“We still have a few hours until our plane leaves. Want to go back to the hotel?”
I didn’t know why he thought he had to ask.
AFTER RETURNING HOME, WE FOUND Mom sitting on the floor in our living room, playing with our daughter Ellie.
It was still surreal being a mother, even one year after she took her first breath. I never thought I’d have a life like this, with a husband and a child, and a feeling so big and so full in my heart that tears welled up from time to time.
But when he looked at her… when he held her in his arms late at night, rocking her to sleep, unknowing I was listening on the monitor, I’d hear him whisper to her, “No matter what, I will always be yours. Always be by your side.”
It was those moments when I felt the pulse of this world. When everything I’d ever been through… everything Hudson had ever been through, all came full circle. We built a home from the wreckage of our pasts, and it was stronger than any metal.
Everything that happened… losing Hudson. Finding Silas, it was all meant to be. Our roots ran deeper than we’d ever understand, connecting us together in a perfect trifecta. He was my river, silent and steadfast, and always to be counted on. Silas was my forest, wild and untamed, and always offering an adventure.
And I was their root, my own root, planting my feet happily into the ground.
“So what now?” Hudson asked as he kissed me on the head and sat beside me on the couch.
I pulled the test I’d been saving the last few days, waiting for the right time to tell him, out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Now, we start prepping a new nursery,” I said, smiling like a fool.
He grinned, and I realized his smile was the north star, and I was finally on the right path home.
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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
This book was hard to write. There are a lot of pieces from my childhood and life that I’ve put into these words. Memories and emotions I’ve wanted to purge for longer than I can remember. My father died when I was two-years-old. His absence left a hole inside my heart that I’ve slowly filled with the love from my husband, and the love I have for my children. Not only that, but I also had a step-father who played a large role in my life, only to shatter any ideas I had of what a father was. Those emotions and scars left behind are still something I deal with to this day.
Mom — You have always been a rock in my life. Even with struggles, we’ve always been able to come out on top with a great relationship. You’re one hell of a woman, and the sole believer that women do not need a man in their life to be happy.
My love — This is the first time I’ve put a lot of who you are into a character. Hudson… if you were curious. You’ve always been a hero in my eyes. We’ve battled so many hardships through the years, always side-by-side. You show me daily that a father can be present and amazing, and just as loving as a mother.
Nathan — Silas takes after you in so many ways… down to the insane story of being beat up and having your car stolen by your father. Though the conflicting element of romance was all fiction, the easy bond between Hartley and Silas is something completely real. I thank you for being so much like me, because it’s prepared Damon for marrying and dealing with me and my emotions.
Emilie Couture, KP Simmons, and the team at InkSlinger PR — Where would I be without your amazing support and service? You’ve always been on the ball… one step ahead… and I look forward to continuing our relationship. Thank you for everything you’ve done to help launch this novel.
Cynthia Shepp — I think I’ve purged my overuse of the work look. I don’t know how you survived that manuscript. Thank you for always helping me clean up the mess in my manuscripts.
Adam — What can I say? You’re my best friend. My rock. My favorite inside joke. Thank you for always keeping me on point when I get a little crazy in my feelings. And for the title. I knew I kept you around for a reason…
Sonya — We keep fighting the good fight, don’t we? Maybe one day we’ll see this thing all the way to the end.
My readers — This is for anyone out there who has ever felt the cold sting of absence from a parent… I hope this novel helped you feel less alone. Maybe even inspired you to find forgiveness and move on. I promise you, once those chains are broken, you will finally feel free. Thank you for your support.
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1
R E P R E S S E D
Break me in half and mold me back together.
Slit me and watch me bleed love.
Aching.
I’m aching to feel.
HIS KISS STILL HAUNTED ME.
I sat my noteook on the bed, water still dripping from my hair as my old professor’s words beat through my mind.
Bleed your thoughts onto paper and one day they’ll come to life.
I glanced at the checkered cover hiding my most-weighted thoughts and grunted. Yeah, like a hot man with large hands and a large… ego… will just appear from some pathetic, desperate scribble and fill in for my hands in the shower.
As soon as I’d felt the words, I rushed out to write them, cheeks pink from steam and unfulfilled pleasure. I left them pulsing beneath the cover, begging to be breathed in by the one person I knew would understand them.
Desire is a swollen bud between my thighs.
Spread me and make me bloom.
Dean’s face appeared in my mind. It always did. His smile that curved like the moon and held just as many secrets, his eyes that always felt like home, and his mutual love for the written word.
He was a forbidden ghost that drifted inside my memories, rattling the tarnished chains of my regrets.
Heat flooded my face and chest as I picked up the notebook and closed my eyes, retracing the feel of his lips against mine, just as I had in the shower. His rough, calloused hands sliding up my shirt. His breath, minty and hot against my neck…
The voice in the back of my head stirred. No, Andy. You can’t think of him like that.
With a dejected sigh, I hid the book beneath my oversized pile of unmentionables… underwear no man had seen since, well, since before I knew what an epidural was.
