Chapter 15 #2
My grip tightened slightly around my spoon.
“I feel like I’m always racing toward a cliff,” I whispered. “I’m just… waiting for the moment it appears, and I get tossed off the edge. My nervous system is one inconvenience away from short-circuiting.”
Silence stretched for a beat.
“Archie, honey, why haven’t you said anything?”
I almost laughed.
Because since when had that worked?
I had said it.
Years ago, while sitting on that old suede couch Abel and I used to body slam each other on. I word-vomited all over a therapist who kept nodding like she understood while nothing actually changed.
It had gone about as well as this was going now.
That wasn’t entirely fair.
People changed. Or at least… they were supposed to.
I owed her the benefit of the doubt. It had been years, and it wasn’t her fault my brain was permanently set to worst-case scenario.
I swallowed, setting my spoon down for a second before picking it back up again.
“I didn’t think it would matter,” I said finally, not quite meeting her eyes. “I didn’t think I would.”
She sucked in a sharp breath.
“I should’ve said something a long time ago.
It just… sits on me. Not just missing him,” I said, though that part was obvious.
“It’s everything after that. All of it. The idea that I’m supposed to…
carry it, or help fix it, or be strong enough to look at it.
” I stopped, exhaling through my nose. “I don’t think I am. ”
Across the counter, Mom’s hand flattened against the surface, steadying herself before she moved. A second later, she was in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my head back slightly.
“You are,” she vowed. “You’re stronger than me in many ways. Stronger than most people, I imagine.”
Not a chance.
I opened my mouth to argue, and with one shake of her head, she shut me up.
“You are, but that doesn’t mean you have to carry it alone. And it doesn’t mean I get to put it all on you.”
Her hand trembled as it lifted, pushing my hair back, fingers catching for a second before smoothing it down.
“I haven’t been fair to you.”
“Mom—”
“And I never forgot you. Not for a second. I may have lost one son, but I didn’t forget I still had another.” Her lower lip wobbled, voice thick with emotion. “I didn’t show you the way I should have. I’m sorry.”
The tight, constant pressure in my chest eased enough that I actually noticed the absence of it. I shut my eyes, one hand pressing flat against my stomach as I let out a slow breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding onto all morning.
Now I felt like an asshole.
“I’m not saying you forgot me,” I muttered. “I just… needed you to remember I’m still here.”
“I know,” she whispered, and it was enough to knock the rest of the argument out of me.
I stood without really deciding to and pulled her into a hug. Her arms came around me immediately, one hand pressing between my shoulder blades.
“I’m sorry,” she said into my shoulder.
“Me too.”
She pulled back, resting our foreheads together for a breath before straightening, dabbing her knuckles beneath her eyes.
They looked lighter than they had in a long time.
“When did you get so insightful?”
“It’s the boyfriend,” Rhys chirped.
“Damn, Rhys.” A breath left me as my hand dragged once over the back of my neck. “Give it a second before you start narrating my life.”
Mom’s mouth curved, her hand still wrapped around my arm as she leaned back just enough to look at me.
“Boyfriend?” she echoed, then angled toward him. “Love life?”
He lit up immediately. “It’s the professor. The one who looks like he hasn’t blinked since 2008.”
I shot him a look. “I’m standing right here.”
“Cool,” he said, not even hesitating. “You’ll hear me good and clear when I start singing.”
“Please, don’t.”
“Henry and Archie sitting in a tree. F-u-c—”
“Rhys, for fuck’s sake.” I groaned. “That’s my mom.”
Mom leaned in and pressed a kiss to the top of my head, fingers brushing along my hairline before nudging me back toward the stool.
“Sorry, honey,” she said, guiding me down with a light push at my shoulder. “You know Rhys gives me better details.”
The edge of the stool hit the back of my thighs, and I dropped onto it, one foot hooking the rung automatically. “What details could you possibly need about my boyfriend?”
“Is he good to you?” she asked immediately. “Are you happy? How is he?”
“Thirty-four,” Rhys cut in.
Her brows lifted. “Ten years older?”
“Mhm.” He slurped at his soup. “Got himself a sugar daddy.”
My foot slipped off the rung and hit the floor harder than it needed to, chair legs scraping an inch across the tile. Fingers curling against the edge of the counter, something hot and mean settled under my ribs.
He was my Daddy, but not in a way anyone else got to touch.
“It’s not like that.”
Rhys made a noise into his bowl, unconvinced.
My head whipped toward him. “He pays attention.”
That shut him up.
Heat climbed up the back of my neck as I leaned forward, forearms bracing against my thighs, gaze fixed somewhere past the counter instead of either of them.
