Chapter 33
EM
Leaving Noah’s apartment felt like ripping something out of my chest. I couldn’t catch my breath. The moment between releasing my breath and inhaling, I questioned my choice. Was it wrong? Was it right? Why did he look like he was crying?
Fuck.
I took a shaky breath as Sassy’s tailed thumped on the ground of the car. Despite being sixty pounds, she sat on my lap and licked my face. She whined, and Daniel chuckled.
“Your dog knows you’re sad, Em. Reassure her, please. Those sounds are so pathetic.”
“It’s okay, Sassy.” I hugged her and buried my face in her chest, not caring that my glasses pushed into my face and my mascara had to be all over me. She smelled the same, like home and comfort, and I cried into her. “We’re making the right choice, girl.”
Daniel cleared his throat, and I slid him a glare. “What? You disagree?”
“I wouldn’t say I disagree. I think there are solutions there and—”
“The only solution is me leaving, Daniel. Why don’t you see that?” Images of Miles being pulled out of Noah’s arms, Miles crying for him, his parents taking him away all flashed in my mind. I couldn’t even risk him.
“You love Miles and Noah, I know that. We all do. Maybe it’s good to take a day or two to game plan. That’s all I’m saying. You could’ve stayed there while we did it though.”
“No! What if they came back? Don’t you see!”
God, I was hysterical. I cried again, my chest aching and heart breaking.
Miles would wake up and wonder where I was, why Sassy wasn’t with him in the morning.
He’d ask Noah, and he’d have to lie or handle it.
God, I hadn’t thought that part through.
How could Noah handle that without breaking down?
The pain doubled as I held onto Sassy. She rested her head on my shoulder, her own version of a hug, and I let her weight reassure me, calm me down.
Daniel drove, both hands tight on the wheel, the radio off. The city thinned out mile by mile until buildings gave way to trees and familiar exits I hadn’t taken in years
I told myself I was doing the right thing. I repeated it like a mantra until the words dulled, but the second I doubted myself, the urge to scream and throw up returned. What if I’d ruined everything?
My parents’ house looked the same as it always had—neatly trimmed lawn, porch light on, curtains drawn halfway like they were always expecting someone.
The normalcy of it almost undid me. This place had held every version of me, and right now I felt like none of them.
Plus, the last person I wanted to see was my dad.
Maybe I could avoid that. We parked and walked up, both of us in silence. My mom opened the door before Daniel even knocked.
“Oh, Em,” she said, and I was already crying.
She pulled me into her arms, and this time I didn’t hold my emotions together.
I sobbed into her shoulder, my body folding in on itself.
Despite working so hard to make it, to be independent, I was back home with my parents.
She smelled like laundry detergent and the lavender lotion she used every night, and I hated how much comfort that brought me.
It reminded me of being a young kid again.
“This sucks,” I cried into her shoulder.
Daniel had called her and told her we were coming, but I wasn’t sure she knew why we were.
But that was the thing about my mom. She didn’t tell me it would be okay.
She didn’t rush me. She held me, rubbing slow circles into my back the way she had when I was little and skinned my knees on the driveway.
This was the older version of my mom I remembered and missed post stroke.
Another wave of tears hit me.
Daniel hovered awkwardly behind us for a second before quietly taking my bag down the hall. He didn’t tease. He didn’t comment. He gave my shoulder a squeeze and disappeared.
My dad stood in the kitchen doorway, watching with his eyes filled with worry.
My mom sat me down at the table and busied herself with making a cup of decaf for me.
That was her thing. Put cinnamon and milk in a decaf coffee when things were hard.
Just the smell of it brought me back to childhood.
“Thanks, Mom,” I mumbled, wrapping my arms around my knees on the chair.
Sassy was at my feet, sighing as she stretched out.
Worry and concern swirled in my dad’s gaze.
He looked older than I remembered. Not frail, just… worn in a way I’d never let myself see before. His mouth was tight, eyes sharp but uncertain, like he was actually worried.
“What happened?” he asked, voice hesitant.
I pulled back and wiped my face, already exhausted. “Noah’s parents are coming after me. Legally. They’re trying to take Miles, and they’re using me to do it.”
That got his full attention.
“They said I was unstable,” I continued, voice shaking but steady.
“That my business made me unreliable. That living with Noah was proof he wasn’t focused.
