Chapter 41 MAEVYN
I feel like fucking shit.
The second Westley slipped out of the hospital room, it felt like he took my heart along with him. I was the one who told him to leave. He messaged me a few minutes later, asking for updates as they happened.
Aurora has a fractured elbow and was fitted for a sling that she needs to wear for two weeks.
He messaged me again later that night when we got home, asking if he could come over to see us. Then once more when I got into bed. But, all I could focus on was Aurora.
Her whole life, all I had to do was keep her safe, and the second I failed was when I gave my heart someone else. But before that, it all felt so good. So perfect.
I look down at the text thread between us that’s remained mostly quiet on my end. Nothing but emoji reactions and one word answers.
ME:
Can you just give me some time to think?
THIEF:
You can have all the time you need to think. Just don’t forget I’m right next door and I’m ready whenever you want to let me in.
That was two days ago. I’ve barely eaten or slept since. My thoughts stuck on an endless loop of remembering every moment I’ve spent running, keeping Aurora and I skipping along the outskirts of life, and how everything’s changed since Westley came into it.
For the first time, I got to experience what life could be like with a partner, someone who shares not only the worry and doubt of what choices we make for our kids, constantly questioning if we’re doing it right, but also the joy.
Westley somehow managed to ease himself in, turning our duo into a family, and now I can’t remember what it was like without him.
I’ve done nothing but think since I asked him to give me time, but now I’m ready to talk. I’m ready to lay myself bare, and give him the last piece of myself. I need to tell West everything about my past, so he can decide if he wants to be our future.
ME:
Can you meet me here?
I send him a pin of my location, along with the question.
I’ve been sitting out in this field for an hour already.
Aurora’s staying at Ever’s house; auditions for the school play start tomorrow so they’re helping each other run lines.
She’s so excited. My daughter is also extremely observant.
She went to see West the morning after her accident.
She didn’t understand why I wasn’t talking to him.
It’s not that I was avoiding him, I just didn’t know how to process my fears when it came to Aurora, especially knowing I was still keeping my biggest secret not only from him, but from her too.
I need to come clean to them both. My phone pings where it rests in my lap.
THIEF:
I’m on my way.
I inhale deep through my nose, trying to bury the nausea. Closing my eyes, I drop my head back, as I keep breathing in and out, the sounds of crickets chirping and wind rustling through trees as my only companion.
While I wait for West, I flick back to my stargazing app and keep navigating the sky. It helps to calm my nerves, giving my mind something else to focus on.
At least thirty minutes have passed by the time headlights roll over where I’m sitting on the picnic blanket I laid out.
I turn, chewing my lip to stop it from trembling as I watch West step out of his ute, watching me with a tentative gaze.
With his hands in his pockets, he makes his way over to me, looking up at the sky full of stars, while I just look at him.
“Nice spot you found here,” he says, stopping at the edge of my blanket.
I shuffle over, making room for him. “Join me?”
West drops down to the blanket, both of us chuckling as his knees crack on the way down.
Already, the blood in my veins feels as though it flows easier through every limb.
My chest relaxes, and my brain doesn’t feel like it’s constantly humming with unease.
As hard as the choices in my life have been, and the fight for safety, it’s been harder without Westley.
I knew that five minutes after he left the hospital.
It’s been three days in a torture of my own making, but I had to be sure.
When I tell him everything, there’s no going back.
“I’m sorry I took it out on you. The way I reacted.
” I shake my head, as I draw in a deep breath.
“I’ve never had a partner in this parenting thing.
Since day one, I’ve been figuring it out as each day came,” I say, pulling at a loose thread on the edge of the blanket.
“I was lucky to meet Presley along the way. She provided emotional support, and she understood what it was like to run from her past, but it’s different to having someone who’s a second parent. ”
It feels as though my heart is rattling in my chest. I twist around so I can face West and he mimics me, our knees touching as we sit cross-legged, hands dangling at the ankles, both aching to reach out, but I don’t think he’ll make the first move. He’s letting me lead.
“If it weren’t for Royal though, we may not have made it as far as we did.”
“Who’s Royal?” he asks, our fingers inching towards each other.
If Westley’s going to stay in my life, I need to tear down the barriers between us. I avoided ever letting anyone in before because when you’re a scared seventeen year old, with the fate of a baby in your hands and a cop telling you to stay hidden—you listen. You hide.
“He’s the cop who helped me get out.”
Westley’s eyebrows furrow. “Like witness protection?”
“I could have done it that way.” I nod. “But because of my age, I risked being separated from my sister. So Royal offered to help me off record. It was harder, but it kept us together. He made sure I had a job so I could keep us fed and clothed, with a place to sleep. He looked out for us. ”
“Your sister?”
“My parents should never have been parents. They spent their entire adult life ruled by their addiction. I was an accident.” I shrug.
