“I needed him,” Hopper counters, his voice quieter now but no less certain. “He was here when Nysa was in danger. He helped me get her back—put his life on the line for her. If you can’t see that he’s not your enemy, I can’t help you. But you need to stop this bullshit.”

Uncertainty flashes across Ledger’s face. It’s barely there before he schools his features. “I . . . I didn’t⁠—”

“Of course, you didn’t,” Hopper cuts him off. “Because you only care about how much you hate him.”

“I didn’t ask to be here,” I say simply.

Hopper straightens. “He was a victim of our father, just like us. He lost his mother at six and was dumped here to be treated like trash.”

Ledger’s jaw clenches. “Because of him, our father started beating me too—just like he did all of you.” His voice is tight, filled with something raw, something he doesn’t know how to release without swinging fists.

That part is news to me. I blink, processing. “I had no idea he started doing that after I arrived,” I admit. “But I didn’t ask to be brought here either. You think my life was easy?” My voice drops, my fists tightening at my sides. “This town saw me as his bastard. The outcast. Poor Therese—everyone pitied her for taking me in. You four were brutal. And our father? He couldn’t even look at me because I reminded him of my mother.”

Hopper exhales, rubbing a hand over his face. “It couldn’t have been easy for you.” His gaze meets mine. “And yet, sometimes you tried to divert his attention so he wouldn’t come after us at night.”

I shrug. It doesn’t matter now.

Ledger stays quiet. That anger simmering just beneath his skin hasn’t gone away, but something shifts.

“Listen,” Hopper continues, turning to Ledger, “I get it. You’ve got shit you haven’t worked through. Maybe you should bring it up to your therapist because this grudge you have against him is not healthy. If you choose to just keep it and be bitter, that’s your problem. However, I need you to understand something—Atlas is important to Nysa, to Maddy, to me. We want to have a relationship with him, and with his wife.” His voice grows firmer, there’s some kind of warning or . . . I’m not sure what it is, but he says, “Our parents fucked us up. That’s not a secret. But we don’t have to keep being like them. I don’t want to have to split holidays because we can’t grow the fuck up.”

Ledger exhales through his nose, his fingers flexing at his sides. His gaze flicks to me, then back to Hopper. “I don’t know how to stop hating him.”

Hopper levels him with a look. “Then start by trying.”