Chap­ter 2 began with his body no longer feel­ing like his own. It was as if it had become some­thing sep­a­rate from him, some­thing unpre­dictable and unre­li­able, a ves­sel that could betray him at any moment. He car­ried an unease with­in him­self, mov­ing through the world cau­tious­ly, ensur­ing that no one got too close, no one could breach the invis­i­ble walls he had care­ful­ly rebuilt around him.

Only in soli­tude did he feel safe, when the world could not impose its pres­ence upon him, when he was free from the threat of an unex­pect­ed touch. He had grown accus­tomed to shield­ing him­self, to keep­ing dis­tance between his exis­tence and those who cared about him, because that dis­tance felt like the only way to main­tain con­trol. He had always strug­gled with trust, but now, more than ever, it felt impos­si­ble to let any­one in, to believe that their pres­ence was any­thing but a pre­lude to pain.

In many ways, it felt like he had regressed, like he had stepped back­ward into the per­son he had been when we first brought him into our home. In those ear­ly days, every touch, every act of kind­ness from Julia or me had seemed to trig­ger an instinc­tive flinch, as though he expect­ed affec­tion to be fol­lowed by pun­ish­ment. It had tak­en years for him to accept that love was not con­di­tion­al, that it would not sud­den­ly be tak­en away or used against him, and now, all of that progress had crum­bled.

We had spent so long prov­ing to him that he was safe, that no harm would come from our love, that he did not have to keep his guard up around us. But one night—one per­son, one betrayal—had been enough to unrav­el every­thing. Caleb had man­aged to shat­ter his sense of secu­ri­ty in a mat­ter of hours, leav­ing behind the wreck­age of a trust we had spent years build­ing.

What I nev­er admit­ted to him was the anger I felt—not just at Caleb, but at him. I was furi­ous that he had not let us in, that he had not trust­ed us enough to share his pain, that he had decid­ed to car­ry it alone as if we were inca­pable of shoul­der­ing it with him. But I also under­stood why he couldn’t; to admit he need­ed help would be to acknowl­edge his vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, and for some­one like him, that was the most ter­ri­fy­ing thing of all.

For so long, sur­vival had meant con­vinc­ing him­self that he was self-suf­fi­cient, that he could endure any­thing as long as he relied on no one but him­self. To need some­one, to lean on oth­ers, to acknowl­edge that he was not imper­vi­ous to harm, was a risk he had nev­er allowed him­self to take. And after every­thing that had hap­pened, after the wounds he had spent his life hid­ing, it was eas­i­er for him to believe in his own iso­la­tion than to risk believ­ing in the safe­ty we tried to offer him.

So we let him decide how to heal. We fol­lowed his lead, nev­er push­ing too hard, nev­er forc­ing him to share what he wasn’t ready to say. It was a slow process, often frus­trat­ing, but we took solace in the small victories—the moments where he allowed him­self to let go, even if just for a sec­ond.

There were times when he laughed with­out imme­di­ate­ly sti­fling it, when he sat in our pres­ence with­out recoil­ing, when he let Julia hug him with­out tens­ing up. Each time it hap­pened, it felt mon­u­men­tal, a tiny piece of proof that, despite every­thing, there was still a part of him that want­ed to believe in love, in safe­ty, in us. But we nev­er spoke about the night that had bro­ken him, nev­er con­front­ed the shad­ow that loomed over every­thing, because we knew that acknowl­edg­ing it might mean los­ing the frag­ile progress we had made.

That night became an unspo­ken pres­ence in our lives, a ghost that lin­gered in the cor­ners of every inter­ac­tion. It was there in the way I instinc­tive­ly scanned a room for poten­tial threats when we were out togeth­er, in the way Julia watched him close­ly at fam­i­ly gath­er­ings, always ready to step in if any­one unknow­ing­ly got too close. It exist­ed in the silences between us, in the way he avoid­ed cer­tain top­ics, cer­tain places, cer­tain mem­o­ries, as if pre­tend­ing they didn’t exist might erase them.

But most of all, it was in the way he fought with him­self every day. He pushed him­self hard­er than ever, throw­ing him­self into his work, into dis­trac­tions, into any­thing that kept him from hav­ing to con­front the pain lurk­ing beneath the sur­face. He was des­per­ate to prove that what had hap­pened hadn’t bro­ken him, that he was still whole, that he was stronger than the trau­ma he refused to acknowl­edge.

We could see the con­tra­dic­tion in him—the way he tried to reclaim pow­er by act­ing as though noth­ing had changed, even as his actions revealed the weight he car­ried. He was afraid that if he let him­self feel, if he admit­ted to the fear, the shame, the anger, it would con­sume him com­plete­ly. And so, he chose denial, believ­ing that ignor­ing the wounds would some­how make them dis­ap­pear, even as they con­tin­ued to shape every part of his exis­tence.

Yet despite all of it, there was love—constant, unwa­ver­ing, fierce. We could not erase his pain or undo the cru­el­ty he had faced, but we could offer him one thing: a place where he was safe, a place where he was nev­er alone. And maybe, in the end, that was the most impor­tant thing we could give him—not the promise that he would heal overnight, but the assur­ance that no mat­ter how long it took, we would be there, wait­ing, ready to catch him when he was final­ly will­ing to fall into our arms.