EMBER’S POV

“Because I saw you on the news.” His voice cracks again. “During a press conference. I saw you standing up there, speaking to the camera, saying five words they have haunted me every night. You are dead to me. And though it wasn’t directed at me, I felt it so much. I felt it down to my depths that you also said those words for me. But also, I realized… I realized that my daughter was the bravest person I’d ever seen. And I was too much of a coward to even watch it sober.”

He wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand, not bothering...