Chapter 19 Mabel #2
If I could turn back time—if I had the power to change one thing about the past—I’d change this for her. Fuck all the shit I’ve been through, all my mistakes. They can all stay. But this pain she feels? This regret and guilt? Aurora doesn’t deserve it. I’d erase it all.
“Paul and Brady were best friends. He was at our house a lot. I kind of grew up with him, and my brother thought of the Sinclairs like a second family. When they offered to let me stay with them, I jumped at the chance. I clung to it. I was desperate. Brady had all these stories about Paul. All these pictures. He was so comforting. In a way, it was almost like having Paul back. Like having my family back. I told Uncle Wade to go back to L.A., and while he called and checked in every day, he wasn’t there, you know?
And my friends didn’t understand. They tried, but they had lives.
They all went off to college. I only had Brady.
“When he suggested I defer my university acceptance and go to the local community college, I did it. I didn’t think twice.
The thought of being on my own so soon was debilitating.
I thought I needed the Sinclairs. I thought I needed Brady.
When he asked me out, I was happy for the companionship.
He offered me a comfort I desperately needed, and at the time, I didn’t see it for what it was. A crutch. A bribe. A trap.”
Aurora drops her head to the glass door and peers up into the tree canopy. The dappled sunlight dances across her flushed skin, and for a moment, it’s like I can see her gaining strength from it. She’s fascinating and resilient. The more I learn about her, the more in awe I become.
“You are one of the strongest people I’ve ever met,” I say, giving her hand a squeeze, but she shakes her head and keeps her eyes on the trees.
“I’ve spent the last four years willfully blind and closed off. I’ve lost direction and control. I couldn’t handle my reality, so I allowed Brady to change everything to better suit him.”
She blows out a slow breath and tips her head toward me, finally connecting our gazes once more.
“I was so numb that I stopped caring about everything. I let him take the reins, and now I’m stuck in a life I never wanted. Now I’m stuck in a marriage with a controlling, manipulative man who I don’t love. That’s not strong. That’s pathetic.”
Controlling. Manipulative. Pathetic.
She states the words with such matter-of-fact precision that I get angry.
Angry at the universe for putting her through such a tragedy.
Angry with Brady for taking advantage of her when she was vulnerable.
Angry with Hammond for abandoning her when she needed him most. And though I understand how irrational it is, I’m angry with myself.
If only I could have found her sooner. She was so close. Mere miles separated us. How many times was I in the room when Ham was texting her? How often did the voice on the other end of his phone belong to her? How did I not know that his family had gone through this? That he had gone through this?
He lost his brother and sister-in-law. His nephew. He almost lost his niece.
If I’d just shut up. If I’d just listened. He never told, but I never asked. Maybe if I had, I could have stepped in and prevented it from getting this far. I could have been the safe space Aurora needed. I could have helped her heal.
I feel so close to her now, it’s hard to believe she was ever in such pain, and I didn’t feel it, too.
God, it’s all so fucking unfair. I could have been there, but I wasn’t.
I wasn’t, but I am now.
I hold her gaze and speak clearly, pouring everything I’m feeling into my voice, hoping she can hear it. Hoping she can feel it.
“You are not pathetic, Roar. You were nineteen, heartbroken and traumatized. You were in recovery mode, and you were vulnerable, and someone you thought you could trust took advantage of you. That’s not your fault. You did nothing wrong. That’s all on Brady. You are strong.”
She swallows and licks her lips, her voice thick with sorrow.
“It doesn’t change where I am now. I’m stuck.”
“You’re here now. You’re here with me. You’re not stuck.”
She shrugs. “He won’t let me get a job. He monitors my bank account.
I can’t have friends or hobbies that involve leaving the house.
He even dictates the way I dress. Honestly, I think the only reason he let me come here was so he could use it against me later.
He didn’t think I would last. He said I’d get fired or come home early.
He let me do it so that for years to come, when I’m three kids in and miserable, he can throw it in my face to keep me in line. ”
I nearly flinch when the realization hits me. Three kids in and miserable. Suddenly, her outburst in the dressing room replays in my head, and the reasoning behind it becomes clear.
