Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
LUKAS
Ihave never been this afraid at a hockey game. Not in overtime or before fights. Not even in the playoffs. That’s because nothing compares to the sound of a child struggling to breathe at two in the morning.
The flat is dark except for the small lamp glowing beside the sofa, throwing soft amber light across the room. Félix is curled against my chest, flushed and exhausted, his tiny body radiating heat straight through my t-shirt.
Too much heat.
I press another kiss against the top of his damp curls while Camille paces the living room barefoot, arms folded tightly across herself. “He was okay an hour ago,” she says again, voice thin with panic. “Lukas, his temperature keeps climbing.”
“I know.”
The thermometer still sits on the coffee table beside us, threateningly.
39.7°.
The number made Camille go pale.
I rub slow circles over Félix’s back as he whimpers softly in his sleep, his small fingers clutched tightly into the front of my shirt as if he instinctively knows I am the thing grounding him right now. He trusts me already. Despite the fact that I have only been in his life for days, not years.
Camille stops pacing long enough to look at us, and something complicated flickers across her face before she looks away again quickly.
“He needs more Calpol,” she mutters.
“I’ll go.”
“It’s pouring outside.”
I shrug slightly. “I’m Canadian. Rain is nothing.” That earns the faintest huff of amusement from her, but it disappears quickly when Félix stirs against me with another unhappy little sound.
I shift him carefully higher against me, supporting his head instinctively now.
Already, my body seems to understand him better than my mind does.
I know the difference between his sleepy noises and his distressed ones.
I know he prefers being rocked slowly rather than bounced.
I know he calms faster when I speak French to him.
That one hits me hardest, because it feels inherited somehow. Natural.
“Mon petit garcon,” I murmur softly against his hair. “?a va, mon c?ur. Papa est là.”
Papa is here. The word still catches in my chest every single time. Félix’s breathing evens slightly at the sound of my voice, and Camille presses trembling fingers briefly against her mouth before turning away entirely.
Guilt twists through me instantly.
Not because of what she did.
I’m still angry. I think part of me will always be angry about the years she took from me. But right now, she just looks exhausted. Alone in a way I suddenly understand much better than I did before.
She did this alone for two years.
“Go sit down,” I tell her quietly.
“I’m fine.”
“You are shaking.” That makes her glance down at her hands as though she had not noticed.
Reluctantly, she sinks onto the opposite end of the sofa and drags a hand through her hair. She looks nothing like the Camille I remember from home now. Less sharp around the edges. More tired. Motherhood has changed her, too.
“We should maybe take him to the hospital,” she says quietly after a moment.
The fear in her voice cuts straight through me. I look down at Félix again. His cheeks are bright red with fever, his lashes damp against flushed skin. Panic claws sharply at my ribs. Suddenly, all I can think of is what if I lose him now anyway?
The thought hits viciously, and I actually feel sick.
I lean forward immediately, grabbing my phone from the table. “I’ll call the NHS.”
Camille watches me before whispering quietly, “You don’t have to do everything.”
I look at her properly then. “Yes,” I say simply. “I do.” Because that is my son.
Mine.
The realisation still feels surreal, but not when he’s sick against my chest like this. Not when instinct is screaming through every part of me to protect him.
The nurse on the phone calmly talks us through the symptoms while I answer questions, and Camille checks his temperature again. It’s come down slightly, enough that everybody breathes a little easier.
“Monitor him overnight,” the nurse advises. “If the fever climbs again or his breathing worsens, bring him in immediately.”
By the time the call ends, Camille looks close to tears from sheer exhaustion.
“I’ll go to the pharmacy,” I tell her, standing carefully while keeping Félix against me. “More medicine. Ice pops maybe.”
“You don’t need to,”
“I know.” I grab my hoodie one-handed from the chair near the door.
Félix stirs weakly as I transfer him against my shoulder, tiny warm cheek pressing against my neck.
His little arms curl instinctively around me, even half-asleep.
My heart breaks open quietly. This should not feel new.
I should know how to hold him already. I transfer him gently into Camille’s arms, soothing his murmuring as he settles there.
Outside, rain lashes hard against the pavement as I hurry toward the late-night pharmacy two streets away. The city feels strangely empty at this hour, with all the roads wet and the streetlights glowing, reflected in puddles.
Inside the pharmacy, a tired-looking woman behind the counter gives me a sympathetic look the second she notices the bags under my eyes and the worry lines etched into my forehead.
“Rough night?” she asks gently.
I let out a tired laugh. “You could say that.”
I buy children’s medicine, juice cartons, cooling strips, and tiny dinosaur plasters, not that he needs them, but because I know Félix loves dinosaurs, and these might make him smile.
“You’re a good dad.”
The words hit me hard enough that I stop moving for a second. Because I do not feel like one. I feel terrified, late, and guilty all the time. Still, an unexpected warmth lodges behind my ribs anyway.
When I get back to Camille’s flat, she’s curled up, asleep on the sofa, and Félix is tucked into her side. I don’t wake her.
Instead, I carry Félix into his room quietly, the small nightlight glowing soft blue against the walls. Tiny toy cars litter the carpet near the bed. I lower him carefully onto the mattress, but his tiny hand grabs my shirt immediately.
“No,” he whimpers weakly.
I freeze. “It’s okay, mon petit,” I whisper, crouching beside the bed instantly. “Papa reste.”
Papa stays.
His breathing calms again. So I stay. For hours, I sit on the floor beside his bed while the wind rattles against the windows and his fever slowly breaks. Every so often, he wakes enough to whimper, and I smooth his curls back from his forehead, speaking quietly in French until he settles again.
Old lullabies drift instinctively from my mouth sometime around four in the morning.
Songs my own mère used to sing to me back in Québec. “Fais dodo, Colas mon p’tit frère…” My voice sounds rough against the darkness of the room. But Félix smiles faintly in his sleep anyway. And Christ, that nearly ends me.
By dawn, the fever finally starts dropping properly, and relief crashes through me so hard my hands actually shake.
Camille appears quietly in the doorway wearing one of Félix’s blankets around her shoulders, her eyes swollen with sleep. “He’s cooler,” she whispers.
I nod tiredly. “Much better.”
Then softly she says, “You would’ve been good at this.” I look up sharply. Camille’s eyes stay fixed on Félix sleeping peacefully now. “At his father,” she says quietly. “You would have been good from the beginning.”
Pain rips through me. I should have been here. But she stole those years from me.
Camille swallows hard before looking at me. “I told myself you would leave eventually if I told you.”
Anger flickers instantly beneath my pain. “You didn’t even let me choose.”
“I know.” The honesty in her voice drains some of the fight out of me.
I scrub both hands over my face slowly. “I can’t even process all of this properly yet. I’m so angry you took that decision away from me.”
Then my phone buzzes quietly in my pocket. The sound feels strangely loud in the dim room.
Kate. Just seeing her name makes my chest ache in a different way.
Kate: How is he?
Three words. Careful. Kind. Hurting. I stare at the screen long enough that Camille notices. Her eyes flick toward the phone before returning to me quietly. “She seems nice.”
My throat tightens. “She is.”
I should answer, but instead I keep staring at the message while guilt and longing tangle together inside me. I miss her already. I miss the life I wanted with her.
And sitting beside my sleeping son while another woman waits carefully at the edge of my life feels impossibly unfair to everybody involved.