Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
MYA
Two weeks later
T he late evening sun filters through the curtains like it’s trying to pretend the last two weeks weren’t soaked in stress and heartbreak. But even the light feels different today—softer somehow. Gentler.
Reese is finally home.
I say the words again in my head just to be sure they’re real. Reese is home. She’s okay. She’s resting. She’s healing. And even if Thorin is leaving today, even if he’s not okay, at least we all got a tiny piece of her back.
I pull the blanket higher over her lap as she settles against the pillows. She’s pale but not ghost-like anymore, and her eyes aren’t glassy with pain or medication. She looks like her again. Raw and fragile, sure, but whole.
“You need anything before I head downstairs?” I ask, smoothing my hand over her comforter. My voice is soft, but my heart’s still racing. Every time I leave the room, I check her breathing at least twice.
Reese shakes her head. “Just tell Thorin not to cry on me. I’m too tired to mop up his man tears.”
My laugh is wet with emotion. “He’s going to be a wreck.”
“I know,” she whispers, eyes shimmering. “But I’ll be okay.”
I nod, and even though my legs are reluctant, I leave her bedroom with a quiet click of the door.
Downstairs, the kitchen is buzzing. But not in a bad way. It’s the kind of buzzing that hums under your skin and makes you want to smile without knowing why.
Benji’s perched on the counter, stuffing his face with a banana muffin. Carson is pacing the living room with a coffee like he’s trying to walk off the nerves, and Eli is in his booster seat, smearing mashed banana on his tray with the innocent focus of a toddler who doesn’t know the world’s about to shift again.
And then there’s Fletch.
He’s holding Kody, cradled like a football against his chest, and rocking slightly as he whispers something to him. His other hand rests gently on Kingston’s back, who’s snoozing in the wrap across Fletch’s chest like he owns the place.
My chest pinches, full to bursting.
Fletch looks up and spots me, his whole face softening as our eyes meet.
“She okay?” he murmurs.
I nod. “She’s okay.”
“Good.” He leans down and kisses Kingston’s forehead, then shifts his weight to one side. “They’re fed and freshly changed. Reese’s dad is grabbing more formula from the store just in case. And Alex called. He’s getting the final routing done for the tour bus.”
“Is Thorin packed?”
Fletch nods, but his expression clouds. “He’s upstairs with her now.”
There’s a moment. One of those heavy, breathless pauses where it feels like the whole world stops spinning, just to let the grief catch up to the joy.
I step into the kitchen and lean against the counter, watching Benji and Carson trade nervous glances. There’s a current running under all of this—a buzzing wire of excitement threaded through with guilt and worry. But it’s there. Alive and thrumming.
The tour starts tomorrow.
Three sold-out shows in New York. Madison Square Garden. Their first since Reese nearly died. Their first since everything changed.
And somehow, despite the weight of what we’ve all been through, there’s still this steady undercurrent of belief.
We’re still doing this.
We’re still standing.
The band’s about to leave, and the house is filled with tension and hope and that bittersweet ache that comes from loving something and having to let it go for a little while.
I glance at the photos on the fridge—Reese and Thorin at last year’s Christmas party, Carson with Eli on his shoulders, Benji with flour in his hair and a baby bottle in each hand. We’ve been through hell and back, but we’re still a family.
And for the first time in what feels like forever, I let myself breathe.
We’re gonna be okay.
Even if Thorin’s heart is breaking upstairs.
Even if we’re all terrified.
Even if the world doesn’t stop spinning just because we wish it would.
We’re gonna be okay.
Thorin walks into the kitchen just as Alex appears in the doorway, windblown and muttering something about the tour bus being parked at the bottom of the hill. His voice barely registers over the swell of movement around me—Carson grabbing the last of the gear, Benji cramming an energy drink into his backpack, Fletch clipping the twins into their car seats with the same care he tunes his guitar strings.
Maggie lifts Eli into her arms like she’s done it a thousand times, brushing a kiss to Thorin’s cheek. “You take care of yourself, baby,” she says, voice wobbling despite the iron in her spine. “We’ll hold things down here.”
Thorin nods, jaw clenched tight, but it’s his eyes that give him away. Red-rimmed, raw, like he’s been fighting a war inside himself and losing. He barely speaks. Just holds on to her a moment too long, then turns away like looking back might break him.
Fletch sets the car seats down beside the front door and crosses back to me in three long strides. “I packed their diaper bag with extra everything,” he murmurs, hands framing my waist, his forehead tipping toward mine. “Maggie’s got them. You just worry about Reese. And maybe get some sleep.”