Ever since I could remember, words had always danced in my mind. Paper and pen had always been as important to me as breathing. And if I wasn’t writing them down, I was scribbling my thoughts in the air with my finger, just so they could have a home outside my brain, because the words never stopped coming.
Except I was blocked, unable to form those words into a cohesive story. The story I’d always wanted to write. The story everyone said I was destined to tell.
“Mom, I can’t find the remote,” Charlie called from outside my room.
I tried to hop closer to the door, struggling to get my black stockings over my legs and catching a glimpse of myself in the closet mirror.
I looked like an abnormal kangaroo on crack.
“Check the coffee table,” I shouted once I was within earshot. I turned back to the mirror, still trying to get the material over my thighs when my feet tangled. This isn’t going to end well, I thought as I toppled over onto the edge of my bed, face-first. “Damn it,” I muttered into the sheets.
My entire body went icicle-still when Charlie’s laughter filled the room. It took me a solid, panicked second to realize it was just the recording of his voice on my alarm giving the thirty-minute warning to get my butt ready and out the door. Money wasn’t going to make itself. But I was running late. Like always. Too many thoughts danced in the wind to ever be on time.
Grunting, I flopped over like a seal and got a firm grip on the tights, determined to win this game of tug-o-war. Once they were over my hips, I slipped into a pair of high-waisted shorts and a lacy crop top, which my boss required. Anything to stand out from the strip of bars and clubs his place was nestle
d in between.
“Mom?” Charlie’s voice was right outside my door.
After slipping into my boots, I adjusted my clothes and grabbed a hair tie, grateful a messy bun was hip because it was all I’d time for.
“Hey,” I said as soon as I opened the door. A smile spread over my lips. “Did you find it?”
He nodded, blue eyes sparkling, and then looked down. My heart shriveled when his shoulders crooked forward. It was that time again. The moment we dreaded every Wednesday. I wished I could shield him from it, but I couldn’t because his father took me for every penny I had in court.
“Does he have to come over?” Charlie asked. He always asked.
I still felt tiny shockwaves of anger when thinking about Matt visiting Charlie. He’d been in and out of his life from the beginning, but only recently decided he was going to put the time he was awarded by the judge to use.
I brushed the auburn hair that had fallen against his forehead back and looked him in the eyes. “He’s your father, Charlie. And he’s trying. He’s really trying this time. We have to give him a chance.”
Those words felt like acid on my tongue because they were lies I was forced to tell when the judge told me I couldn’t have full custody. That I had to share my boy with a man who had a new personality for every day of the week.
Words bubbled in my mind.
Strip me down.
Steal my shadows.
Charlie sighed as his ten-year-old eyes sullenly clouded over.
My heart was stuck in an endless loop of shattering, unable to mend or keep the cycle from repeating.
“It just feels weird calling him Dad when I don’t feel like he’s my dad.”
“I know, buddy.” I pulled him into a hug. “You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to.”
He grunted. “If I don’t, he gets mad.”
I squeezed him hard, wishing I could change things for him. Knowing the only way was to go back in time and keep myself from ever sleeping with Matt. But if I did that, I wouldn’t have Charlie.
I was too selfish to give Charlie up.
There was a swift, hard knock on the front door. We looked up.
I wonder which version of Matt we’ll be blessed with today?
“I’ll be watching The Weather Channel,” Charlie said, something he’d done for the past year. His interests had switched from obsessing over Pokémon, to needing to know everything about the barometric pressures, wind shear, and any other meteorological term that popped up on his radar.
He trudged to the couch where he always sat with Matt or, as I liked to call him under my breath, the sperm donor.
Charlie was too young to be so mature. Too sincere to be so sad.
I swallowed my tears and headed to the door, forcing myself to breathe even though every inch of me wished I could just crawl into a hole and never come up for air. Matt was a dark void I couldn’t escape. A mirror I was constantly forced to stare into because in him, I saw myself in a fragment of mistakes. In choices. Every one of them changing the girl I was into the woman I became without any sort of forewarning.
His hand was lifted when I opened the door. He still looked like he did in college. Wild, hard-edged eyes. Lips that looked like they had never tasted a smile.
There was something about hitting rock bottom that introduced one to oneself. Matt was my rock bottom. What I learned from it is that when it comes to bending backward and taking crap from others, I was as flexible as Gumby.
Matt’s eyes formed into slits the moment they landed on me. “About time, Andrea.”
I cringed at how he said my name. Like he knew me inside and out. I’d never be able to scrub that feeling away.
He gave me a once over, gaze stopping on my exposed midriff and cleavage as he clucked his teeth. “Desperate times calls for desperate measures… huh, Andrea?” He licked his lips in a cocky manner, eyes drinking me in. “You know, the offer still stands. I’d be more than willing to take you back. I didn’t forget. We’re magic in bed.”
“And my answer’s still the same—I’ll pass.” I stepped back and opened the door wider, imagining punching him square in the jaw. Reveling in the grimace that followed my rejection.