There’s no denying it, I wasn’t planned and I didn’t fit into their life once I arrived.
“A dispensable one, if the years I spent scared, hungry, and unloved are any indication. When I was sixteen, I realised I didn’t have to be stuck in a life I didn’t want with people who didn’t want me.
I got a job, and I planned to spend the next year saving everything I could to get myself out of there.
I made it three hundred and sixty days. I was so close.
” I heave out the word as my eyes fall closed, taking me back to the night where it all changed.
“I came home and found a pregnancy test in the kitchen bin. It was my mum’s.
The only reason she thought to take a test was that she’d been throwing up for three days and managed to get sober enough to think straight.
I had to make a split decision: help Mum get through it or watch the damage she’d inflict on a helpless baby.
” Westley reaches a hand over, stopping my fingers where they spin over my bangles.
I hadn’t even realised I’d started fiddling with them, but he always sees me.
He links his fingers through mine, offering me an encouraging smile before I continue.
“I wasn’t going to watch her mistreat another child.
I took two weeks off work to get her through a detox.
Thankfully, my boss had experience of his own with that sort of stuff.
He was on some kind of list that employed people fresh out of rehab or on probation.
He wanted to help me, so once I got Mum sober and told her we had to keep her clean for the baby, she came and worked with me.
I barely slept for those eight months before Tallie was born, afraid Mum would relapse.
But with every week, she seemed to get better and better.
It was the longest I’d seen her clean since I could remember.
Dad kept his distance, was barely home, out who knows where.
He was starting to get in real deep with his dealer around that time.
“When my sister was born, I stayed home with Mum just to make sure she was handling everything okay. Dad was almost entirely out of the picture by then. Tallie slept in my room, and she was always a good sleeper, so I switched to nightshifts at the warehouse. I dipped into the money I’d be saving to get this fancy baby monitor that connected to my phone, so I could check her throughout my shifts.
I’d give her a bottle before I left, and then she’d sleep a solid six hours.
I’d started to convince myself everything was going well until Tallie was around nine weeks old.
I unplugged the baby monitor earlier in the day to charge my phone and forgot to plug it back in, and it died while I was at work.
I came home and could hear Tallie crying, guys shouting in another room, and Mum was passed out on the couch, a line of some shit crushed up on the coffee table.
I ran straight to my room, but before I made it there, Dad and another guy came out of Mum’s bedroom covered in blood.
I could see someone lying on the floor behind them.
The guy started freaking out, and I had never felt so scared in my life.
I begged and pleaded to go check on my sister.
In the end, Dad said I needed to shut the baby up before someone called the cops.
His friend agreed and let me go. Tallie looked unharmed, but I needed to get us out of there.
While I settled her, I packed a bag with some clothes and the rest of the cash I’d saved, and climbed out the window.
I left my car, not wanting them to realise I left.
It took me almost an hour to walk to the hospital.
The doctors checked my sister thoroughly, said she was completely fine, but I wasn’t.
I couldn’t go back there. I was certain they’d killed someone.
What if it were me next because I was a witness?
What would happen to Tallie without me there to protect her?
“I was pacing the corridor with Tallie while I waited for the nurse to finish some paperwork, when I heard them whispering about child services. I couldn’t let them take my sister.
I started to have a panic attack when Royal saw me.
He asked me what was wrong, and it all just spilled out.
When he showed me his badge, I freaked out even more.
I thought he was going to take her, but he told me not to worry, that he was going to take care of everything.
And he did. After he helped me leave an anonymous tip about what I’d seen, he organised fake IDs.
Got me a job in another city, told me what to do to stay under the radar.
No social media, don’t tell anyone about my past. It didn’t exist anymore.
“About four months after we left home, I was in the next state when I recognised someone who used to hang out with my dad. I figured he was just passing through, so I’d just lie low for a few days.
I didn’t think he’d recognise me, but I wasn’t going to chance it.
I hadn’t seen him again and thought we were in the clear when, a few days later, my mum showed up.
She saw me as I was leaving a grocery store with Tallie, took one look at us, and started coming over.
I got in the car and drove for seventeen hours straight.
I called Royal, told him what happened, asked him where I should go, and he came through for me again.
Ever since then, he’s kept an eye on my parents, and on me. ”
Westley stares at me in disbelief. I don’t know what he’s thinking, or how he’s going to react, all I know is the feeling of dread and heaviness has lifted off my chest. It’s relief.
Maybe because I do trust West with my secrets and burdens.
His hand holds mine, so tight and unshakable, and I lean into that strength because I know he’ll keep them safe.
All those worries and doubts. He’ll carry them so they aren’t just mine.
“Wait, so what happened to Tallie?”
“You mean Aurora? She’s not my daughter, she’s my sister.”