hate her. He hated that he’d been naïve enough to ever be fooled by her.

And Ronan. Ronan should’ve been the easiest to hate, because Ronan was built for acrimony. He despised people and assumed they despised him, too. He was stubborn, narrow-minded, completely unable to see compromise or nuance. He’d fought Declan before, which was unremarkable; he’d fought everyone. The world against Ronan Lynch, that was his motto. As if the world cared. Niall had, Declan supposed. That was Ronan’s worst sin: idolizing their father. Grow up. But Declan couldn’t hate Ronan for this; now that Declan didn’t have to parent Ronan, he no longer had to constantly compete with a ghost.