Chapter 10: The Reveal
The silence between them wasn't empty.
It was loud.
Every unsaid word, every memory stitched into the silence like shards of glass. Marissa's fingers trembled as she held out the photo again.
"Say something."
Mason's eyes flickered with that same familiar anguish—the one he wore the day he left. The one he never explained.
"She wasn't supposed to exist," he whispered.
Marissa's heart froze. "What?"
He reached for the envelope, but she pulled it back.
"Start talking. Now."
He looked up at her, soaked in rain and regret.
"Her name was Elise. She was my half-sister."
The words hit her sideways.
"She… looked like me."
"She had your eyes," Mason said. "That's what scared me."
Marissa's breath stuttered. "Why would that scare you?"
"Because I found out about her a month after your mother's funeral. She was sick, Marissa. Leukemia. And she needed a donor."
He paused.
"And I was a match."
Marissa's world tilted.
"I didn't tell you because everything was already breaking around you. You were grieving. You were barely sleeping. I couldn't be the one to add more weight."
"So you disappeared instead?" she choked out. "You let me think I wasn't enough. That I wasn't worth staying for."
His jaw clenched. "No. I left because I wasn't enough. I gave her everything I could. And it still wasn't enough to save her."
A beat passed.
"She died three days before our anniversary."
Marissa staggered back like the air punched her.
"And you never came back. You never told me. You let me hate you."
"I let you heal," he said, voice raw. "Or I hoped you would."
Tears burned down her cheeks now, hot and angry. "You don't get to decide how I heal."
"I know."
He stepped closer.
"But I came back because I couldn't keep living like a ghost in your story. I needed you to know the truth. I needed you."
And that was the part that hurt the most.
Because she still needed him too.
The night stretched long after the storm passed.
They didn't talk anymore. They just sat, side by side on the porch, hearts bleeding quietly.
And then, Marissa broke the silence.
"I hate that I still love you."
Mason looked at her, something breaking wide open in his chest.
"Then don't love the boy who left. Love the man who came back."
She didn't say anything.
But she didn't leave.
And in the quiet dark, their fingers found each other.
No promises.
No fixes.
Just truth.
And that was a start.