I nod, because if I speak, I might cry again.
Then he presses a kiss to my forehead like it’s sacred. One to my cheek like it’s a promise. And when his lips find mine, it’s slow, aching, and unbearably soft—like we’ve only just gotten good at loving each other and now we have to pause.
“You’ll call me?” I ask, voice embarrassingly shaky.
“I’ll call. I’ll text. I’ll send smoke signals if I have to,” he says, brushing the backs of his fingers over my jaw. “I’m flying home with Thorin on his off weeks. I already told Alex.”
My breath catches. “You are?”
“No way I’m going that long without seeing you. Or the boys.” His smile is crooked, but his eyes are steady. “You’re it for me, Mya. There’s no one else.”
I don’t mean to cry. But the tears slip out anyway, fat and traitorous. Fletch wipes them with his thumb before they can fall far.
The others begin shuffling outside, boots crunching against the gravel, the echo of voices blending with the hiss of the waiting tour bus. Carson tosses an arm around Benji’s shoulders and makes a joke that I don’t catch. Thorin says something low to Alex and disappears through the door like a ghost still caught between worlds.
Fletch squeezes my waist once more, his voice rough now. “I’ve gotta go.”
I nod, blinking fast. “I love you.”
His eyes darken. “Say it again.”
“I love you.”
“Say it louder next time,” he whispers, grinning despite the storm behind his eyes. “So everyone fucking hears you.”
Then he’s gone. And I’m left standing in the doorway with the twins sleeping in their carriers, Maggie humming softly to Eli in the kitchen, and a heart that’s both heavier and lighter than it’s ever been.
I head back upstairs to Reese’s room, where the door is cracked open just enough to catch the sound of her favorite playlist playing low on her phone. The moment I push it open, she turns her head, and despite everything—despite the pain, the grief, the hollowing that must still ache somewhere in her chest—her whole face lights up.
“Are those my Godsons?” she whispers, eyes glistening as she pushes herself to sit up straighter.
“They are,” I say softly, padding into the room.
Maggie pops her head in a moment later. “I’m going to get Eli down for bed, girls. Try to get some rest.” She glances at Reese with that warm, mother-hen affection that makes my chest tighten. “You need it.”
Reese just nods, but her gaze never leaves the twins. “Can I hold one?”
“Of course.” I walk over and lift Kody from his carrier, nestling him gently into her waiting arms. She cradles him to her chest like she was born to do it, brushing her fingers along the soft curve of his cheek with infinite tenderness. “Hey, little man,” she murmurs. “You’ve got your daddy’s nose.”
I smile and take Kingston into my arms, sitting beside her on the bed and leaning back into the pillows. For a moment, everything stills—like time is finally allowing us this one small breath.
“I missed this,” Reese says, voice fragile but sure. “The quiet. The simple.”
I rest my head on the wooden headboard and watch her trace circles on Kody’s onesie with her thumb. “How do you feel about Thorin leaving? I know it’s not exactly ideal…”
Her mouth twists, but not in pain—more in contemplation. “I think it’s a good thing,” she says finally. “Don’t get me wrong, I wish things were different. I wish we hadn’t gone through what we did. But… I need the space, Mya. I need to grieve without him watching me like I might break in half if he blinks too long. I need to feel everything without trying to protect him from it.”
I nod, understanding blooming in my chest like a bruise. “You need to find your way back to you.”
“Exactly.” She exhales like the weight of those words has been sitting on her for days. “And I need him to keep chasing the things that set his soul on fire. I need to know he’s still him—not just mine.”
A lump lodges in my throat, and I glance down at Kingston, sleeping with his tiny fist curled around my finger. “You’re stronger than you know, Reese.”
She glances over, eyes soft. “Only because I have people like you reminding me.”
We sit there, side by side, both holding pieces of the future. And even though the house is quieter than it’s ever been, somehow, in that moment, it feels full.
Full of what we’ve lost.
Full of what we’ve built.
Full of what we’re still holding onto with trembling hands and hope that hasn’t quite healed.
Kody shifts slightly against Reese’s chest, his tiny mouth parting in sleep, the softest sigh escaping him like he’s exhaling all the tension we’ve been choking on these past two weeks. Reese closes her eyes, just for a second, like maybe she’s letting it go too.
The ache. The guilt. The what-ifs.
I reach across the space between us, brushing a loose strand of hair from her face. “You’re really good with him.”
She laughs softly, tired but sincere. “Babies don’t judge. They just… exist. They let you love them without needing to say the right thing or look okay or pretend to be okay.”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “They just need your heartbeat.”
