He does, and then he comes to stand beside me. We work together in silence for a while as I point out parts and he hands me tools. I think about all the moments we’ve missed and all the ones we still have ahead of us.
“Do I look like you?” he asks suddenly.
The question catches me off guard, and I take a second to really look at him.
“Yeah.” My throat tightens. “That’s how your mom figured it out. She saw a picture of me as a kid, and we might as well be twins when I was your age. I loved Fibonacci numbers when I was a kid, too.”
“That’s weird,” he says, but there is a hint of a smile.
“Yeah,” I say. “It is.”
The silence that follows feels easy instead of heavy.
“Z used to let me help with the car sometimes,” Bruiser says quietly.
“Yeah?”
“He wasn’t very good at it.” He hesitates for a second. “You’re better.”
It’s a small thing, but it feels like everything.
“Thanks, kiddo.”
We keep working, and I show him how to check the oil and how to listen to the engine to tell when something is wrong. He pays attention with an intensity that feels achingly familiar.
My son.
EPILOGUE
CALEB
I wakeup on my wedding day to Harper’s hand in my hair.
“You awake?” she whispers.
“Yeah.”
“Me too.”
I roll toward her, only to find her already watching me in the early morning light. Her eyes are dark and unreadable.
“Second thoughts?” I ask.
“Never.” She traces my jaw with her fingertips. “Just thinking about the first time I saw you.”
“In Ms. Robertson’s English class?”
“You looked so annoyed at me.” She gives me a small smile. “This perfectly put-together prep school boy, and there I was, trailer trash with an attitude problem.”
“You were never trash,” I say quickly. “And I wasn’t annoyed.”
“You were.”
“I was terrified,” I correct. “You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, and I knew—I knew right then that I was completely fucked.”
She laughs softly. “You did not.”
“I did. Rule eight-thirteen wrote itself that night: Don’t fall for your stepsister.”