Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
SLOANE
The house looks the same when I arrive the next day, hoping to catch a glimpse of him before my shift. I hesitate only a second before knocking, already knowing how this will go, but I do it anyway. My pulse beats hard in my ears as I wait, then knock again, praying she lets me see him this time.
Just as I’m about to try again, the door opens just enough for her face to appear, eyes narrowed and already annoyed like I’ve interrupted something important just by existing.
“Eden.” She flicks up her chin, glancing over her shoulder before opening the door wider.
My gut knots. “You can’t call me that anymore, Camille.”
Her mouth curves into a sinister smile. “Relax. No one can hear us.”
“That isn’t the point, and you know it.”
But she always does whatever she can to upset me.
“This is all your fault.” She draws closer, refusing to let me in. “You ruined everything, and to this day, I can’t even call my friends or even see my boyfriend just because you…” She sticks her finger into my chest. “…decided to be a criminal.”
My muscles tighten. “I’m not doing this today.”
But of course, she’s right. I did do this. Me and my stupidity.
She scoffs. “We had a good life back home. But you had to go and fuck it all up.”
A laugh slips out. “A good life? We had rats in the walls, Camille. We couldn’t leave food out overnight without it being chewed through by morning.
Mom was sick, Dad was drunk, and you spent half your time pretending you were better than all of it while I was the one trying to keep things from falling apart. ”
Her eyes flash. “And now look at us. Happy fucking family.”
“This place is better. You know it is. It’s clean. It’s safe. And the rent is something we can actually manage. We’re lucky my friend set us up here.”
“Lucky,” she repeats flatly. “I’m not lucky. I’m stuck. Speaking of stuck, I hope you came here to give me the money for the week. I’m not doing this for free.”
My heart drops. I really need to find another job. “I-I-I don’t have it this week. But I promise I will in a few days. I have to get paid first, then you will—”
“You truly disgust me. A pathetic, alcoholic do-nothing like Dad was. Maybe if we’re lucky, you’ll drink yourself into an early grave too.”
Tears burn behind my eyes. “How can you say that?”
She shakes her head, just like the man from the diner. “Because you’d do yourself a favor. Your little problem has already caused too many headaches. And if you forgot, I’m the one who saved you from going to prison. You’re welcome.”
My mouth shuts because she’s right. She may have her faults, but she did save me. Mom’s death was ruled an accident, even when I was the one who pushed her.
A small sound comes from the hallway, and I inhale a sharp breath just as his soft footsteps draw nearer before his beautiful face comes into view. He peeks around Camille’s hip, dark hair sticking up in the back, large hazel eyes staring back at me with questions I can’t answer.
The sight of him hits me like a punch straight to the chest, a pain so brutal I don’t even know how to name it. The world constricts to this one moment, this one small body standing there like he’s not the reason my heart keeps beating.
“Mama!” The word tears out of my sweet little six-year-old boy, and emotions clog my throat.
I barely have time to take a step forward before Camille’s arm shoots out, blocking him.
“No,” she snaps. “Go upstairs.”
His face crumples. “But I wanna see Mama.”
“She’s busy. And she needs to go.”
“NO!” His brows furrow, and he pouts in that way he does when he’s mad and sad all at once.
“Do what I said, Milo.” Her tone rises. “Get your ass up there!”
With a cry, he trudges up the stairs, glancing back at me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he looks away too long. My entire soul shatters. I’m not here for him. To comfort him, to hold him, to tell him I’ll be back for him.
I want to run after him. I want to pull him into my arms and breathe him in until my lungs stop burning. Instead, I stand there shaking.
“Don’t yell at him. He’s just a baby.”
She pivots to me, eyes cold. “Maybe if he had a mother worth a damn, I wouldn’t be cleaning up after him every day.”
The words slice deep.
“You’re lucky he has me,” she continues. “You know that, right?”
“Please…just let me see him. I won’t stay long.”
Camille crosses her arms. “You can see him when you get your life together.”
“I’m trying.”
“Not hard enough,” she says flatly. “When you can afford your own place and when you stop drinking, you can have Milo.”
“I’m not drinking.” The words rush out, like I can force her to hear me if I say them fast enough. “I told you I wasn’t drinking that day. I went out with coworkers. They can back me up. It was my boss’s birthday. Everyone was drinking around me. That’s why you smelled it on my clothes.”
But she didn’t care what I said. She kicked me out anyway.
She lets out a snicker. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes. Because it’s the truth.”
Her gaze turns icier. “Have you forgotten how many times you’ve lied before? What happened the last time you drank?”
The question lodges in my throat so fast it hurts. I try to swallow past it, but the memory comes anyway: water, screaming, a body floating.
“You want Milo to end up dead in a pool too?” Camille keeps going, like she can see the picture in my mind. “You forget how angry you get when you’re drunk. That is, when you’re not passed out in your own vomit. How many times have I cleaned you up, Eden?”
That name again.
Tears spill before I can will them away, turning everything into a blur. “I’m not that person anymore. I’ve changed. I’m doing better.”
“You always say that.” She steps closer until there’s barely space between us. “But people like you never change, and it’s time you realized that. Now excuse me. I have to get ready for work, and Milo has school.”
My hands curl at my sides, nails biting into my palms because if I move the wrong way, I’m going to fall apart right here on the porch. “I’m his mother.”
Her mouth presses into a line. “You don’t get to use that word until you earn it.”
The door snaps shut in my face, and I just stare at it like if I don’t move, if I don’t breathe too loud, it might swing open again and Milo will come barreling down the stairs into my arms like none of this ever happened.
