Emma is quiet for a long moment.
When she speaks, her voice is very steady.
"You didn't ruin my life."
"I—"
"Listen to me. You made mistakes. You hurt people I love, including me." She says it plainly, no drama in it, the way Emma has always said hard things.
We have history, Emma and I, years of it, the kind that doesn't disappear even when you've both moved on and built different lives. She knows what I did in Pinewood because she was part of it.
"Those things happened, they were real, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise." She leans forward. "But Tyler. You are not the sum of your worst moments. Neither is anyone. And I know you. I've known you for years. The man I know isn't the person who did those things. The man I know is the one who's been up atthree in the morning for months learning how to be a father to a baby he didn't even know existed."
My eyes are burning. I look at the table.
"You're good," Emma says quietly. "You've always been good. You just forgot it for a while. You got lost." A pause. "And I think Nora found you."
I can't answer. My throat is too tight.
"Chase doesn't blame you," she says. "Not for what put him in that hospital bed. He's told me that more than once. He knows you went after Jackson, not him—he knows when he threw himself between you and Jackson, he was choosing to do that, and he knows the guy who actually hit him was the one whose name we don't say in this house." She pauses. "Chase isn't saying you didn't start it. He's saying you didn't end it. He's saying he made a choice to step in and he'd make it again, and he's tired of watching you carry his injury like you were the one who put him on the ice. He knows you've lived with the guilt of it, and that's punishment enough." She reaches across the table and puts her hand on mine. "Tyler. Forgive yourself. Please. You can't love someone properly when you're still serving a sentence you gave yourself.”
I'm crying. I don't mean to, but I am, and I can't seem to stop.
"She doesn't know about it," I say. "About you. About Chase. About Jackson. About Maya. None of it."
"Then tell her. When the time is right." Emma squeezes my hand. "She's not going to leave because of any of that. I promise you. I've watched her with you for two days. Whatever she feels for you, it isn't going anywhere."
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.
"I'm scared," I say. "Of wanting this and ruining it."
"You're going to need to decide," Emma says gently, "if you're going to keep being afraid of yourself, or if you're going to let yourself have something good." She stands, patting my shoulder once. "I love you. And I'm rooting for you both."
She goes back upstairs.
I sit at the kitchen table for a long time in the dark, thinkingabout what she said. About forgiveness, and the difference between who I was and who I've been trying to become.
I think about Nora, asleep in a sleeping bag in my living room, not knowing any of it, looking at me like I'm worth looking at.
Eventually, I go back to the living room. The lamp is off. I can hear her breathing in the dark, slow and even. Asleep.
I crawl into my sleeping bag, lie on my back, and stare at the ceiling.
"Ty?"
Her voice is quiet. She's not asleep.
"Yeah, Red?”
"You okay?"
I think about how to answer that. About Emma's hand on mine on the table. About the part of me that's been trying to put something down for years and finally—maybe—has somewhere to put it.
"I meant what I said today," I tell her. "At the park."
A long pause.
"I know," she says. "I'm terrified."