3. Chapter 3
Seren
“And are you sure you have everything you need?” my brother asked, for the hundredth time. I was grateful for his concern and care, but I also hadn’t moved here for him to baby me.
“Nathaniel, I’m fine. Cai is fine, and his daycare is set up ready, which you vetted with me by the way. I have groceries that you insisted on buying. We have all our moving boxes from Mom and Dad’s house. Everything is fine.”
“But what if—”
I raised my hand, stopping him before he could spiral into yet another hypothetical scenario that involved faulty smoke alarms, suspicious neighbors, or the statistically alarming number of injuries sustained by toddlers.
“Nate, I say this with love”—I pinned a photo of him and Cai on my fridge—“please, leave.”
“You want me to leave,” he repeated, as though I’d suggested exile. My heartstrings tugged at the look on his face.
“I want you to go home,” I clarified, softening my tone, but not my stance. “To your own house. With your own life. I promise I’m not teetering on the edge of collapse.”
His eyes scanned my apartment again, slowly and methodically, taking in the half-emptied boxes stacked neatly against the wall. Cai’s toys were already scattered across the rug, and the faint hum of the baby monitor crackled from the kitchen counter where I’d left it charging.
He exhaled through his nose. “Okay, I’ll go. If you need me, though…”
“I know exactly where to find you.” Not only because he was my brother, but because he’d also written his address and phone number on a Post-It note that was currently stuck to my refrigerator, as if I didn’t always have a digital device with me that also stored his phone and address.
“I love you. I’ll call you tomorrow after I’ve picked up Cai from daycare. ”
“I can be there when you pick him up,” he offered.
“And have all the women at the daycare go gaga over you? Not yet. We can talk about you picking him up another time.” I gently guided his broad shoulders toward the door and planted my palm flat on his back. “Now, go. Live your life.”
He huffed a laugh, but he let me steer him, which was how I knew he was close to surrender.
Nate only ever dug his heels in when he thought I was about to make a decision he didn’t like, and apparently moving into a perfectly safe apartment with functioning locks and a vetted daycare didn’t qualify as enough to override my physical shoving.
He paused there, one hand braced on the frame, turning back to look at me again, and I felt that familiar warmth in my chest that reminded me he’d been stepping in front of me since we were kids, absorbing whatever storm he thought might be headed my way.
“You’re sure you’re okay?”
I held his gaze steadily. “I promise.”
Then he left, and my body deflated, my head hitting the back of the door with a rough exhale. The silence that settled around me wasn’t lonely. It was wide. Spacious. Mine.
I couldn’t deny I was scared to live alone, after living with my parents for the last couple of years, and college dorms before that. But this was freeing, and my pulse had a healthy, steady rhythm.
Cai turned over in his bed, the static noise crackling through the baby monitor as he sighed in his sleep.
This might have been the first time we were living alone together, but I was ready to reclaim something that I thought I’d lost and couldn’t get back after having Cai. Not only my rugby career, but my life, my body, my purpose.
I padded down the hall and pushed his bedroom door open just enough to see him.
He was star-fished across the mattress, curls stuck to his forehead, one fist wrapped around the ear of the stuffed elephant he refused to sleep without.
The night-light cast everything in a soft amber glow, and my chest ached at the sight.
He was the best thing that ever happened to me.
He was also not the end of me.
I rested my hand on the doorframe and let that truth settle somewhere deeper than guilt.
For the last two-plus years, every decision had been about stability and survival.
Making sure he was the center of my world.
It didn’t matter that I never finished my final year at college or gave up my career, because he was more important.
His dad wasn’t in a stable enough place for him right now; his job kept him traveling too often, so I needed to be the stable parent.
But when Nate mentioned he’d shown the Valkyries coach my college tapes last season, things had changed.
I was changing. I needed to make sure his future and mine were going in the right direction, and it started with tomorrow morning, my first day as a starting winger for the Valkyries.
I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d considered, let alone picked.
I was ready to show my son I could be successful and still be the mother he loved and adored by being there for him. It wouldn’t be easy, but I was all in. I wanted every late night, every early morning, and I’d earn my spot on the team.
Padding over to my bedroom, I was grateful Nate had built the bed with me. Everything else could wait. Boxes were still stacked along the walls, half-open and in disarray, but I luckily found one marked clothes right away.
I really wanted a shower. It took a bit of digging to find a towel, but I managed it and headed into the bathroom. The water heated quickly, steam curling around me as I stepped under it, letting it rinse away the day.
A few minutes later, I was back in my room, skin warm, hair damp at the ends as I pulled on underwear and an old shirt to sleep in.
After I’d tugged it over my head, something caught my eye in one of the boxes. Taking out the photos from my college rugby team, I looked at another version of myself.
My chest rose slowly as I held on to the image, waiting for recognition to land, waiting for it to feel like me.
Like it might morph into something else if I blinked long enough.
This was the version of me I used to be—the one with taut abs and definition, the one who could run ten miles without thinking twice and fit into anything without a second thought.
The one who didn’t need to shimmy her leggings over soft skin or pretend my bras still fit the same.
Over two years. That’s how long it had been since I became a mother.
Since my body stretched and shifted and carried life.
And somehow, I still expected her to bounce back like she’d just taken a break.
Like she hadn’t gone through the most brutal, beautiful transformation of her life.
I ran my fingers down my stomach, over skin rippled with marks earned from months of growing a baby.
My thighs felt stronger, even if they didn’t look lean the way they used to.
My arms carried a toddler now, not just weights.
My back ached in new places, but it also held a human when he was sick or tired or just needed his mom more than the world.
I used to chase personal bests. Fastest mile. Heaviest lift. Now I chased a giggling blur across the park and called it cardio.
Some days, I missed the old me—the body, the ease, the focus.
Some days, I still searched for her in the mirror.
But now, I saw someone else. A strong woman who wasn’t any less because she made a life.
A body that built a human, broke open, and was still putting itself back together piece by piece.
Someone who was starting from the ground up again and finding the space that I deserved.
I placed the photo back into the box for now and settled into bed with the knowledge that whatever happened tomorrow, I was going to do this with everything I had.