Chapter 28 #2
“What? No. Don't be.” My hands flew to hers, and I guided her to pick at a loose string on my flannel instead of her skin. “I just–do you have pictures?”
That sounded crazy, but when Mason was pregnant with Rosie, her doctor would email videos and photos from the ultrasound.
Mason froze and slowly shook her head.
“Oh.” I guessed that made sense, with this being an emergency visit and all.
“I mean, they did, I just… I don’t want to show you.”
Her hands moved away from my shirt, and it took everything in me not to grab her to keep her in place. That hurt more than I cared to admit.
“Is it because of the fight last night?” Part of me feared she’d given a bit more thought to forgiving me for the entire Calvin Waters thing.
Maybe she blamed me for all the girls Dale slaughtered.
Her shoulders curled tighter, and she buried her chin into her knees. Slowly, she shook her head, and I let out a sigh of relief. Then, I realized I still had no idea why she didn’t want me involved with the baby.
“I’m seven weeks and four days, there wasn’t a lot to see,” she added, still not looking at me.
I swallowed hard, fighting the lump in my throat. “Doesn’t matter. A blur on a screen, a flicker of a heartbeat, that’s still ours.”
Mason finally lifted her gaze, but only for a second, and I caught the flash of something sharp buried under the exhaustion. Fear. Distrust. A wall I couldn’t climb, no matter how many times I threw myself at it. A wall I didn’t create but had been locked out of anyway.
“I think Lucian fucked with my birth control.”
I suppressed the mixture of shock and rage boiling under the surface of my calm exterior. Maybe that wasn’t true, but, considering his relapse, I wouldn’t put it past him. If he'd done anything of the sort, I’d wring his neck.
“Sweetpea, why do you think that?”
“Just, something happened with my birth control a week or so ago.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
Oh, but it did, and I was going to fucking kill him. Lucian, as much as I loved him, did a lot of shitty things. Most of it I blamed on his addiction, but this was hard to excuse. My fists clenched, and I shook my head as I reminded myself I had bigger fish to fry.
“Okay, but why don’t you want me to see the baby?” My voice shook with barely contained anger.
Mason’s eyes widened as she shrank away from me, and I lost the words to tell her this wasn’t her fault. I wasn’t mad at her. Never her. Just her piece of shit husband.
“I just saw some… things that I’m still processing.” Her lips twisted into a sad smile.
“Uh, okay. Well, Leo said you had to rest–what was that about?”
“I was spotting and cramping. The doctor said it’s stress, and not drinking enough, and maybe not eating enough, and, well... I kind of dissociated. You’d have to ask her.” Mason’s cheeks flushed.
My pulse kicked up, and I tried not to make things worse.
“Well, everyone’s really worried about you.”
“I know,” she whispered, and it sounded like an apology she didn’t owe anyone.
Her eyes glossed over as her lower lip wobbled.
“I… Did you know about Sebastian and Sophia?” She batted at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
For a moment, I paused, remembering how Sebastian told me he killed Mason’s mom. He didn’t want to, but she’d essentially forced his hand. But that wasn’t my story to tell, and I couldn’t imagine that now was the right time for her to find out.
“Sophia surprised me.” I scratched my head.
“And Seb?”
My lips pressed together as I turned away.
“You knew?” Hurt filled her words.
“I did.” The words made me feel sick, but they were the truth.
Exactly one sob exited Mason, and I couldn’t force myself to look at her.
“And you let him around me and the kids?” Her voice cracked, the words sharp and broken as if made of nothing but glass.
I forced myself to look at her then, even though it hurt more than if she’d hauled off and punched me in the jaw. Tears streaked down her flushed cheeks, and she held herself so tightly it was like she thought she’d disappear if her grip loosened.
“Mason, he would never hurt you or the kids,” I said, hating how thin the words sounded. “I’d never let anyone hurt–”
“He killed someone,” she snapped. “Murder. Dead. Someone with a life and a family. Maybe they had kids, maybe–”
“Maybe they were a bad person who hurt their kids.”
Mason sucked in a breath, and I thought she’d consider it.
“My dad was a bad person. He hurt me. He didn’t deserve to die–”
“Sebastian didn’t kill your dad,” I blurted.
Silence fell between the two of us as Mason wiped her eyes once more. Then, the slightest shade of skepticism colored her expression.
“I didn’t say he did… my dad died drunk driving, I think.” Doubt infected her words like gangrene in an open wound.
My throat went dry, and I could see the gears turning in her mind. Unfortunately, they were turning in the wrong direction.
Her mismatched eyes flicked to mine, slicing clear through my core, as if she was trying to peel back every single layer in search of the truth.
“Sebastian has a history of being weird with me,” she stated calmly.
I nodded, remembering her story about the first no-contact order she’d placed on Sebastian. He’d been sending her weird letters, and she didn’t feel safe. I’d also heard Sebastian’s side of the story.
He knew it was wrong, but he was at his lowest point. In his fucked-up traumatized mind, he believed nothing could fix him like she could. That didn’t make it right, but I understood why he did what he did.
I swallowed hard, guilt burning through my throat like acid. “He ain’t that guy anymore.”
“How do you know? How do you know he’s not one bad day away from snapping? What if he doesn’t like how close the kids get to me and–”
“Sebastian. Ain’t. Like. That,” I snapped at her.
Mason flinched, but didn’t back down. Under any other circumstance, I’d be proud of her. Right now, I just wanted her to bow her head and listen to me.
“You can’t promise what another human being will or won’t do,” her whispered words wobbled as she tried to keep a brave face. “If that’s how it worked, I’d have promised you Lucian was sober, but look.”
She slowly shook her head, like she couldn’t believe this was what we’d become, and honestly, I couldn’t blame her.
