“I’m scared because I know at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I say or do. Short of tying you up in my basement for the rest of your life, there’s nothing I can do to make you stay if you don’t want to stay.” I swallow. “At the end of the day, the only life I really have any say over is my own.” I pause. “That...that is what Zayne stole from me.”

His eyes redden at the corners as understanding washes over his face. Nodding, he looks down at the hands he has fisted in his lap. I follow his gaze to where it settles on the black ink sketched along his knuckles.

“See this?” He strokes his thumb over the small tattoo on the ring finger of his right hand. What looks like two X’s, one placed directly above the other—or two intersected V’s, depending on how you look at it—have been inked into the skin right above his knuckle. “It’s an old Viking rune. It’s called an Inguz.”

“What does it mean?”

He hesitates. “It’s super cheesy, okay? I was really fucked up when I got it,” he whispers, flicking his gaze to mine for a quick searching beat.

I smile curiously, wondering what this has to do with anything. “Just tell me.”

He takes a deep breath in through his nose and looks back down at his hand. He gives the tattoo a little tap. “I got it when I was seventeen. The day after my dad’s sentencing. The day he was officially charged; it was a weird day for me. I was finally free of him, once and for all, or at least, for the foreseeable future and I—I guess I just lost my shit.”

His throat bobs as he looks down at his hand. “I stole a bottle of scotch he’d been keeping for years—the guy would drink cooking sherry when he ran out of beer, but he’d never touch that scotch. I have no idea why.” He shakes his head. “I grabbed his gun from the nightstand and a picture he had of my mom...”

My throat closes up and my heart’s pounding so loudly, it drowns out some of his words.

“I went up to the bridge and got completely shit-faced. I didn’t have a plan. I figured I’d either fall, or maybe I’d get the courage to pull the trigger. I didn’t really care. It was like I was possessed. I don’t know how else to describe it.”

He looks up at me then. “I told you that morning, that I go up there sometimes to...get perspective. Remember?”

“Yeah,” I breathe shakily. I roughly clear my throat. “The sun will always rise, right?”