But he doesn’t.
I don’t know how long I stand there before my body finally remembers how to move. Turning away takes everything in me. Walking to the car is like treading toward the edge of a cliff, each step wrong, like I’m leaving a piece of myself behind on that porch.
I don’t look back. If I do, I won’t make myself leave at all.
The car door barely shuts before the sound breaks out of me, raw and uncontrolled. My body folds forward, forehead pressed to the steering wheel as everything caves in at once. My chest aches, breath coming in shallow pulls, grief spilling everywhere with nowhere to go.
I need more money. There has to be another job I can take, but I’m already at the diner six days a week. Friday is my only day off, the one sliver of breathing room I’m supposed to have. What can I even find for one day a week that pays enough to matter?
I need something to give in my shitstorm of a life before the idea of jumping off a cliff sounds better than this reality.
But I can’t leave Milo. I won’t do that to him. I have to fight. I’ll get enough money for my own place, take my son out of that house that isn’t mine anymore, and prove to Camille that I can stand on my own without begging her for permission to exist.
There’s no other choice. Court isn’t an option. I can’t tell the truth about who I am without ripping open a past I’ve spent years burying, and I won’t drag that kind of danger anywhere near my son.
So I sit here crying until my chest throbs. Then I wipe my face and breathe through it, because one thing is clear.
I won’t let her take him from me. No matter the cost.
Parking far from the entrance of the minimart, I sit there with my hands on the wheel, still picturing Milo’s face when Camille ordered him upstairs. The way his little body leaned toward me like he thought he could fight his way past her.
Running a hand down my face, I stifle the scream dying to get out and make myself move, stepping out with my hood pulled low and my sunglasses on, hiding my red-rimmed eyes.
Glancing around the lot to make sure I’m not being followed, I hurry inside, grab the nearest basket, and head for the health and beauty aisle, throwing in everything I need.
Tiny shampoo. Tiny conditioner. A tube of toothpaste that looks like it belongs in a hotel bathroom.
I line things up in the basket one by one, doing the math in my head as if it will make it hurt less when I pay.
A bar of soap. A pack of wipes. Deodorant I don’t even like, but it’s cheap. Everything small. Everything meant to last just long enough to get me to the next day.
This is my life, reduced to palm-sized versions of necessities.
As I turn the corner, a prickle creeps up the back of my neck. It’s the same feeling I had driving over here: that sense that I wasn’t alone even when the road looked empty. Like something tailed me the whole way and tucked itself behind me the second I stopped.
My pace eases without meaning to, and I listen for footsteps that might line up with mine.
Maybe it’s paranoia. Or maybe paranoia is the reason I’m still alive.
People from my old life didn’t just forget about me. I know they’re still out there wanting to punish me for what happened. One person recognizing me, one mistake, and I’m not the only one who pays for it.
They won’t stop with me. They’ll go after Milo too because nothing cuts deeper than your child.
I won’t let anything happen to my baby. I’ll die first.
My fingers tighten around the basket until it digs into my skin. Milo’s face flashes through my mind, the way it always does when panic starts to claw its way up my throat. He used to look at me like I was his whole world, like everything made sense as long as I was there. I miss that so much.
When I was sixteen and staring at a positive pregnancy test, I thought my life was over. But then they placed him in my arms, small and warm and real, and everything in me locked into place.
That was it. One mistake with a guy at a party, one night I barely remember, and suddenly my whole life had a single purpose.
After that, everything was for him. I took whatever job would pay, grabbed whatever hours they’d give me, learned how to make groceries last past the point they were supposed to, and held him the way he liked so he wouldn’t cry and wake Mom up—because if she did, I paid for it for days.
When my father was around, he was drunk enough not to care, which somehow felt worse than if he’d been cruel. Neither of them spent time with Milo or looked at him like he mattered. Camille didn’t either, not unless she could use him as a weapon. A way to remind me what a terrible mother I was.
I used to lie awake at night imagining an escape. Just me and my baby, somewhere quiet and clean, somewhere no one yelled or drank or told me I was nothing.
I pictured a small place with sunlight and a safe neighborhood where Milo could play and make friends. Instead, he’s with my sister and I’m standing in a grocery store aisle trying not to come apart.
The thought that destroys me most isn’t Camille keeping him from me. It’s Milo believing I left because I didn’t want him. That maybe he thinks his mother chose something else over him, the way my own mother always made me feel chosen last.
My vision blurs again, and a cry slips out. I sniffle, ducking my head as a woman passing by slows and looks at me with concern.
“Are you okay, honey?”
“I’m fine,” I say quickly, the words automatic. “Just allergies.”
“Oh, yeah. I get those bad too.” She reaches for the large bottle of shampoo. “You take care now.”
“Thanks. You too.”
I make a beeline for the register, the basket biting into my fingers, while all I want to do is get back in my car. The cashier barely looks up as she rings everything up. I hand over cash, grab the bag the second it’s pushed toward me, and hurry out.
As soon as I’m inside my car, the doors lock with a click, but that won’t keep me safe. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop looking over my shoulder.
I sit there gripping the steering wheel until my hands stop shaking.
Get a grip. Jumping at every sound is how you get noticed.
My focus needs to be on finding another job. If I want my son back, that’s what I need to do.
Removing my sunglasses, I start the car and force myself to relax as I pull out of the parking lot.
No more mistakes. No more attention. I need to stay committed to what matters.
Because Milo is waiting for me, and I’ve disappointed him enough.