Chapter 29
Kieran
KIERAN
she’s officially stolen my heart
*picture attachment*
brOTHER FROM ANOTHER MOTHER
are those matching golden retriever Oodies?
KIERAN
look past it
brOTHER FROM ANOTHER MOTHER
she did a cereal spread and Gilmore Girls???
how far deep are you in now?
KIERAN
I’m never coming up for air
Trying to move a sleeping toddler into their bed is what I imagine it feels like to move a bomb. One wrong move and those little eyelids will pop open and they’ll never go back to sleep.
Yet this time instead of my heart pounding out of nerves, I find that it’s full, heavy with love. I’ve spent the entirety of my time since I stepped through my front door being grateful.
Beyond grateful.
The day I met Layla was the best day of my life and I have no idea what I did to be deserving of her kind heart.
There was a moment on the couch where I was fighting off tears that the thought even so much as crossed her mind to cheer me up.
She had no idea that I was suffering tonight, that my thoughts were spiraling down the drain, and now she probably thinks I’m a big mushy idiot.
Maybe I am, but tonight was the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.
Allie was always the one to comfort me through my panic attacks but in the back of my mind, I thought that maybe she felt obligated to, like she would be a bad person if she ignored her son’s friend. She’d give me a good scolding if she knew I thought this way.
But I can see Layla did this because that’s just who she is. She’s practically an angel with how pure her heart is, and it feels good for someone to care about me.
I’m so close, at the homestretch. I just need to get one arm out—
Emmy’s eyes flutter open. Those long black lashes lifting as her honey-brown eyes lock on mine. She’s slightly disoriented before she peers around her room, the thumb she fell asleep sucking on popping from her mouth as she nestles further into her bed.
Leaning down, I place a small kiss on her forehead. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”
I step back but a small, timid voice stops me in my tracks.
“Is Layla my new mom?”
My body freezes, the air thickening, the sounds outside falling eerily quiet as if even the trees and animals in the backyard are listening.
The back of my eyes burn as I slowly take a seat on her bed. I need to talk, need to do fucking something, but I’m stunned, sucker punched.
Not only by the sound of her rough and unused voice but the question… My god, the question has knocked the air from my lungs.
A mere two hours ago I was on the side of the road breaking down over Emmy not speaking, but now that she has, instead of feeling happy and grateful, I can feel my face falling, unable to hide my heartbreak.
How do I handle this? What if I say the wrong thing?
A small voice pipes up through my panic, What would you have wanted to hear when you were little?
It takes some time to clear my throat. “No, sweetheart, Layla is a close friend, like family,” I say, because family is more than blood. Her eyes hold mine as I gently continue, “But she’s not your mom.”
Her little brows pull down, a frown marring her smooth skin.
My heart stutters as I ask, “D-do you remember your mom?”
She seems to shrink away as she nods her head slowly.
Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.
On the outside I hope I look as composed as I’m forcing myself to act because internally, I’m freaking the fuck out. She hasn’t once acknowledged her mom. This is the first little scrap she’s ever given me.
Do I keep going? Do I keep pushing and ask more questions?
I mean, she brought up the topic, but what if I hit a nerve or say the wrong thing? What if—
Emmy erases that choice as she whispers, so softly I have to lean forward to catch it, “She was a bad mommy.”
My shoulders slump with the dead weight. Taking a steadying breath, the children’s psychology books, podcasts, and videos I’ve been listening to bombard my mind at once, swirling like a tornado with no end in sight.
I can’t fuck this moment up.
Validate her feelings.
Lead with open-ended questions.
Don’t put words in her mouth.
Don’t rush her.
“Emmy, I’m so sorry.” The emotion coating my words thicken my voice. “I wish I could go back and stop her. I wish I could’ve been there. I would have done anything to be there and protect you.”
If my dad suddenly came into the picture and saved me from my mom and the foster home, I think again, what would I have wanted to hear?
“Emmy, I need to tell you something very important,” I whisper, noting how she clings to my every word. I say the thing that I wished someone said to me all those years ago. “It’s not your fault you had a bad mommy.”
She frowns at that, clinging to her golden retriever teddy a little tighter. “But she said I was a bad girl.” Tears fill her eyes and her tiny chin quivers, making my heart shatter into a million pieces as her voice fills with emotion. “Bad girls have to be punished.”
The sentence is robotic, memorized—branded in her mind.