He entered like he owned the place, eyes moving over every personal piece of space. Skimming his finger over the top of a picture frame hanging on the wall, he then pushed the books sticking out on my bookshelf back in as he moved toward the living room.
I could already tell we were getting the asshole side of Matt. There was never a middle ground. He was either enraged and bitter, or as remorseful as he could be. The latter side usually came after one of his catastrophic outbursts, when he knew he had to hand the power back over long enough to win my compliance.
Every time I tried to approach him with strength and reserve, he always found a way to break what little strength I had left, and so, the cycle continued.
Charlie looked up from The Weather Channel and scooted over. “Hey.”
I moved past them and into the kitchen to make Charlie a quick meal before Julia, my neighbor, arrived. She was a godsend in my life. A tender, yet stalwart presence that was just a few short steps across the hallway. When I had to close at night, she watched over Charlie. Her husband died shortly after Charlie and I moved into the small complex. We brought her dinners when we could and just fell into claiming her as one of our own.
There was a small moment of silence, and I couldn’t help but peek over the bar.
Matt’s voice went flat as he glared at our son. “Hey… what?”
His face was angular and sharp without a hint of kindness to his eyes. I didn’t know what I had ever seen in him. Why I’d ever let myself fall into his bed.
Because he was exactly who your mother wouldn’t approve, I thought, shaking my head.
More words surfaced. Puncture me so I can bleed my mistakes.
“Hey, Dad,” Charlie corrected, the word sounding awkward. He grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it to his chest.
My finger began to move, scribbling out a thought my head couldn’t hang onto. Fucker.
Matt wore a winning smile as he settled into the couch, throwing his arm over the back so he could keep his eyes on Charlie and me. “That’s better. How has your day been?”
“Good.”
“Just good? Your mama treating you right?”
Charlie looked over the couch at me, eyes pleading.
“Don’t look to her, boy,” Matt cut in, voice rising. “Is she making you act like this? She’s always been controlling and a little on the—”
I was already around the bar, carrying the glass of water Matt always requested when he visited. “Here’s your water,” I said, shoving it in his face.
He took it and gave me his usual pissy look, like he was about to chew me up and spit me out.
I cleared my throat and straightened my shoulders, inhaling courage. “Matt, Charlie is about to eat dinner with Julia. I have to head to work. Use the time we’ve agreed on to have an actual conversation before you have to leave.”
A slow, burning smirk that sent cold shivers up my spine crossed his face. He regarded me as if I were an animal he’d yet to mount on his wall of successions. One he’d soon capture with enough patience.
I tried not to squirm.
He took a long sip. Set the glass on the coffee table. “Good to see you’re still pissed off at the world. Can you please head back to the kitchen and finish, so I can enjoy the time I’m allowed? ‘Cause we can take this back to court if you’d—”
Matt’s words trailed off when I looked at Charlie. I frowned an apology to him, wanting to tell him so many things. How sorry I was for getting us into this mess. How all men didn’t act like this.
Charlie nodded and offered a small, encouraging smile. He was always so perceptive.
When Matt’s lips stopped moving, I headed into the kitchen. Cursed under my breath when I noticed the water boiling over. “Shit, shit, shit,” I said as I moved the no
odles into the strainer, burning the edges of my fingertips in the process.
Darkness swells inside me.
It drips from my fingertips.
Bleeds from my eyes.
There was a light knock on the door followed by a, “Hello?”
“Hey, Julia. Come in. I’m just finishing up,” I said as I poured the noodles back into the pot and added the cheese and some milk. A few minutes later, I set a small bowl on the counter alongside a plate of chicken nuggets, apples, and a cup of chocolate milk. Charlie’s favorite things. It was what I always made for him when he had to see Matt.
“Mrs. Julia,” Charlie shouted as he hopped off the couch and hurried into her arms.
Her bubbly laughter warmed the chilled atmosphere Matt’s presence always brought. “And how do you do, Charlie, sir?” she asked, patting him on the back.
“Great! The forecast is sunny, and Mom is cooking my favorite.”
Julia chuckled, but then stood straight when Matt cleared his throat. She didn’t bat a wrinkled eye in his direction, just said coolly and with a curt nod, “Matt.”
It was the only greeting he ever got.
Matt’s jaw ticked, eyes dark and swirling with hate. He couldn’t stand anyone who could not only see right through his bullshit, but who also wasn’t willing to put up with it either. And the best part was that there wasn’t a single thing he could do about it.
In that area, I’d won, and I celebrated every win, no matter how small.
She was a retired kindergarten teacher with wonderful references and a clean background, so when Matt tried to annihilate her in court, the judge had dismissed it.
“Andrea,” Matt called from the couch.
I looked up.
“I forgot to mention that you should be receiving a package in the mail from my lawyer. Keep your eye out for it.” Even though he was speaking to me, he made sure to punctuate his sentence by looking at Julia. If I went against what he wanted, he’d always find ways to punish me.