Chapter 13 Iris #2
"Is that one from another fight too?" I ask, gesturing toward his eyebrow with my wine glass, half-joking. He laughs, the sound warm and rich as he glances up from the stove.
"Something like that. Got into a fight with my mom's gutter and lost." I blink at him, fighting back a smile as I tilt my head.
"What do you mean?" He shakes his head, smile stretching wide across his face.
"I was sixteen and dumb. So dumb." He laughs again, adjusting his glasses.
"I tried to sneak out and my mom caught me.
Scared me so bad I slipped, fell off the roof, and hit my head on the way down.
" My brows shoot up, and I start to grin too, imagining a much lankier teenage Collin sprawled out in the bushes.
"Ouch." He nods, stirring the pancetta as it sizzles.
"No kidding, but she was so worried about all the blood, I didn't even get in trouble for that one."
"Lucky you." He nudges his glasses back up his nose and gives me a sly wink.
“Mom!” Jamie calls for the fourth time. “Can Ace have a treat?”
“Ask Collin, baby. It’s his dog.” He’s already reaching for what I assume is the treat jar, handing it off to Jamie who grins wide.
Ace is poking him repeatedly with his wet noise, making him squeal as he holds the jar over his head, telling him to sit.
The warmth in my chest expands, watching them.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen Jamie this happy, so long since I’ve felt this happy.
.. this safe. I try to push the thought away, but I must make some small sound because Collin’s attention snaps back to me.
“You okay?” he asks softly, those warm brown eyes searching my face.
“Yeah, I just...” I gesture vaguely at the scene before us, Jamie and Ace playing, the pasta slowly coming to a boil on the stove. “This is nice.” His expression softens around the edges.
“Yeah,” he says, voice dropping low. “It is.” Thunder rolls closer outside, rain now steadily drumming against the windows.
The city lights blur into watercolor streaks, creating a cozy bubble around us as Collin works.
There’s something mesmerizing about watching him cook.
The sure movements of his hands, the way he seems to know exactly what he needs without having to think about it.
I like watching Collin with Jamie, I realize.
The way his attention never wavers, how freely he gives it like he did at the ice cream shop.
A memory hits like a sucker punch, Jamie, younger, tugging on Owen’s sleeve, desperate to show him a drawing, a trick, anything.
Owen’s constant refrain of not now and I’m busy.
How many moments had he missed, face buried in his phone, barely glancing up when I’d say Owen, look, he’s trying to show you something.
I push the thoughts away. I don’t want to think about Owen, not here, not now.
Not when Clark Kent is cooking for me and refilling my wine glass with a smile that makes me forget to breathe.
Not when my son is sprawled on the floor with Ace, cheeks pink with laughter.
Dinner, when we sit down to eat, is nothing short of incredible.
The mac and cheese has Jamie practically bouncing in his seat, and the carbonara.
.. I have to close my eyes when I take the first bite.
“Well?” Collin’s watching me with those warm brown eyes.
“Okay, fine.” I twirl another perfect bite onto my fork. “You can cook.” His answering grin is unbearably smug.
“I’m sorry, what was that? I didn’t quite hear you.”
“Don’t push it.” But I’m grinning too, and when he laughs I feel that warmth spread through my chest again.
Now Jamie’s curled up on the couch, Ace’s head in his lap as The Amazing Spider-Man 2 plays on the massive screen.
The dishes have been cleared away, Collin wouldn’t let me help, insisting guests don’t do dishes, and now we’re sitting at the kitchen table.
Rain paints liquid shadows across the tall windows, transforming city lights into a watercolor blur of blue, red, and gold.
Collin watches me from across the table, brows pinched together like he’s trying to decide whether or not he wants to say what he’s thinking.
“So, earlier, with Owen...” His voice is careful, measured. “That was pretty rough.” The chardonnay catches the light as I swirl it in my glass, trying to find the right words.
“Thank you for stepping in.” I shake my head, looking down at the glass topped table. “I didn’t... I didn’t even know he still had access to my location.” Collin’s jaw tightens, the subtle flex of muscle betraying the calm in his voice.
“Does that happen a lot? Him showing up?” The wine ripples as I trace the rim of my glass, pale gold against the warm kitchen light.
“Not usually. He’s been more... aggressive lately. I think he’s bothered that he doesn’t have the same control he used to have over me.” He frowns, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair.
“He seems like...” Collin pauses, choosing his words carefully. “Forgive me for saying this, but he seems like a real prick. How did you end up married to someone like that?” A soft, bitter laugh escapes me.
“I was twenty-one when I got pregnant with Jamie. Young, infatuated... terrified.” The memories rise up like a tidal wave.
Owen’s face when I told him, the immediate shift into action mode.
“He insisted we get married right away. He was older, said he loved me, that he’d take care of us.
