FINN THOMPSON
It’s been two days since I came home with Maya and Skye. To say they’ve been action-packed is an understatement. Maya gets Skye ready for the day as I head downstairs to the kitchen, where my father is preparing himself breakfast. He glances up at me and flashes a smile.
“Hey, son,” he says brightly. “How are you?”
I hum as I head to the fridge. “Doing well,” I admit. “You?”
“Just pleased to have you and Ivy home,” he says with gratitude. When I turn around to face him again, he’s plating himself up some freshly cut fruit. He points to the plate. “Help yourself.”
“Thanks,” I say as I pick up a slice of melon.
My father’s gaze flicks over my face for a moment. “How are you feeling about being at home? I know the last time you were here, things were really different.”
I sigh. If by different he means drinking every day, turning up to work drunk, and ending up at the hospital, nearly on my deathbed, then yeah, things are very, very different this time around.
“It’s a new experience with Maya and Skye,” I say simply. “So I’m making sure to focus on that, rather than on my past.”
His eyes glimmer at me as I speak. “I’m very proud of you, you know that?”
I tilt my head downwards. “Just getting my life back on track.”
“And that’s why I’m proud,” he says as he squeezes my shoulder. “What matters to you is that beautiful little girl and the woman you’re in love with.”
My heart clenches painfully as I meet his eyes. “We’re not together, Dad.”
“Not yet,” he says before grabbing a piece of melon for himself. “But I’ve seen you together over the past few days; you have something special.”
I chew on the inside of my lip. “I don’t want to get my hopes up. She might decide that she can’t fully get over what I did, and dealing with a relationship might be too much, and I get it. I’m the one who fucked up, so I have to live with the consequences.”
“Finn,” my father sighs. “We all make mistakes, and we all deserve second chances to prove ourselves, especially when we know we’d never make the same mistake again.
You think I was perfect to your mother? Hell no.
I did some shitty stuff, and I’m very lucky and grateful she gave me another chance because I wanted to be the man she dreamed of. ”
“That’s all I want, too,” I whisper.
“Then keep working on yourself, son,” he says as he pins me with a stare. “And you’ll get there. I just know it.”
My eyes flick between his slowly as I manage a nod. “Thanks, Dad.”
The sound of footsteps coming down the stairs has my ears perking up. I twist around to find Maya carrying Skye as she meets us in the kitchen. She’s wearing red trousers and a black top, and Skye is matching with a red and black tartan dress, tights, and red bows in her hair.
“Hey,” I say as her brown eyes find mine. “Everything okay?”
“Everything is great.” She grins as Skye flashes a gummy smile.
“Matching outfits?”
“It was an unintentional colour match. But it’s also Christmastime, so it's easily done.” She laughs softly. “She looked so cute, I couldn’t not put her in this today.”
“You both look…” I trail off, unable to keep my eyes off of them. “Beautiful.”
Maya’s cheeks darken before she looks at Skye. “Hear that? Daddy says you’re beautiful.”
“Morning, Maya,” my father says.
“Good morning, James.”
My dad steps forward to take Skye from her arms. Over the past few days, Maya has become incredibly trusting of my family as they’ve welcomed her with a warm embrace, too. My parents and Ivy would do anything for that little girl, and Maya knows it. That’s definitely helped calm her nerves.
“Plans for today?” Maya asks as she leans onto the counter beside me.
I drink in the sight of her fresh face and her long, dark hair draping over her shoulders. I draw in a slow breath as I continue to admire how incredible she looks today—especially the fact that she doesn’t look as tired as usual because Skye slept a big portion of the night.
“I was thinking we could take Skye down to the beach,” I say as I fold my arms over my chest. “I know it’s cold, but we can wrap up warm. Get a coffee and some lunch, head into town. I can show you around.”
Maya’s eyes light up. “Sure, sounds fun.”
After putting on our coats and placing Skye into her pram, I wave goodbye to my father, and we head out of the house. I’m immediately hit by the cool wind that makes it feel a few degrees colder.
I push the pram as Maya keeps her gloved hands in her pockets. “Coffee first,” I murmur as puffs of air appear in front of me.
Maya hums instantly, and we head straight to the coffee shop.
“I can’t believe this is where you live,” she exhales as we stroll down the beachfront where the parade of restaurants and shops are. Her hands are wrapped around her to-go coffee cup. “It’s so peaceful and beautiful.”
Even just the thought of Maya being in Willows Bay does something to me. The place I grew up and learnt a lot about myself.
“Yeah, it’s been good to me, for the most part.”
“What happened this summer?”
I drag my tongue over my lip as I feel heaviness sitting on my chest.
“You don’t need to tell me if you’re not ready to. It’s okay.”
“No. I think it’ll be good to talk about it.” Deep down I’m ready to tell her.
As we perch on a bench and I roll Skye’s pram closer to me to find her sound asleep, I turn back to Maya, who is clutching her coffee between her hands.
“It was the first summer I was seeing Ivy again since her accident,” I start. “And god, I was terrified. She still didn’t know that I made up that stupid lie about her, and I’d just get drunk at any opportunity I could to ignore the guilt that choked me.”
Maya frowns as she scoots closer to me, our knees resting against one another’s.
