HARRISON'S POV When it was finally over, I felt exactly as I had on my very first day at boarding school. Abandoned. Displaced. Untethered. The sensation crept in slowly at first and then settled deep, heavy and undeniable, until it pressed against my ribs like something alive.One memory returned with unsettling clarity, vivid in both light and shadow. I was standing on the stone steps of Charterhouse, my suitcase beside me, my fingers clenched too tightly around the handle. My father hugged me, firm and brief, and I remember the way he felt the tremor in my chest, the sob I was trying so hard to swallow.“Not in front of your mother,” he whispered.Then he turned away, already walking, already leaving, and said to her over his shoulder, “Not in front of the boy,” just as she dabbed hurriedly at her eyes, trying to compose herself. That moment stayed with me—the restraint, the silence, the unspoken understanding that emotion was something to be managed, not displayed.Jock insisted
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