3. Julian #2
He points toward the bed with a shaky hand.
“That’s a baby, Jules. That’s a real baby.
She needs things. She needs food and diapers and a crib and doctor visits and insurance and someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing, and I don’t even know what to write on a form if they ask for her mother’s contact details.
” His voice drops and his face twists. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to love her yet. ”
That one hits me square in the chest. I take a step closer to him.
“You are.” His eyes flash to mine, but I hold his stare and don’t soften it.
“Blood test, paperwork, courts, Celeste, her parents, your parents—none of that changes what happened downstairs. You looked at that little girl and loved her. Nobody gets to take that second from you.”
His mouth trembles. He turns away fast, but I see it, and I see him.
God, I’ve always seen him.
He presses both hands to the edge of his desk and bows his head. His back rises and falls too fast under his shirt, muscles tense, shoulders straining.
“I never had sex with her,” he says again. “I keep saying it because it sounds insane every time, but I didn’t. I know I didn’t.”
I keep my expression steady with effort, even though I know what he’s been implying this entire time. “Okay.”
He whirls on me, almost angry now, because fear needs somewhere to go.
“No, it’s not okay. That’s the fucking problem.
I know what sex is, Jules. I know what counts.
I know what happened and what didn’t. I’m not confused because I’m some repressed church kid who thinks touching over clothes gets someone pregnant. ”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I know,” he says, and his voice breaks again. “I know you didn’t. I’m just—fuck.”
He drags a hand through his dark hair, gripping at the roots. I hate that he’s doing it. I hate that I don’t know where to put my own hands because every instinct in me wants to grab him and hold him still until the shaking stops.
He looks toward the baby again, and his anger drains into horror.
“She’s so small,” he whispers. “And if she’s mine…”
His throat works, but he doesn’t finish as he stares at the baby with tears sliding silently down his face again. “If she’s mine, then something happened to me,” he says. He looks at me then, and the terror in his blue eyes changes shape, becoming more ashamed.
“I don’t know when, I don’t know how, and I don’t even…
I don’t even know if it’s possible! I remember being with her.
I remember drinking shit she gave me and getting tired.
I remember waking up half-naked sometimes and feeling wrong.
I remember asking her if anything happened, and she’d laugh at me. ”
My hands curl at my sides.
For one clean second, I’m not in Eli’s bedroom.
I’m in His office with my back to a locked door and a hand around my jaw, being told I pushed him this far.
I’m in my own body with someone else’s anger on my skin.
I know too much about the way people twist things until your own memory feels unreliable.
I swallow hard enough to hurt, but Eli doesn’t notice. Thank God.
“She used to get so mad when I said no and then tell me I was making her feel disgusting. She’d say other guys wanted her, and I was the only one acting like she was dirty for wanting her boyfriend.
Then she’d get sweet after. So fucking sweet.
She’d bring me drinks, sit on my lap, kiss my neck, tell me she was sorry for pushing.
And then I’d get tired.” He laughs again, and this one scares me because it’s almost empty.
“I thought I was stressed. I thought maybe I was the problem. I always thought I was the problem with her.”
“You weren’t,” I say. “You weren’t the fucking problem, Eli.”
He wipes at his face with the heel of his hand, but more tears come anyway. “What if she—” He stops, unable to say it.
My stomach turns.
I want to let him avoid the word. I want to keep him from having to hear it out loud. But that’s the same silence people use to bury things until the rot spreads. Eli deserves better than a room full of unspoken horror.
I move slowly, giving him every chance to step back, and when he doesn’t, I stop in front of him.
“If she did something to you while you couldn’t consent, that’s rape,” I say, and I make my voice steady even though my blood is burning.
“I’m not saying that to force it on you.
I’m saying it because you don’t have to make it smaller just because she was your girlfriend. ”
He covers his mouth, shaking his head, and the sound that comes out of him is so wrecked I nearly lose my mind.
“I’m a guy,” he whispers through his fingers.
