Gage’s POV
I’m not sure what happened, one minute we’re sitting down to play chess and the next I’m confessing one of the deepest and most painful memories of my life.
As Hali holds me, her arms tight around my body, I don’t feel the embarrassment that I thought I would, instead, I feel lighter, calmer than I’ve felt in a long time. I don’t speak about my past, not my mother’s death or what I witnessed whilst deployed, covering the pain with jokes and light-hearted banter. I don’t like to visit those dark places of my mind, after watching Harrison spiral with his own demons, I pushed mine down as deep as they would go, not willing to drown in my own despair when my brother had needed me. I let him down all those years ago when our mother died, I will never not be there for him again, eve