So I left. Because I couldn’t be the reason they hurt that kid.
I couldn’t. I just… that kid has been through enough, and I love them so much, but I couldn’t stay. No one gets that!”
My dad exhaled slowly through his nose, a sound I recognized as restrained anger. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t dismiss it. He listened, which was new.
“And you think leaving fixes it,” he said, slowly sitting at the table across from me.
“I think staying gives them ammunition,” I replied. “I think this buys Noah time to fight back without them pointing at me or using me to hurt them.”
My mom sat down heavily at the table, her hand covering mine as she passed me the drink. “Oh, Em. You shouldn’t have had to make that choice.”
My dad didn’t sit long. He stood and leaned against the counter, arms crossed, staring at a spot on the wall with his face set in determination.
“How much do you know about what they’ve filed?” he asked.
I blinked, confused why that was his question. “What?”
“The guardianship review. What exactly did they serve you?”
I shook my head. “Not much. Just… language. Accusations. Threats dressed up as concern.”
He nodded slowly. “I thought so.”
My chest tightened. “Thought so how?”
He finally looked at me then. Really looked at me, not like he was preparing to argue or correct, but like he was seeing me.
“Because that’s not how you win a custody fight,” he said quietly. “That’s not strategy. That’s intimidation. It’s meant to scare you into stepping aside before anything ever reaches a judge. It works well, as you can see.”
The room went still, my pulse loud in my ears.
I stared at him. “You… know about this?” My voice came out smaller than I meant it to.
He hesitated, fingers tightening slightly where they rested on the counter. Then he sighed, long and tired, like he was setting something down he’d been carrying for years. I didn’t want to sympathize with him. Not when he hadn’t been supportive of me or kind.
“I’m not a family lawyer,” he said. “I’m corporate. Contracts. Compliance. Risk mitigation.” He gave a small, humorless smile. “I spend my life figuring out what people can threaten versus what they can actually enforce.”
He pulled out a chair and sat across from me, slower than he used to, folding his hands together, almost like he was nervous. “When your mom got sick,” he continued, eyes dropping briefly to the table, “I went down a rabbit hole.”
My chest tightened.
“I researched everything,” he said. “Medical directives. Guardianship. Estate planning. Worst-case scenarios I never wanted to think about, ever.” His jaw flexed.
“I needed to know that if something happened to her, you kids would be protected. That no one could swoop in and decide they knew better than the people who loved you.”
My mom reached for his arm, her thumb brushing his sleeve in reassurance.
“I obsessed over it. I read case law at three in the morning. I learned exactly how much of family court is built on perception and how much is built on proof.” He met my eyes again. “What Noah’s parents are doing? It’s heavy on perception and light on proof.”
My throat burned. “They served me papers.”
“I know,” he said with a gentleness I hadn’t heard in a long time. “Those papers don’t mean shit though, Em. The photos and filings are all a narrative. They are hoping this will scare Noah into giving them what they want. And Noah has competent people in his corner.”
“And me?” I asked quietly. “Am I really… a problem?”
His answer came without hesitation. “No. Of course you’re not.”
The word was firm. Absolute. Warmth filled me at my dad’s confidence in the answer. I was so used to making myself smaller, to make everyone else’s life easier. Always the peace maker. I’d always felt like a problem to him, so him saying I wasn’t felt good.
“You’re a variable,” he said. “And they don’t like variables they can’t control.
You don’t fit neatly into the picture they want to paint, so they’re trying to erase you from it.
Again, I’m not surprised. Plus, while I’m not relating to them, I do know that grief does weird things to people. It can make them…not be themselves.”
I swallowed hard. He didn’t need to say it.
We all knew what he meant. He had cheated on my mom after her stroke, something I still couldn’t grasp how.
My dad kissed the back of my mom’s hand, and she smiled at him.
It wasn’t the full smile she used to do, since half her smile was still a little off.
“If I can say something,” my mom interrupted, her voice soft and gentle.
“Not that I’m saying Noah should forgive his parents for how they are acting, but he should talk to them.
I can’t imagine what it’d be like losing a child.
It would shatter my existence. I wouldn’t know how to be, and maybe, this is them handling grief in the worst way possible. ”
“She’s right.” My dad smiled at her again, kissing her shoulder.