And I believed him because...” I trail off, glancing at the top of Jamie’s head peeking over the couch where he’s still fully engrossed in the movie.
“Because he was so kind then, so charming. He had this way of making you feel like you were the only person in the world who mattered.” Jamie’s laughter floats in from the living room, and my throat tightens.
“But after the wedding, it was like... like a switch flipped. Jekyll and Hyde, you know? The man I married just disappeared.”
“What happened?” he asks softly, and the gentleness in his voice nearly undoes me.
“He was constantly critical of everything I did or said.” The words come slowly at first, each one weighted.
“When I first stopped going out with friends, I told myself it was because I was tired from the pregnancy.” Collin shifts in his chair, angling his body toward me.
“But looking back...” I pause, watching the pale gold liquid catch the light as I tilt my glass.
“He had this way of making everything my fault. If I went out with friends, I was being selfish. If I talked to other people at parties, I was embarrassing him.”
“How did you handle that?” Collin’s voice is low, gentle, a thread I can follow back to the present when the memories threaten to pull me under.
I shrug, looking back up at him. His brown eyes are intent on my face in a way that makes me flinch.
I’d only ever talked about this with a few people.
My therapist, of course, and Ellie, as well as my mother, who still thought Owen hung the moon.
What would he think? “I stopped going out. It was easier that way. When I did see friends, he’d find some way to punish me for it after.
Even if he wasn’t angry he’d make me feel guilty.
The silent treatment could last days, but sometimes I preferred that to the fighting.
” I trace the rim of my glass, focusing on the cool press of crystal against my fingertip.
“It’s like he played this game where he was always trying to get me to value him more than I valued my self-respect, and eventually, he won.
” A muscle ticks in Collin’s jaw, but his voice stays steady.
“That must have been incredibly lonely.” The simple acknowledgment makes my eyes burn and I press my lips into a thin line, nodding my head in agreement.
“It was.” The confession hangs in the air between us.
“I remember sitting there with him and still feeling like the loneliest person in the world. It didn’t matter what I did, what I said, it was never enough.
I was never enough. Not for him. Definitely not for Jamie. I was always failing in his eyes.”
“Iris.” There’s an edge to Collin’s voice now, something protective that makes me look up.
“You know that’s not true, right? You’re not failing Jamie.
Look at him.” He gestures toward the couch where Jamie’s completely absorbed in the movie, safe and happy.
“That’s all you.” I wrap both hands around my wine glass, anchoring myself.
“I know that. Now. Most days.” A humorless laugh escapes me.
“Even a year after the divorce, he’s still really good at getting in my head.
Making me doubt myself.” The understanding in Collin’s eyes makes something crack open in my chest. I find myself tracing patterns in the condensation on my glass, the words coming easier now.
“It went on for so long I didn’t know how to end it.
Like being stuck on a carousel that won’t stop.
You’re dizzy and you don’t know which way is up or down anymore.
” I take a shaky breath. “He liked it that way. Me being confused. I’d go into a conversation irritated with him and then leave it hoping he wasn’t irritated with me.
” My voice drops to barely above a whisper, tears brimming my lashes, coming unbidden as pain and embarrassment rise anew.
“I knew it was bad. That it wasn’t right, but I didn’t want anyone to have a negative opinion of him.
I just wanted it to get better. I think part of me thought that if I tried hard enough, if I did everything he asked, then maybe that guy I first knew would come back.
” The admission feels like gravel in my throat. “He didn’t.”
Something like pain flashes across Collin’s face. He moves closer, and I feel the gentle brush of his thumb against my cheek, catching a tear I hadn’t even realized had fallen.
“I’m sorry.” I try to laugh it off, wiping hastily at my eyes. “God, I’m such a mess.”
“Don’t apologize for that.” His voice is soft but firm.
“Not ever.” The way he’s looking at me steals my breath, like he sees everything I am, everything I’ve been through, and doesn’t judge me for any of it.
It makes me want to tell him more, makes me brave enough to voice things I’ve barely admitted to myself. I release a shaky sigh.
“My parents, they kind of set the stage for all of this. Praise was so rarely given that I learned approval equaled love. That it was something you had to win. So, when Owen came along I just bent over backwards because I thought that—”
“You thought you had to earn it,” Collin interrupts gently. “That that’s what it took to be loved.” I give him a sad smile.
“Yeah.” Somewhere between my quiet words and unshed tears he grabbed my hand.
Folded it so gently into his that I hadn’t even noticed.
Large fingers trace the shape of my knuckles, memorizing the bones under my skin.
The rough pad of his thumb slides over the back of my hand.
My eyes track the movement, heart stuttering in my chest. It’s his voice that has me looking back up at him.
“It doesn’t. It takes much less, Iris.”