I can’t bear this, her little whimpers, the tears in her eyes, the tightness of her words.
I can’t fucking bear it.
Scooping her into my arms, I hold her. I hold her because I can’t take it back, can’t erase the words from her mind, can’t erase the experience, her memories.
If I could, I would in a heartbeat. I know how much it hurts, how debilitating it can be to know you were hated by the one person in this world biologically programmed to love you.
Emmy lays her head on my chest, her fist clutching my shirt as her tears dampen it.
“No, sweetheart,” I say vehemently. “She was the one who was bad, not you.” Her hand clings a little tighter as she shakes her head.
“She said I was too loud,” she chokes out, her shoulders shaking violently, far too powerful for someone so little. The weight of her emotions and hurt is so deep I fear I’ll never be able to fix it.
Too loud.
Is that why she doesn’t speak? Because she was told she was too loud? Told repeatedly to be quiet?
The revelation obliterates what small shred of my heart remained.
Sucking in a sharp breath I can’t hold back my tears any longer, no matter how hard I try.
Cradling her, I stroke her hair softly, letting her cry in my arms and hating with every fiber of my being that I couldn’t protect her from such a monster.
“You are the sweetest, most caring, kind little girl I know.” I hope with every piece of my heart she listens to this, that she clings to my words stronger than the vile ones her mother spewed.
“You are not bad. The very opposite, Emmy. Your heart is pure. You are never too loud. In fact, I don’t think you’re loud enough, little one.
Do you know I hope every day that you’ll talk?
Every single day, Emmy. It’s my one wish in life, that you’ll fill this house with your voice. ”
“Really?”
“I swear, Emmy. All I want is to hear your voice.”
She sniffles, her sobbing slowing enough for her to confess, “I wish Layla was my mommy. Layla is nice.”
A knife wound to the chest would hurt less.
“What else did your mommy do, Emmy?”
She burrows her head further into my chest. “She would put me in my cupboard with my dinosaur.” A sob escapes her, making me cling to her tighter. “I don’t like the dark. Mommy told me to shut up.”
Flashes of my own childhood assault me, when my mother shoved me into the trunk at the end of her bed and left me there for hours, having stuck small holes in the top for me to breathe as she got high in the other room.
I know exactly how fearful Emmy would have been…
and now I know why terror filled her eyes those very first days when I went to turn the light off, my chest physically aches at the revelation.
“She was a bad mommy for that, Emmy. A very bad mommy.” Rubbing soothing circles along her back, I whisper, “I won’t ever let anyone hurt you again, I promise.” Kissing the top of her head I whisper, “I love you, sweet girl.”
Sweat trickles along my brow. The small flashlight I keep hidden in my pocket for when she shoves me in here died a while ago, leaving me alone too. Why does everyone leave me?
It’s been too long this time.
Far too long.
I haven’t heard my mommy’s cries in a long time.
The apartment is quiet, so, so, so quiet I’m scared she forgot me.
I’ve been trying to count sheep—that’s what the boy at the playground says he does when he can’t sleep. But it’s so hot and stuffy in here I’m finding it hard to breathe now.
My stomach grumbles in the trunk, sounding like a dinosaur roar. Mommy never remembers to give me dinner.
The man she says is her friend brings lots of boxes of cereal, though. I love cereal. We always have it in the cupboard, and it’s the only yummy thing I can make for myself. The last time I tried to make toast Mommy smacked me so hard across my face I got little bubbles on my skin.
Cereal never lets me go hungry. I can always count on cereal.
Tears fill my eyes.
Cereal can’t get me out of here, though.
I want to start kicking my feet and screaming but the last time I did that Mommy got out her belt and even the thought of that happening again makes my stomach do somersaults.
I can’t sit down on my bottom for days and days after Mommy brings out the belt.
I hate the belt.
The latch to the trunk flicks.
I can’t help but gasp. I didn’t even hear Mommy’s click-clack shoes this time.
My lips are lifting into a smile as the rush of fresh air tickles my skin and it feels like I can breathe again—
My smile falls.
It isn’t Mommy opening the trunk. It’s a man.
Is he one of Mommy’s new friends? I don’t like his smile. His smile is creepy and his eyes are black. Mommy’s eyes go black like that when she hits me.
Before I realize it, I’m shaking my head.
This is a bad man. A bad, bad, bad man.
