Chapter 26 Sacrilegious Pineapples and Family Promises Emmett #3
“You okay, buddy?” I ask, setting him back on his feet, but he’s not looking at me. His stare is fixed on the ice cream, the broken bowl, as he inches backward. Frowning, I stand, starting after him. “Abel?”
He freezes when my shadow falls over him, and my gaze swings to Cara, panicked. I don’t know whether to throw my ass back to the couch or to stand perfectly still; I just don’t want to scare him any more than he already is.
“It’s okay, Abel,” Cara says as softly as I’ve ever heard. “It’s—”
“It-it-it-it was a-a-a accident. I didn’t mean to.” He shakes his head violently, backing up, chest heaving.
“Abel,” I urge quietly, but the second our gazes connect, he takes off.
Dashes down the hall, tumbles his way up the stairs.
Flings himself through his bedroom door, slamming it closed behind him.
And while I think there’s nothing quite so heartbreaking as the sobs that carry into the hall as Cara and I pause outside his door, I’m proven wrong when she slowly pushes it open, and we find him huddled in the corner of his room, gripping his hair, shaking.
And I see me. I see my brothers. I see my parents losing their absolute shit every time we spilled something, broke something, just made a mess because we were fucking kids, and that’s what kids do.
My parents loved standing over us, reminding us how big they were, how intimidating someone could be without ever laying a hand on you, and maybe that’s what Abel’s used to too, but I can say without a doubt in my mind that that’s not how things are going to go here.
So I take Cara’s face in my hands, pressing a kiss to her lips, and tell her, “I’ve got this,” before I step into his room, taking a seat on the floor opposite him as I think about all the things I would have liked to hear as a kid.
“Hey, Abel. I’m gonna stay over here, okay?
You still have your space, and if you want to come closer, you can.
” I blow out a sigh, resting my head against the wall as Abel hugs his knees, crying.
“You worked really hard on your ice cream sundae, huh? It looked so yummy. Are you sad that you didn’t get to eat it? ”
Abel shakes his head, wiping his face quickly before he buries it again.
“No? Well, we have plenty more, so if you’re feeling sad about it later, you just let us know.”
Slowly, his face lifts, brows furrowing.
“Did you feel scared when your ice cream fell?”
He watches me carefully for a moment before nodding.
“Can you tell me what made you feel scared? It was loud when the bowl fell. Sometimes loud noises make me feel scared.”
Abel sniffles, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. He looks down at his feet.
“It’s hard to talk when you’re feeling scared, huh?” When his eyes come back to mine and he nods, I smile. “I know. Cara and I want you to know that you’re safe here. When you’re scared, you can talk to us.”
“I was scared… I was scared you was gonna yell at me.” He fiddles with the edge of the rug, his cheek resting on his hand, elbow on his knee. “ ’Cause I spilled and broke and made a big, big mess.”
I nod. “I get that. Thanks for telling me. Do you remember what Cara told you about messes when we were making pizza?”
“Um…” He taps his chin. “You make lots of messes?”
I grin. “We really do. Messes happen, and so do accidents. They’re both part of life.
” I glance at Cara, watching us from the doorway.
“Me and Cara, we’re not going to yell at you for making a mess or having an accident.
Yelling’s not a good way to communicate.
It usually only makes things sound loud and scary. ”
He raises two palms in a shrug. “Well, Peter and Elizabeth, they-they… they yell at me.”
“I hear you, buddy. How about we make a family pact?”
Soft green eyes light. “What’s that?”
“A promise a family makes to each other.”
He shifts onto his knees, gliding across the floor toward me. “Is we a family? Me and you and Cara?”
“We sure are. Anyone living in this house is family. So how about we promise each other to always do our best to communicate, which is a fancy word for talking. That means we tell each other when we feel sad, or angry, or scared, and we try our very best to use calm voices, so everyone feels safe and heard.”
“And-and-and…” He grips my knee, propping himself up, brows raised as he points a finger in my face.
“You not allowed to call me a bad boy, okay? Okay, Emmett?” He shakes his head.
“It not nice, my Catharine always tells me it not nice when… when Peter and Elizabeth say, they say”—he puts one hand on his hip, face screwing up as he shakes a finger—“ ‘You a bad boy, Abel!’ ”
“We can absolutely promise that,” I say without hesitation. “Right, Care?”
She twists away, and I hear the unmistakable sniffle of a woman who’s trying to get rid of the evidence of her tears. “Right.” She grins, a little wobbly as she enters the room, taking a seat with us, rubbing Abel’s arm. “What do you say? Family promise?”
“Family promise,” he says with a smile.
And when he climbs into my lap, snuggling into my chest, I’m suddenly painfully aware that Cara isn’t the only one who’s going to have an impossible time saying goodbye.