Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
MAYA
Iknow something’s wrong before we even get to the door.
It’s a gut thing. That strange, prickling awareness low in my spine. Owen’s hand tightens on the handle of my suitcase, and I see it in his eyes too; something off. He steps in front of me before we even reach the landing.
“Stay behind me,” he says, voice quiet but steady.
I don’t question it.
Lila’s tucked into the crook of my arm, sticky with sleep, her cheek warm against my collarbone. She hums softly, still caught in the drowsy afterglow of the coach ride. I want to hum too. I want to pretend this is just a normal night, coming home. But something inside me goes cold.
Owen pushes the door open. It sticks, as usual. Then swings wide, and there it is. The kitchen window. Smashed. Glass on the floor like slivered ice. Curtains flapping in the early evening breeze.
For a second, I can’t move.
I’m eight months pregnant again, standing barefoot in a flat in Newcastle, shaking while he screams in the other room, and a glass bottle shatters against the door. I’m holding a basket of folded baby clothes and thinking, this isn’t what I wanted. This isn’t what I thought love was.
Owen’s already stepped inside. He checks the rooms quickly; swift, efficient, controlled. He’s a mountain in motion, and somehow that calms me more than anything else. He calls out, low enough not to wake Lila, “All clear. No one’s here.”
But the damage is done. And it’s not just the glass. He sees it in my face when I finally step inside. The way my hands tremble. The way I won’t put Lila down.
“Oh my God,” I whisper.
“Nothing else touched,” he says. “Just the window.”
Just the window.
But it’s never just the window. Not to someone like me. Not after what we’ve survived.
“Take her out,” I murmur. “Please.”
Owen doesn’t argue. He takes Lila from my arms like she’s something sacred and murmurs, “Come on, Jellybean. Want to see the stars from my truck?”
Lila nods, mumbling something about a moon sticker. Owen touches my wrist before he leaves.
“I’ll be right outside. You’re not alone.”
Then he’s gone. And I sink onto the floor, hands buried in my hair, knees drawn to my chest. I thought I was past this part. The jumping shadows. The spiralling what-ifs. The constant thrum of danger under my skin.
But I was wrong.
By the time I’ve swept most of the glass and checked for missing things, there’s nothing, I’ve folded myself back into that version of me I hoped I’d buried. The woman who lives in reaction. In hypervigilance. In dread.
Owen comes back up with Lila asleep in his arms. She’s clinging to his hoodie like it’s her favourite blanket.
“We’re not staying,” he says immediately. “Grab what you need. We’re going to my house.”
“Owen, I…”
“No.” His voice is soft, but there’s steel beneath it. “You don’t need to decide anything permanent. But you’re not staying in a place with a broken window and a broken lock.”
I cross my arms. I can feel my pride rising like a tide. “I’ve worked so hard to have this space. To stand on my own. To give Lila a home that’s just ours.”
He nods. “And you still have. Nothing about that changes. You’re not giving anything up by accepting help. You’re adding safety, not subtracting independence.”
It’s the right thing to say. Of course it is. But I still feel the ache of old wounds trying to reopen.
I remember the way my ex used to sneer when I wanted to decorate the nursery. “Why bother? Not like you’ll stay.” I remember the way he ripped the fairy decals off the wall when we moved again, Lila not even six months old.
I remember what it felt like to teach myself not to get attached to anything.
“I don’t want her to think we’re running,” I whisper.
“She won’t,” Owen says. “Because we’re not. We’re choosing to move somewhere safe while we figure this out. And she trusts you. More than anyone.”
I look at him. Lila’s head is resting on his shoulder; her little fingers curled against his chest. She looks safe there.
And maybe, so do I.
“Okay,” I say. “Just for a while.”
Jacko’s house is lit up when we arrive. Warm light pouring through the windows. The kind of place that looks like someone loves it and lives in it.
He takes Lila straight upstairs, lays her gently in the guest bed and I stay downstairs and hover in the living room like a ghost. When he comes back, I’m sitting on the couch with my arms wrapped around a throw pillow like armour.
“She needs her own room,” he says, like he’s been thinking about it the whole way back.
I blink. “What?”
“If you’re here more than a few nights, she should have a space that’s hers. Not just the guest bed. A real room. With stuff she picked.”
“She won’t want to leave if you do that.”
His mouth tips in a half-smile. “Good.”
It pulls something in me tight. “I don’t want to raise her in borrowed spaces again,” I say. “We moved so much when she was little. Every flat was temporary. Every cupboard was half-empty. I used to keep her toys in plastic bins so they were easier to carry.”
“You don’t have to live like that anymore.”
I nod, slowly.
“She’d want purple,” I say. “Not lavender, purple. Like the unicorn on her backpack. And she has this star projector; I didn’t pack it. It’s still at the flat.”
“I’ll go get it,” he says immediately.
I shake my head. “No. I mean…not yet. But she’ll ask for it soon. She likes the stars to move while she sleeps. She says they keep the bad dreams away.”
He smiles again. Softly. “We’ll get new ones if we need to. Ones that shine on the ceiling and the walls.”
“And she’ll want a bookshelf. For the dozen dog-eared books she insists on bringing everywhere. And a blanket that smells like home.”
“You can both have that,” he says.
I meet his eyes. “I don’t want her to get attached and then have to leave again.”
“Then maybe you don’t leave.”
The words land somewhere deep in my chest. I’m not ready to answer.
Not yet. But I look around his house and I imagine Lila running down the stairs in the morning.
Imagine her hanging drawings on the fridge.
Imagine baking here with Owen, without looking over my shoulder.
And the ache of wanting feels dangerous. But also hopeful.
“Do you think,” I whisper, “we could let her help decorate? Pick the colour? Choose where her bed goes?”
“Absolutely. She can boss us both around.”
“She’ll love that.”
“She already does.”
I laugh. It’s small and broken, but it’s real. He leans closer and brushes his fingers across mine. “You deserve a home you don’t have to defend,” he says. “And Lila deserves to know what safety feels like, not just what it’s not.”
“I’ve spent so long surviving,” I whisper. “I don’t know how to just live.”
“I do,” he says. “So let me show you.”
Later, when we’re curled up under a blanket on the couch, Owen pulls out his phone and starts scrolling. “Wallpaper options,” he says. “Thought we’d get ahead of the planning.”
I peer over his shoulder. One option has pastel clouds. Another has bold rockets. Then he scrolls to one with soft clouds, and I still.
“That one,” I say.
He looks at me. “You sure?”
I nod. “She’ll love it. And maybe…I will too.”
He leans in and kisses my temple. And in that moment, I let myself want it. A room of her own. A door that’s never slammed in anger. A home full of stars, and quiet, and arms strong enough to carry us both.
Not borrowed. Not temporary.
Ours.