35. Max
35
MAX
I walked out of my first OB appointment feeling conflicted. I’d done some research to try to find a welcoming practice, but the place had been anything but. Everyone from the front desk staff to the nurse to the doctor herself had made me feel like I was inconveniencing them. And I could’ve sworn I saw judgement when the nurse asked me if the father was going to be involved, and I answered “no.”
On paper, he wasn’t. In my dreams? Yeah, I couldn’t escape him there.
If Theo had been by my side at the appointment, he would’ve whisked me out of there—after giving the snooty nurse a piece of his mind. I usually knew how to advocate for myself, but being pregnant and heartbroken was making me feel less … me. I was just exhausted by the possibility that I was doing this alone.
And yeah, I missed the hell out of Theo despite everything that had happened between us.
But not enough to pick up the phone. If I reached out to him, he’d try to take over, and I couldn’t let that happen. Not for me or my baby. I walked out into the bright sunshine and took a few deep breaths. I still had a chance to find a new doctor. I could do this on my own.
The appointment felt almost routine. It was too early for a sonogram to see the baby, so the blood draw and urine tests seemed like any other doctor’s appointment. I placed my hands on my stomach. That was going to change soon.
I pulled my phone out of my bag to check the time and realized when I saw the full screen of missed calls and texts that my ringer was still off. Nearly all of them were Rafe, telling me to call him ASAP. I dialed him, my heart pounding.
“Can you come get me?” he asked in a dull voice as he answered.
“Is everything okay?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know, just please come get me. Now.”
He hung up before I could ask more questions. It wasn’t like him to be this shut down, which meant something had definitely happened.
Rafe was waiting outside the house when I arrived, sitting on the front step without his skateboard or his phone on the step next to him. My stomach clenched. What was going on?
“Hey,” I said, studying him as I walked closer. “You okay?”
He pointed toward the house without a word, like he was shellshocked.
“Is Nick here?” I wanted to be prepared for a confrontation if necessary.
He shook his head and I felt relieved. “Mom’s in there. You need to go talk to her.”
I walked into the house feeling like a trespasser. I rarely went inside these days, partly because I knew Nick didn’t want me there and partly because the place had bad energy. The dread I felt walking inside this time was worse than normal. There was something in the air that wasn’t right.
“Mom?” I called. “Where are you?”
I didn’t hear anything. The house was a small ranch that my mom kept as tidy and cute as she could, but it was still sorely in need of routine maintenance. It broke my heart that Rafe was growing up here. I searched room to room until I heard sniffling coming from the bathroom.
My mom was leaning close to the mirror clutching a bottle of foundation. Her back was to me so I could only see her reflection in the mirror. Hey eyes were red-ringed, which wasn’t exactly new, but I froze when I realized what she was doing.
“He hit you?” I gasped when I saw the bright red splotch across her cheek that she was trying to cover.
She sniffled and bowed her head, so I rushed over to hug her, enraged and heartbroken at the same time. She clung to me.
“When did it happen? Did Rafe see? Where is Nick now? I’ll kill the bastard!”
She didn’t answer right away, hiccup-breathing against my shoulder.
“He didn’t mean to,” she finally whispered.
I pulled away from her in shock. “Mom … are you kidding me?”
Now that we were facing one another, I could see the full extent of the injury. Her cheek was bright red, and there was a small cut next to her eye. I could only imagine how bad it was going to look once the bruising set in.
“We were arguing, and he tried to gesture about something and he …”
“Smacked you,” I finished for her. “That doesn’t look like an accident, it looks like a direct hit.”
She turned to the mirror and her eyes welled. “I don’t know now.”
I was furious, but she seemed so rattled that I realized I had to stay even keel in order to help her work through what had happened. If I acted as crazy as I felt she’d shut down. I leaned against the bathroom door. “What were you fighting about?”
She laughed through her tears. “Dinner, as usual. He was upset I was behind schedule because I was working on some real estate stuff.”
“How cliché,” I muttered. “Are you sure it was just about dinner?”
I had a feeling Nick didn’t like the idea of my mom working. He probably knew what it could lead to.
She held onto the edge of the sink and stared at her hands. “I mean, he gets home from work and he’s hungry right away. So I guess I’m partly to blame.”
“Mom!” I felt sick about the way he’d beaten her spirit down, conditioning her to expect such horrible treatment. “ No , you’re not to blame. The man could pick up a pot and make his own damn dinner if he’s so hungry, or go get take-out. You’re not his housemaid!”
I watched her processing what I’d said, gripping the sink like she was afraid to let go. She looked seconds from breaking down again.
“Where was Rafe when it happened?”
Her shoulders started shaking as her head bowed lower. “Standing in the doorway,” she whispered.