“But it wasn’t just that,” I murmur. “I was also mourning our relationship and keeping it bottled up. All of it was eating me alive, and the only thing I could do was drown myself in alcohol to stop myself from feeling.”
She places down her coffee and takes my hand between her gloved ones instead.
“We went to a fair on the beach, and Ivy and JJ and all our friends were there,” I say before inhaling a deep breath.
“And then Ivy’s ex’s friends turned up and taunted her like the assholes they are, and then they told her that I was the one who said that she had been cheating on Ben.
The lie I told to get them to break up.”
I glance down because the thought of looking at Maya’s face breaks me. Saying it out loud never gets easier; it reminds me of the nasty person I was to do that to my own flesh and blood.
“Of course, Ivy was upset.” I release a morbid laugh. “She was devastated, and she didn’t want to talk to me. God, I still remember her face as she sobbed and looked at me like she didn’t even recognise me. I was so drunk, but I still remember that look.”
Maya smooths her thumb over the back of my hand tenderly, but I don’t deserve it.
“I proceeded to get so drunk that night, I barely made it home. I don’t even remember most of it, to be honest, until I woke up in the hospital the next day,” I say as I grit my teeth and force my tears back into my head.
“I’d practically crashed my way into the house where my entire family found me having a seizure.
They took me to the hospital to pump my stomach from the severe alcohol poisoning.
The doctors said that I almost died. If I’d passed out outside or anywhere where my family couldn’t have found me, I would have died. ”
“Fuck,” Maya exhales jaggedly. “Finn, I had no idea.”
“That’s when my family practically begged me to go to a rehabilitation centre.
We all knew I couldn’t end up like that again.
It could have been fatal, and seeing how upset my family was, that’s what broke me the most. And how Ivy still wanted to talk to me, I’ll never know,” I sniffle and wipe my face.
“But she did, she kept fighting for me, and I didn’t deserve it. ”
Maya forces my eyes to hers. “She did it because she loves you.”
“After what I did to her? I deserved nothing.”
“Finn,” she whispers, scooting impossibly closer. “You’ve had therapy for this. You’ve gone through the toughest part, and yes, I know you struggle to forgive yourself, but Ivy forgave you, and she was willing to move on because she wanted to see you get better.”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “I guess.”
“I’m so sorry.”
My eyes narrow a little. “For what?”
“That I didn’t know how bad it was. That I couldn’t help you. That I couldn’t save you.”
“No one could have saved me, Maya. I was a ticking time bomb, and I needed to hit rock bottom before I realised how fucked up I truly was. Only I could come to that decision on my own.”
“And rehab…” Maya trails off. “It helped?”
“Yeah. A lot more than I thought it would. At first, I thought it was a load of shit because I was still in denial. But then I started to listen to other people and write down my feelings, and it clicked that I wasn’t well, and the only way to get better was to be sober.”
“And when you left?”
“I had a few weeks in between rehab and university,” I say, thinking back to how hard it was adjusting to normal life without alcohol. “My parents didn’t want me to go. They wanted me to take a year off, but I disagreed and said I needed to stay distracted and get on with my life, not pause it.”
She nods slowly.
“And JJ knew about my problem, so that helped, and I told the guys. Ever since, I’ve been keeping myself away from any situation where alcohol might be so I don’t get triggered,” I admit.
“Then I came to your house, and I saw you and our daughter, and that really put into perspective how badly I fucked up.”
Maya’s eyes tilt downwards. “I’m just glad you got the help you needed. You didn’t deserve to feel like that, you know that, right?”
I merely shrug because it’s still something I’m working on. “When I say I never want to be that guy again, I mean it. I’ve learnt so much about myself, and I don’t ever want to find myself in that situation again.”
“I believe you,” she mumbles as she leans in.
A breath of relief washes through me.
“I thought about you every day without fail,” I say as my eyes start to burn. “And those stupid drunken texts I know I sent you. I meant every one. But I let you go because I knew I was crashing and burning, and I couldn’t bear the thought of dragging you down with me.”
Maya’s nose wrinkles as her hands tremble. “I just wanted to help you.”
“I know, sunshine.”
She releases a small sob, and we lean in so close our foreheads are almost touching. “You haven’t called me sunshine in weeks,” she whimpers.
“You’ll always be my sunshine.” I cup her cheek and swipe my thumb along her cold skin. “No matter what. Even if you decide you don’t want me in your life like that. You helped me claw my way out of the darkest parts of my life, but I ruined it all before you could pull me out.”
Maya blinks, and a tear rolls down her cheek. “I just wanted you to be happy.”
“You made me the happiest man in the world,” I confess. “You gave me purpose and reason, and I took it for granted. I still had demons to face, and I let it take over my life.”
We stare at each other before I wipe her cheeks.
“I hate seeing you cry,” I sigh.
“I wish I did more.”
“You did everything you could.”
“And it wasn’t enough.”
I shake my head. “I was the one who wasn’t enough.”
“That’s not true.”
Maya flicks her glossy eyes between mine as I gently drop my hand from her face. “Come on,” I say as I pull her to standing gently. “It’s cold. Let’s get inside for some lunch, yeah?”
“Okay.” She clears her throat as we stroll down the beach to the sound of the wind and the waves. “Thank you for opening up to me.”
“Thank you for giving me a safe space so I can.”