He reaches in, grabbing my arms. “Come here, boy,” he sing-songs.
I’m screaming before I can remind myself of the belt.
“No!” He hefts me into his arms. Kicking and thrashing, I look around the room wildly. “Mom! Mommy! No, please no!”
This is a bad man. I don’t want this bad man near me.
My mommy comes rushing in, her brown hair all messed up, her eyes wearing that crazy look she has when she disappears for days and I’m left to watch TV alone.
She coos. “It’s okay, baby, this is Mommy’s friend. You have to be a good boy for Mommy’s friend and do what he says. It’ll be fun, I promise.”
My heart is beating so fast black spots start to appear and I suddenly can’t see as the man takes me into the living room and throws me onto the couch.
“No, no, no!”
“Be a good boy for your mom,” he spits.
“Kieran?”
My head snaps up at Layla’s voice, the memory fading.
I’m in my hallway. How long have I been standing here?
“Are you okay?” she asks, her voice timid as she walks toward me slowly. She’s approaching me like I’m a cornered animal.
I nod my head quickly, only to shake it.
My body feels weird, out of sorts and a bit floaty, like I’m suspended in air. With Emmy’s confession sparking my own memories, my hands are tingling by my sides, my brain foggy and I feel so unlike myself I swear I’m not even in my body right now.
“Kieran, should I go?”
I hear Layla ask the question, and if I was in my right mind, I’d realize all her little cues showing me she’s nervous and unsure what to do, but for some reason I can’t act on them.
It’s been years since I’ve remembered that particular friend of my mom’s, the one she would deal with and exchange things for drugs, one of them being me. Those memories…they’ve been buried for a very long time.
“I-I’m not sure.” Rubbing a hand down my face, I sigh. “Maybe.”
Her eyes widen, blinking at me rapidly. “Of course, I’m so sorry I intruded. I was just worried when you didn’t come back for so long and—” She shakes herself. “I’m rambling, you want to be left alone. I’m sorry.”
And with that, she spins on her heel and rushes down the stairs.
My hands are trembling slightly. My blinks are slow, and my jaw unhinges on a yawn.
The front door slams shut.
It takes a moment for my brain to process everything. It’s working much slower than usual, so slow in fact that when I look down at my hands again only to feel like I’m looking at someone else’s hands, it takes tremendous effort to blink back into my own perspective.
With sudden clarity, I realize that I dissociated.
The therapist I saw during college said I did that to “survive” my childhood.
I was just so young I never remembered it, how floaty and out of control it feels.
You can barely think when you dissociate, let alone hold a conversation, it takes every ounce of energy you have to form a singular word.
Your brain just shuts down, a barrier of protection so you don’t think, feel, or have to comprehend whatever your mind deems unsafe.
My head snaps up.
“Did I just…”
I’m sprinting down the hallway before I finish the sentence.
Why the fuck would I tell her to leave? What the fuck just happened to me?
Running barefoot out the front of my house, Layla’s lights illuminate the gate she’s about to drive through, and I throw myself in front of her car, holding up my hands to tell her to stop.
Slamming on the brake, her car lurches, just as her front bumper knocks into my thigh.
“What the hell, Kieran?” Layla yells as she rolls down her window. “I could have killed you!”
Rounding the car, I lean my hand against her window, bending so we’re at eye level. The car smells like her and I can’t help but pull in a deep breath, my nerves settling at the scent. “Don’t go, I’m sorry. I just…I wasn’t myself. I usually need a minute alone to process my emotions.”
Layla nods, her eyes slightly wild with fright. “That’s okay, Kieran, I understand. No need to throw yourself in front of my car. I’m leaving.”
“No, you’re not listening. I want you to stay.” I can see the skepticism so I all but beg, “Please. Emmy just ripped my heart out, I don’t need you to run over it too.”
“That’s a bit melodramatic, don’t you think?”
“Emmy just asked if you were her mom and when I said no she was sad because she confessed she had a bad mom and wished you were her mom because you’re nice.”
Layla’s lips part, astonishment thundering across her face.
“Will you put the car in park now?”
She nods aimlessly, our roles reversing as she’s now the one shell-shocked.
Leaning over, I put the car in park for her, realizing how close it places me to her face. Her eyes track my every movement as I press the engine button and turn her car off. Pulling out of the window, I open the door, holding out my hand.
“Come inside. Please, sunshine.”