“He notices everything. The way I hold a pen. If I haven’t eaten. If I’m about to—”
The word caught and dropped off.
My jaw tightened once before I forced it to settle.
Mom didn’t interrupt. She watched instead, her hand resting at the back of my shoulder, thumb pressing once like she was checking I was still there.
“Archie.”
A breath left me through my nose.
“He doesn’t miss things. He—”
—keeps me steady.
“That hesitation?” Rhys snorted, dragging his spoon through the bowl like he had all the time in the world. “That was incriminating. You’re done. Absolutely cooked.”
“I’m not cooked,” I snapped.
But I was.
Fully cooked. Borderline burnt.
“Archibald,” my mom cut in, curious in that way that meant she was already piecing things together. “Honey… is he good to you?”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t even a thought.
Rhys made a low noise, and I kicked his shin under the counter without looking.
“He knows when I’m about to spiral before I do. He just… fixes it.”
Not fixes.
Finds.
He finds me.
“He touches me and it’s just—” I swallowed. “Everything stops. I stop. I don’t feel… wrong around him. Or too much.”
My fingers flexed once.
“I’m just… me.”
The words were thin compared to what they were trying to hold.
It wasn’t enough.
My tongue pressed hard against the back of my teeth, frustration rising sharp and fast.
It wasn’t something I could break down into parts and hand over.
Not something I could make sound normal.
It was like trying to explain what blue looked like to someone who’d never seen it. Or what water tasted like.
You could say cold.
You could say clean.
But that wasn’t it.
It was just—there.
My fingers curled tight against my thighs, nails digging at denim.
It existed now, under my skin, and in the way my body settled the second he touched me.
There weren’t words for that—only the absence of everything that used to be there.
Rhys set his spoon down with a quiet clink, leaning back in his stool. For once, he didn’t jump in with something sharp. “Arch.”
His expression had shifted—still him, but something denser underneath it now. “I’m giving you shit, but you know I’m happy for you, right? You look a little insane. But in a… good way.”
My mouth twitched.
“You’re—” he gestured vaguely, searching, “calmer. Less ready to bolt at any given second.”
“Archie,” my mom beckoned, and when I looked over, her expression had gone thoughtful in a different way.
“I’d like to meet him.”
My stomach flipped, but it wasn’t dread. Not exactly. More like… a jolt of something protective.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
My fingers pressed into my thighs again before I could stop them.
“He’s busy,” I blurted.
Rhys made a low sound. “Oh my god, you’re already gatekeeping him.”
“I’m am not!”
My teeth pressed together, jaw grinding as my thoughts tripped over each other, fast and messy.
Was it too soon?
To start… folding him into my life?
Into them?
My mom. Rhys. This goddamn kitchen?
My head tipped back a fraction, eyes squeezing shut for half a second.
He knows your blood type, Archie.
He knew what set me off before I did—knew how to touch me without making me feel like I needed to crawl out of my own skin.
Henry didn’t take pieces.
He took everything.
Every thread, every tell, every part of me I didn’t even know how to name yet—he pulled it in like it belonged to him. Like it always had.
So it wasn’t that.
It wasn’t too soon.
It was just me…. gatekeeping my boyfriend.
I didn't want to share him.
Not yet.
My stool scraped back before I fully decided to move, legs pushing me upright like my body needed out of the conversation before my mouth gave anything else away.
“I’m gonna—” I gestured vaguely toward the hallway. “Bathroom.”
“Mm,” Rhys hummed, then paused mid-scoop, eyes flicking up with a slow, knowing grin. “You’re going to text him.”
“I am not.”
“Arch.” He pointed the spoon at me like he was about to present evidence in court. “You have that exact look. You always have that look.”
Heat shot straight up my neck. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
“To text your Daddy,” he corrected.
“Don’t call him that!”
It came out sharper than I meant, cutting across the room before I could catch it.
Rhys blinked once, then grinned wider. “Oh, that one hit a nerve.”
He’s my daddy.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
I flipped him off as I backed toward the hallway. “You’re insufferable.”
“And you still love me,” he called after me.
Yeah.
“Archie,” my mom called. “Lift the handle.”
My hand was already on the bathroom door. I paused, glancing back at her.
“Door handle," she added, nodding toward it. “It sticks. You have to lift it a little or it won’t turn.”
A huff of a laugh left me. “I remember.”
I slipped into the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind me, the noise of the kitchen muffling just enough to breathe again.
My phone was in my hand before I even registered reaching for it.
Not to text him…