“Over the last twenty-four hours, our lives have been irreparably damaged. You don’t get to look at me and say what someone will and won’t do because we don’t know!
” She lifted her shoulders before smacking her hands against her lap.
“And today I learned I can’t do this alone–” She gestured to her stomach and then wildly at somewhere in the house.
“I am admitting I am not superwoman. I need help. I need–”
“To get over yourself!” I shot up off the bed and shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans, trying to ignore how violently they shook. Mason wasn’t wrong. She rarely ever was. But if she could forgive me for the cult, this should be nothing.
She gasped and pressed a hand to her chest.
“I am sorry for being rough with you, but Mason, this is ridiculous!” Not just her, all of it was.
And, unfortunately, all of that dawned on me right now. Lucian. Sebastian. Sophia. The baby. All of it. All of it was bullshit. All of it was just too much for one family at one time.
My chest heaved as I turned away, pacing the room like a caged animal. I couldn’t control the past, but I could control whether she came home. And that bit of normalcy was what I needed.
“I saw the paperwork. Restraining orders, emergency custody. Mason, do you want to be the one destroying our family?” I wasn’t sure if I meant it or not, but all my anger was a hurricane, battering an ocean-side house.
“I’m destroying our family?” Mason finally stood up, coming toe to toe with me despite being told to rest.
Our height difference didn’t matter. She barely reached my heart, but that didn’t stop her from squaring her shoulders and looking tougher than someone not even five feet tall could.
“I don’t give a fuck about our family!” She poked me in the chest. “I care about our kids. They didn’t do anything wrong, they deserve love and–”
“You think ripping them out of their home is good for their development? Mason, your family pushed you around from place to place, nanny to nanny, foster family to foster family. You willingly told me all of that, and look how you turned out.”
She was beautiful, smart, and kind. But Mason was damaged. I was damaged. The lot of us were damaged. And I didn’t want that for the kids.
Mason’s teeth sank into her lower lip, and she shook her head before looking away from me.
“Get out.” She pointed toward the door.
She didn’t raise her voice. Or call me names or even sound mean. She sounded final, like her mind was beyond made up, and I couldn’t change that. My stomach flipped, and I tried to put a hand on her shoulder to start to apologize, but she slapped me away.
“Get. Out.” She jabbed her finger harder toward the door, jaw trembling even as she tried to look unshaken. “Before I say something I can’t take back.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. For the first time all night, I didn’t know what to argue. I’d crossed a line, one I couldn’t uncross.
In the distance, I heard the unmistakable sound of Rosie whimpering. If I knew my baby girl—which I did—she’d just woken up from a nap. She needed her twenty minutes of snuggles while she woke up.
Mason turned on her heels to go get her, not looking back at me.
“Mae, Leona said you need to rest. I haven’t seen Rosie, let me–”
The loose hair framing Mason’s face swished around as she turned to look at me with the angriest expression I’d ever seen on her.
“Don’t you dare use my daughter as an excuse to stay.”
Her words landed like a slap, sharper than her hand on mine a moment ago. She wasn’t shaking anymore. No wobble in her voice, no hesitation in her eyes, just the pure, unadulterated desire to do what was best for the kids. And I loved it, I loved her, but I didn’t want her to grow her backbone now.
“She’s mine too,” I shot back, though it came out weaker than I meant. “Please don’t take my baby, you know how much she means to me.”
“I know, and doing this kills me.” Mason stepped closer, fists at her sides. “But unlike you, and Sophia, and Lucian, and Sebastian, I will always pick the kids first. Because I know what it’s like growing up, dying to be chosen by someone you love. Lucian chose drugs; you’re choosing murderers.”
“Those murderers loved you when you were at your lowest.” They’d done the same for me, too.
“And that’s why I haven’t called the cops.” She stepped back as she took a breath. “I don’t know what to do, Cameron. I just know that these children are my top priority. And I thought we’d be yours too.”
Her anger gave way to barely masked pain.
My lungs burned as if I’d just sprinted up a hill.
“Mae.” Her name came out warbled. “I don’t know how to do this without you and the kids.”
She slowly shook her head.
“It doesn’t have to be forever; we just need time. Cam, I don’t know what's right or wrong anymore.”
Once again, she hugged herself, arms wrapped defensively around her stomach.
“I’ve got a photoshoot later this week in L.A.
, then a day in the studio, and two days of press, and my agent mentioned something about an impromptu show.
I’ll be gone for almost a week. Maybe… After that, after the noise quiets down a little, we can talk again.
Try again.” Her words were slow and exhausted, the kind of words you use when you don’t have anything left to give but aren’t fully committed to ending this chapter of your life.
My throat tightened, because she wasn’t saying never. She wasn’t saying it was over. But she was saying we’d lost her for now.
“You taking the kids with you?” I asked, voice hoarse with everything I wanted to say but couldn’t.
Mason shook her head. “Leona’s keeping them here. I’ll be flying back and forth as much as I can.”
“You’re supposed to be resting. Leona said the doctor–”
“And I was hoping I’d have help. But I’m okay doing it on my own, because I don’t have another choice.”
I froze, unsure what to do, and Mason walked closer before growing to her tiptoes.
Instinctually, I leaned down, and her lips met mine, just as they’d done every day for the last year.
Her thumb brushed the scruff of my beard, and I wanted to pull her close and apologize for everything while demanding this all ended.
But before my mouth could catch up with my mind, she pulled away.
“I will always love you, and Lucian, and Sophia, and Sebastian. But love isn’t always enough. Not when there are kids involved.” She sounded sure and sad.
I couldn’t argue with her, not with my heart pounding in my throat.
Her eyes lingered on me for one last moment, then she walked out of the room and shut the door behind her. And, even if she didn’t say so, I knew I had to be gone by the time she got back.
Even if it killed me.