She nods, resting her cheek on the crown of Kody’s head. “He helps.”
I glance down at Kingston, his weight a quiet comfort against my chest. “They both do.”
For a while, we just… are.
The playlist hums on in the background. The sun’s slipped below the trees outside the window, casting the room in amber light. It bathes Reese in gold and shadows, the way only dusk can. Like a promise you don’t dare speak out loud. Like a prayer whispered too late and somehow still answered.
After a while, she says, “Do you think it’s wrong to feel… relieved he’s gone?”
I look at her, not with judgment, but with the kind of knowing only another woman who’s been broken and patched back together can offer. “No,” I say gently. “I think you’re allowed to feel whatever you need to feel. You don’t have to carry both of your griefs at once—his and yours.”
Her shoulders tremble. “It’s so loud when he’s around. Not his voice. Just… everything.”
“I get it.”
“I love him so much, Mya.” Her voice cracks. “But I need to remember how to breathe again without him watching me struggle to do it.”
My throat tightens. “You will.”
She nods. “I hope so.”
And then the room goes still again.
Not the uncomfortable kind of silence. Not the kind that begs to be filled with fake laughter or fast words.
This is the kind of quiet that only comes when grief has wrung you dry—and you’ve finally, finally stopped resisting the ache.
Eventually, I tuck Kingston into the bassinet beside the bed and help Reese settle Kody into the other. We move like women who’ve been doing this their whole lives, even though we’ve only just learned how. There’s a rhythm to the way we move around each other now—two survivors with battle scars that haven’t fully faded.
I moved the twins’ bassinets into Reese and Thorin’s room the day she came home. It wasn’t a question, just instinct—like my body knew before my brain caught up that she shouldn’t have to sleep in silence. Not that kind of silence. The kind that presses on your chest and whispers about everything you’ve lost. The kind that reminds you what used to be growing inside you… isn’t.
So now, her room isn’t just a room. It’s filled with the soft sound of two tiny heartbeats, the rustle of newborn dreams, the occasional sigh of baby breath. A lullaby made of life.
Something to hold on to when the grief creeps in.
Something to remind her she’s not alone.
Not tonight. Not ever.
Later, when the boys are asleep and the house is dipped in shadows and hush, I curl up on the edge of Reese’s bed, a mug of lukewarm tea in my hands. She’s lying on her side, facing me, her arm draped over a pillow like it might anchor her to this moment.
“You sleeping at all?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
I shrug. “You know me. Night owl. Anxiety-fueled insomniac. Living the dream.”
She huffs a laugh—barely there, but it’s something. “You look tired.”
“You look like you’ve been through hell.”
“I have,” she says simply. “But I’m still here.”
I nod. “I’m glad you are.”
We fall quiet again, and it stretches—slow, aching, patient. I sip my tea, stare at the moonlight painting stripes across the floorboards.
Then she asks, “Did you ever think it would be like this?”
I glance at her. “Like what?”
“This… life. Us. Here. With babies and broken hearts and a goddamn tour bus parked at the bottom of the hill.”
A slow smile tugs at my mouth. “Not in a million years.”
“I thought I’d be the one who had it all together,” she admits, eyes glassy. “The one with the plan. The stable relationship. The timeline.”
“You did.”
“Yeah. And then life laughed in my face and handed me a broken timeline, an empty womb, and grief for a baby I never even got to hold.”
I swallow hard. “You don’t have to say it like that.”
“It’s true,” she whispers. “And if I don’t say it out loud, it eats me from the inside out.”
I reach across the space between us, linking our pinkies like we used to do when we were seventeen and heartbroken over boys who didn’t know what to do with girls like us.
“You’re allowed to be angry,” I tell her. “You’re allowed to mourn, and scream, and want space. You’re allowed to grieve something the world won’t even acknowledge was real.”
Her eyes fill again, but she doesn’t cry. Not this time.
She just looks at me, raw and open and maybe even a little lighter.
“Do you think he’ll be okay without me?”
“Thorin?” I nod slowly. “I think he’ll never be okay without you. But I think he’ll be okay for you. Because that’s who he is.”
She closes her eyes. “I miss him already.”
“I know.”
“But I don’t want him here. Not yet.”
“I know that too.”
We don’t say anything after that.
We just stay there—two women with the weight of the world on their shoulders, finding the smallest scraps of peace in a dark room with sleeping babies and bruised hearts and the soft hum of healing in the air.
And in the quiet, I swear I feel it?—
Hope. Small. Slow.
But steady.