“Your parents split?” I ask, shock rippling through me. I had seen them together a few times at school, when they were coming to pick Cyrus up or attend the annual school concert or one of his piano recitals. I’d never spoken to either of them, but even from afar, they seemed the perfect match. His mother was beautiful in that elegant, timeless way that could have made her a star in another age. His father was popular among the teachers, with a booming voice and laugh and a rotation of tailored suits. They seemed happy, holding hands as they strolled across the football field, down the wide corridors where the preschoolers’ fingerprint art was on display.

“It happened right after you left,” Cyrus explains, the words coming slowly, like he’s piecing them together out loud for the very first time. “The official split, at least. They’d been fighting long before that. That was actually why I started to get into reading. Whenever I heard their voices rise, I’d quickly grab a book and go to my room and it would help me escape into this other world where I could pretend to be someone else.

“But even then, even though I hated it when they were mad at each other, it was like—you know how people say that growing up, they thought it was normal to have candy for breakfast, or to skip school whenever it rained, because that’s simply what their family did, and they had no other point of reference? I thought it was normal for your parents to fight at home almost every night. For them to throw things and slam doors and scream at each other for hours on end. I asked my dad about it once, and he said that my mom was only angry at him because she loved him. Because it meant that she cared. He said that was the secret to a relationship: You had to keep things interesting, even if that meant getting on their nerves. So maybe I should’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t—when they told me it wasn’t working out anymore, I wasn’t even sad at first. I was purely stunned.” He scoffs, shaking his head. “Stupid, right?”

“No. You couldn’t have seen it coming,” I say firmly, my chest aching for him. “You were so young.”