He doesn't know what she is to him. The girl he failed. The woman he wants. The stepmother he shouldn't look at twice. The only person in that house who might understand what it cost to leave.

He's wanted her for fifteen years — wanted her in ways that shamed him, obsessed over her in ways that frightened him, built entire fantasies around her in ways that made him hate himself. He told himself it was guilt. He told himself it was pity. He told himself a lot of things.