They had drunk too much.

They had unearthed, between them, a whole graveyard of memories they had each believed safely buried, and somewhere in the unearthing the twenty-six years had thinned to nothing, and they had spent that night together.

And in the morning, frightened by feelings he had spent his adult life making sure he would never have to feel, Damian had done the thing he was best at in all the world.

He had left.

He had driven back to Houston without waking her, without a note, without a word, and he had never once reached out again, and he had told himself, on the long drive back, that it was better this way, cleaner, that they were adults and it had meant nothing.

Lily was three years old.