As much as I wanted to explode at the news, I needed to keep myself together for her sake. But the fact that Rafe had witnessed this escalation of abuse made me want to scream.
“He … he …”
“What happened, Mom?” I felt nervous energy kicking up inside of me at what she’d left out.
“He went after Nick, trying to defend me.”
“ They fought ?” I screeched in shock.
She finally turned to look at me, shaking her head. “Rafe charged him and Nick ducked out of the way, then he left. I think Nick was almost … embarrassed by what he’d done, you know? He felt bad about it.”
I was shaking my head before she even finished. “Doesn’t matter. He did it, which means he could do it again.”
“But he texted me and said he was sorry.”
I let out a long sigh. “Mom, I know there’s nothing that I can say or do to make you see how unhealthy this relationship is.” Goodness knew, I’d tried—over and over again throughout the years. “But I want you to think about what Rafe is learning growing up in this dynamic. And now, this.” I gestured to her face. “It’s escalating.”
“But why? Why now?” Her bottom lip quivered.
“Because you’re taking charge of your own damn life and working. And because Rafe is growing up and he doesn’t want to see his father screaming at his mom all the time. Or hitting her.”
The tears were rolling down her cheeks now. She reached up to wipe them away with the back of her hand and flinched when she hit the tender spot on her cheek.
“What do you want to do?” I asked softly.
I watched her process everything. She leaned close to the mirror to examine the mark on her cheek and her face crumpled. She glanced at me in the reflection.
“I want to leave,” she whispered.
Relief flooded through me, but I needed to get granular with her.
“For now or for good?”
She took a deep breath. “For good.”
We reached for each other and hugged again, my mom mourning what she was about to lose and me celebrating the achievement. It wasn’t going to be easy for her, but anything was better than where she was now.
“Let’s get you and Rafe packed.”
Her eyebrows knitted. “Wait … right now? We should go now?”
I held in my exasperation. “Yes. If we don’t Nick will come back and sweet talk you, and make you forget that he just hit you in the face. You have to make a clean break immediately. You can stay at my place.”
“Honey, no, it’s so small. Where will we sleep?”
“It’s not forever,” I insisted. “Just until you figure out your next step. You and I can share my bed and Rafe can sleep on the couch. It’ll be fun, like a sleepover.”
She frowned. “I don’t want to put you out.”
I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the bathroom. “Stop. Get packing.”
She headed for her bedroom, and I walked out to tell Rafe.
“Fucked up, right?” he said when I joined him on the step. “I wanted to kill him for hurting Mom. I almost did.”
“I heard you stood up for her. I’m proud of you for being so brave. But you shouldn’t have to do that, Rafe.”
He scoffed. “Someone has to.”
I clasped his shoulder. “Not anymore. You’re both coming with me. She’s leaving him.”
I’d expected him to whoop when he heard the news, but Rafe just stared out at the street. “Huh. Wow.”
“Are you happy?”
He picked at the dirt under his nails. “Yeah. But where are we going?”
“You’re going to stay with me for a little while. I hope you don’t mind couch springs poking your back all night.”
The hint of a smile. “I can sleep standing up. I’ll be fine.”
I laughed. How was this person my little brother? It was as if he’d grown again, this time not physically but emotionally.
“You need to pack your stuff. Take enough for a few weeks, just in case.”
He nodded.
“I got worried when you didn’t pick up my calls,” he said, staring at the street. “I almost did something stupid.”
“Oh yeah? What was that?”
He turned to look me in the eye. “I almost called Theo.”
His expression and the tone of his voice made my stomach bottom out. “Oh?”
“Yeah. He helped me last time so I figured …” he trailed off and shrugged. “But then I remembered that you guys broke up.” He paused. “Dumb idea, if you ask me.”
I stiffened, feeling a little defensive. Rafe was my brother—wasn’t he supposed to be on my side? “Theo and I are in different places in our lives. It just wasn’t meant to be.”
Saying the words and knowing I was carrying his baby almost made me break down, but I needed to be strong for my family. And I didn’t want to get into it with Rafe because he was nosy as hell and didn’t have a filter.
“I don’t know, he seemed pretty into you. Like, it was sort of gross.”
It was my turn to shrug.
“What would’ve happened if I’d called him? Would he have been a dick to me because he’s mad at you?”
“Absolutely not,” I said quickly, knowing it was true. “He would’ve come and gotten you both out of here. Taken care of you. That’s how he is, no matter how he feels about me.”
“I really liked him,” Rafe said. “He was easy to talk to.”
The tears came out of nowhere, surprising both me and Rafe.
“Hey,” he said, leaning closer so he could rub my back. “What’s wrong?”
I wiped the tears away quickly. “I’m just a little sad, that’s all. Breakups are hard.”
Especially when you think you might be in love with the person you’re not sure you can trust.