“I know.”
“She’s a girl, and much smaller than I am.”
“I know.”
“I should’ve—”
“No.” I grab his wrists, hard enough to pull his hands from his face so he has to hear me.
“No, Eli. Don’t finish that sentence. Don’t you dare put this on yourself because she knew which parts of you to use against you.
Being stronger doesn’t stop someone from drugging you.
Being a man doesn’t make your consent automatic, and dating someone doesn’t give them the right to your body.
None of that shit changes because your parents raised you to blame yourself before anyone else gets a turn. ”
His eyes are wet as he stares at me, lashes clumped, his face blotchy and ruined in a way he would hate anyone seeing. I want to kill every person who ever taught him his pain had to look neat before it deserved care.
His voice drops to almost nothing. “I don’t remember,” he whispers. “What if nobody believes me?”
“I do,” I say immediately, and he flinches. I keep hold of his wrists, thumbs brushing once over his pulse points before my hands find his. “I believe you.”
His breathing stutters. “You don’t even know what happened—”
“I know you,” I say, and that comes out rougher, too close to all the things I keep locked up. “I know when you’re lying, and I know when you’re scared of the truth. You’re not making this up.”
He looks down, shoulders folding inward. “I pushed you away for her.”
The subject change almost knocks the air out of me.
I glance toward the baby because it’s easier than looking at his face when he says things like that. She sleeps on, tiny lips pursed, unaware that her existence has dragged every old wound into the light.
“Yeah,” I say, because lying won’t help either of us. “You did.”
Eli makes a broken sound. “I’m sorry.”
I close my eyes for half a second, but I don’t say it’s fine—it wasn’t fine and it still isn’t.
Months of him looking through me, around me, past me.
Months of watching him bend himself into knots for a girl who treated him like a trophy she could punish for not shining right.
Months of His hands on me because I needed somewhere to put everything Eli didn’t want.
“It hurt,” I say when I open my eyes. “But this isn’t the minute where I make you bleed for it. You’re already bleeding enough.”
I drop his hands then, and I feel them inching toward my waist, but then he stops. It’s almost like he’s asking without words if he still has any right, so I meet him halfway because I’m weak when it comes to him. Always have been, always will be.
The second my arms go around him, he breaks again.
This time, the sobs aren’t silent. They’re muffled against my shoulder, harsh and young and full of everything he hasn’t let himself feel. I hold him with one arm around his back and the other hand cradling the back of his head, my fingers buried in his hair.
He clings to me so tightly that pain flashes through my ribs, and I bite the inside of my cheek until it fades.
He doesn’t need my pain right now; he needs my spine.
“You’re not calling your parents tonight,” I murmur into his hair, then I ease him back enough to look at him, my hands staying on his shoulders.
“Listen to me. Whatever happened with Celeste, whatever the DNA test will say, that baby is safe right now; you are safe right now. That’s where we start. ”
His eyes search mine, looking for a crack in the promise. I give him none.
“I’m s-so fucking scared, Jules,” he says, and lets out a big exhale, then he adds in a whisper, “I missed you.”
The words go straight through me.
I turn my face slightly, my mouth near his hair, and let myself say the truth because the night is already full of impossible things. “I never went anywhere. You just stopped looking.”
He flinches again, but he doesn’t pull away. Then he nods once, accepting the hit because he knows he earned it. The baby fusses louder this time, and I take the mercy when it comes.
“Okay,” I say, clearing the thickness from my throat. “We check her first—she could be wet or hungry. Then we deal with the doctor that Killian will probably bribe after. Lawyers after that, and parents much fucking later.”
Eli nods, wiping his face again, and when he reaches for his daughter, his hands still shake, but he doesn’t back down. She settles against him, her cries fading into soft, hungry grunts.
“There,” I say. “See? She knows.”
Eli looks up at me. “Knows what?” he asks.
I swallow the ache in my throat and let my hand rest briefly on the back of his neck.
“That you’re hers.”