Page 34 of With This Mask

"Survival," I say the first word that comes to mind. The word hangs between us, weighted with more truth than I intended to reveal.

"Survival?" he echoes, looking at me with those piercing blue eyes that seem to see right through me.

"Growing up was pretty tough," I admit, staring into the flickering flames. "My mom got pregnant with me when she was seventeen. My grandparents are really… traditional. So their daughter getting knocked up a month before she graduated high school, they were ashamed. They kicked her out the day after she graduated high school.”

“What about your dad?” Alec asks with furrowed brows. “Did he take care of her?”

I bite my lower lip, feeling the familiar ache when I think about everything my mother went through. “He tried. They got engaged. They moved in together. They both worked. But there was a work accident just three weeks before I was born. He didn’t make it.”

Alec’s face pales. A curse slips over his lips. “I’m so sorry.”

I shrug. “Mom didn’t have much choice but to make it through. His parents buried him. She went home alone to their apartment. And then I came. I honestly don’t know how she made it work. Especially in those early days. I watched her struggle. Work herself to the bone. Grind so hard, only to not get much of anywhere. But she was always there for me. She was always my biggest cheerleader. Every good grade, every award. She just fucking beamed.”

I smile, remembering it all. It was always just me and her. But it never felt like I was lacking in half the love I should have had. She was enough.

“I don’t have much contact with my grandparents,” I admit. “My dad’s parents kind of forgot I existed, if I’m being honest. And my mom’s parents, they never really got over feeling ashamed that their daughter got pregnant at a young age. Any time I’m around them they’re just… preachy. They’re always trying to lecture me about worth and waiting and all this stuff.”

“Gross,” Alec comments with a look.

I nod. “I am so grateful for how hard my mom tried to keep us afloat, but I have some trauma from the lack we always had,” I confess, looking back into Alec’s eyes. He listens intently to every single word. “I swore when I was ten years old that I’d never have to struggle like she did. That I’d put me and her in a better position in life. I don’t know why it never really occurred to me that she might find someone else who might do that for her.”

“She remarried?” Alec questions.

I nod. “It’s not like Danny is wealthy, but he makes enough that she doesn’t have to keep working. She still does, for now, because she doesn’t know any different. But they have a house. He bought her a nice used car for a wedding gift.”

“You like him?” Alec asks.

I shrug once more. “I don’t know that we’ll be close. But we get along. And Mom is happier than I’ve ever seen her.”

“What would that be like?” he murmurs.

I study him, the sense set of his shoulders, the way he stares off into the dark night. “What happened to your mom, Alec?”

He hesitates, then lets out a long breath. "I lost her when I was nine. Cancer. And I hate to admit it, but honestly, I don’t even remember her all that much. But I remember the feeling changing. Suddenly home wasn’t really a place I wanted to be anymore. And Dad turned into a fucking ice sculpture after she was gone.”

Alec pulls his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs. “It was like he became a robot. The diamond business was always a weight over his head. But after mom was gone, it was all he could see. All he could do. It became the entirety of his identity. And me? I became this project he needed to manage."

"Must have been hard," I murmur, unsure what else to say.

"Hard?" He scoffs, tossing the stick into the fire. "It was a bloody nightmare. Every minute of my day was structured. School. Activities. Functions where I was expected to be a mini-him. An ounce of emotion around that man was an ounce too much. He’s had this map of who he wants me to be drawn out since before I had my first wet dream.”

He slips his hand into his hair, tussling it roughly. I can feel the anxiety and stress of it all rolling off of him in waves.

And I realize that I was the lucky one growing up.

“I'm nothing but an heir with a legacy breathing down my neck,” he says, his voice coming out hoarse. “That's why I'm busting my ass with the software. I need it to succeed, Salem. I need to be my own person, not just a Vanderholt."

I climb across my lounger, crossing onto his. He watches me, his gaze softening as he watches me climb into his lap.

“You’re amazing, Alec,” I tell him, pushing his hair out of his face. I put every ounce of my being into my words, hoping he can feel how much I mean them. “Your father didn’t buy this brain of yours. He didn’t teach you any of this natural talent with a camera, with editing, with creating something that’s going to go so wild. That was all you.”

Alec cups a hand behind my neck, studying me. And I see something cracking in him. He always has these barriers up, blocking the world out with that icy glare.

But this is a different side of him.

"Thank you," I say, the words coming out raw and unfiltered. "For being real with me."

He licks his lips, his blue eyes catching the flames, making them dance within their depths. "Salem, these moments, with you... I've never been this open with anyone." His voice is a low rumble, almost lost to the sounds of the night, but it resonates deep within me.