Oliver didn’t try to soften what had happened or excuse the years of silence. He let the truth stand bare between them, then quietly stepped closer instead of away. He spoke not like a savior, but like a witness, naming their shared life in small, irrefutable pieces: the burnt pancakes on Sunday mornings, the whispered jokes in waiting rooms, the way Leo’s shoes always ended up by the door, proof he’d come home. Each detail was a thread, and together they formed something Leo could finally see—continuity instead of contingency.

Amelia held them both as if she’d been waiting her whole life for this exact configuration. In that closeness, Leo felt the old question—what if they leave?—lose its edge. The revelation of his beginning hadn’t undone his place; it had illuminated it. Love, he understood now, wasn’t a test he could fail. It was the floor beneath him, steady, even when everything else cracked.