"Jeezus Christ."

And he's silent for a long while, too. Just holding her. Heart beating against her palm, hard and steady, quickened from what she stirs inside him.

Anger. Horror. Sympathy. Sadness. A wish for things to have gone differently. For her father, for herself.

Too late.


And then it hits him much clearer now why Christmas was such an awful time for her. And how he'd made it worse.


He buries his fingers in her hair and presses a kiss between her brows.

"'M sorry."

He can't help the apology. For everything.