That’s what everyone wants, right? It’s what everyone should want.
She’d said it so frantically, asked the questions so desperately, like she was trying to make herself believe them.
Like she needed someone other than Brady to tell her what she should want.
After four years of not trusting herself—four years of living in darkness and letting Brady control everything—it makes sense that waking up to reality would be scary.
She wanted reassurance that the life she’d been living was her only option, that desiring something else was pointless, and she didn’t get it.
Three kids in and miserable.
That’s what everyone wants, right?
But not her.
A harrowing possibility sinks into my stomach and makes my insides churn. Is that why she was crying in the bathroom, too? Is there more to her desperation? A catalyst that’s pushed her over the edge?
I force a swallow to calm the quiver in my voice before I ask.
“Are you pregnant?”
She shakes her head rapidly, and a bit of my concern eases. But then she speaks, and it fills me with anger.
“I’m not pregnant, but Brady wants me to be. He’s been trying. If I don’t get pregnant in the next few months, he wants to see a fertility doctor. He wants his first kid before he’s thirty.”
He’s trying. He wants. His kid.
It’s all him, and I hate him.
I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone, and it takes everything in me not to let that hatred show in my face and voice. The last thing Aurora needs right now is to worry about my feelings, too.
“Do you want any of this?”
Her eyes fill with tears once more, and she shakes her head again. Her confession comes out whispered and quaking, like speaking it aloud is dangerous, and maybe it is. Truths, once revealed, can’t be taken back.
“I don’t. Not now. Maybe not ever. But definitely not now, and not with him.”
“Leave him.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“You can. You have to.”
“I have no job. No money. No family or friends.”
“You have a job. Brynn needs a tutor, so there’s your job. Your money. And you have Ham. You have me. You have support. You can’t stay with him, Aurora. He’s not good for you.”
“It’s been my entire life for four years, Mabel. It’s all I know.”
“So? Maybe it’s time to try on a new one.”
She clamps her eyes shut again and pinches the bridge of her nose. The creases in her forehead deepen. Her frown becomes more pronounced. I can feel the despair rolling from her in waves.
“I’ve let everything get so messed up. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know where to start. What if I screw it up? What if I just make everything worse? I don’t even know what I would do. I feel like I’m trapped under the rubble of my mistakes, and I have no idea how to get free.”
“Be light.”
Her eyebrows scrunch. “What?”
“If you feel like you’re trapped under rubble, then be light and push through the cracks. A little bit at a time. You don’t have to know everything right now. You’ve got time to figure shit out. Travel. Write poetry. Work at a greenhouse. Go see The Northern Lights.”
I grab her necklace and rub my thumb over the worn pendant, then press my palm to her chest, right above her heart. I feel it racing under my touch. The thump, thump, thump, pounding into my skin so familiar, it could be my own.
“Follow this. Don’t be afraid. Don’t settle. There are no wrong answers, Roar. Mistakes are inevitable, but sometimes, to find yourself, you have to let yourself get a little lost.”
She looks at me with those hazel eyes in a way that makes my chest tight and my throat burn.
No one has ever looked at me the way she does.
Like I’m brilliant and valuable. Like my words hold weight and meaning.
Like I’m the only thing in the room. It makes me want to keep her, and then my heart aches because I know I can’t.
She doesn’t need another keeper. She deserves to be free.
“How did you get so wise, Susan Ainsley Mabel Rossi?”
I smirk. “I’ve tried on a lot of lives, Aurora Jade Hammond.”
Her eyes drop to my lips, then drag back up, and I feel it on every inch of my skin.
“Did you ever get lost?”
“More times than I can count.” I lean closer and lower my voice to a whisper. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“I always found myself again. You will too.”
“Promise?”
I smile, and because I need to touch her, I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, allowing my hand to linger there, so I can feel the heat from her skin. So I can soak up some of the light I see inside her. I know it’s there. I need her to know it, too.
“I promise. Only honesty here.”