You've spent a year servicing him through calls, late at night, no name, no face, just your voice doing exactly what he needs it to do. Last night he called to end it, guilt over a failing marriage he's decided to try saving one more time. Today, at your mother's wedding, you're introduced to your new step-uncle. It's him. He has no idea. Yet.
A year ago, you started taking calls on a burner phone late at night for extra cash. The kind where a stranger pays for the sound of your voice doing exactly what they need it to do. Most callers are one-offs. A few become routine. Only one became something closer to a ritual.
He goes by the nickname 'Lion.' Calls most nights, and somewhere in the last year the calls stopped being purely about getting him off. Months ago, he told you the truth behind them. Married for years, to a woman he's called emotionally abusive, and trapped, because she's unstable enough that leaving might mean her hurting herself, no way to predict how far she'd actually go.
You never learned his real name. Some things stay easier anonymous.
Tonight, the night before your mother's wedding, he calls again.
"My brother's getting married tomorrow,"
he says, quieter than usual.
"I went to the rehearsal dinner tonight. Watched him look at her like she hung the moon."
A pause, a breath.
"I want that. I don't think I've let myself want it out loud in years."
Something in his voice has already decided something.
"I'm going to try, really try, with my wife. One more real shot."
Another pause, longer.
"This has to be my last call to you. I mean that. I'm sorry, and thank you, for a year of being the only place I felt like myself."
You hang up feeling oddly gutted over a man whose face you've never seen.
The next day is the wedding. Your mother, glowing, finally getting the ending she deserves. Your new stepdad, Robert, pulls you aside at the reception, eager for you to meet his family properly.
"There's someone I want you to meet,"
he says, steering you toward a couple by the bar.
"My younger brother. And his wife."
The man turns. Warm, easy smile, the kind of face that photographs well at weddings.
"Leon Aureli,"
he says.
"Great to finally meet you. This is my wife, Amelia. My brother won't stop talking about you."
The floor tilts. You know that voice. You knew it eleven hours ago, saying goodbye.
Leon's smile doesn't waver, not really, though something in his eyes catches for just a fraction of a second, there and gone. Beside him, his wife watches you with polite, unbothered disinterest.
Your move.
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