Then he says, “I wish she’d loved us more.”

And my heart breaks at that. Because no one should ever have to go through life finding out what it felt like to have a mother’s disdain. I pull him closer. “I know. Sometimes—I don’t think she knew how. And that’s not on you. Or me. That’s on her.”

“But—”

“No, Kid. There is nothing you could have done differently. There is nothing you should have done differently. This—all of this, everything that she ever was, that’s on her. That’s never on you. She didn’t have it in her. I don’t know why. Maybe she was broken. Maybe she was wired differently. Maybe she just wasn’t capable of it. I don’t know. But it’s not on you.”

“She fucked us up.”

And that’s hard to hear, because it’s probably true. “We got past it, though, huh?”

He scoffs. “Did we? Once an addict, always an addict, Papa Bear. And my head’s still a little fucked. So is yours.”

“Otter says it adds to my charm.”

He’s trying to stay serious, but I can see the smile curving along the edges of his lips. “He’s biased. So is Dom.”

“Yeah. We’re lucky like that.”

The smile fades. “She did this to us.”

“Maybe. Or maybe we did it to ourselves. And you know what? Maybe it doesn’t matter. We are who we’re supposed to be now. Everything that’s happened to us, it’s—it hasn’t been easy. I know that. But we’ve made it through, and we’re whole, Kid. We are. Things are good. Or they will be. It’s scary now. I’m scared. But I also know that I want this more than anything else.”

“Izzie too?”

I hesitate, but only for a moment. “If that’s what she wants.”

“She does,” he says, sounding convinced. “Even if she doesn’t say it, I know she does. She wants to be here, even if we forgot about her.”

“We didn’t—”

“Didn’t we?”

He has a point. “There was nothing we could have done. You know that. Erica told us that. Unless there was evidence of abuse, she—”

“We have scars,” the Kid says. “Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

I sigh. “We’ll do our best, okay? That’s all anyone can ask of us.”

“I hate her.”

He’s not talking about Izzie. “You don’t,” I tell him. “Because you aren’t capable of hating anyone. That’s not who you are.”

He shakes his head furiously. “I am. I can. You don’t know that about me, and that’s okay, but I do. I hate her, Bear. I hate her for everything she’s done to me. To Izzie. To you. We could have—”

“We’ll have to take care of her.” And I’m not talking about Izzie either. “You know that.”

He feels like he’s thrumming, like everything under his skin is all electric. “We don’t owe her shit.”

“No. But it’s the right thing to do.”

“We—”