Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“WHEN THE PARTY’S OVER” BY BILLIE EILISH
BLOSSOM
Once the kids are finally in bed, after Tina made hot chocolate for everyone, I walk back into the kitchen to find Steele standing at the sink, looking out of the window at the dark backyard.
“Steele?” My voice comes out much smaller than I intended, making me almost wince.
He doesn’t turn around, and my pulse races as my stomach drops. “Noah settled?”
I take an inhale. “Yes. He’s asleep. Justin and Ant are with him.” I step closer, my hands shaking as I wring the bottom of my sleep shirt between my fingers. It’s one of Steele’s, and it’s like the hug I can’t ask him for but so desperately want. “Are we… are we okay?”
His broad shoulders tense, and I brace myself, knowing this will hurt. “I don’t know, Flower.”
His honesty lands like a gut punch and my hand flies to my stomach. He doesn’t see, his back still to me. I nod anyway. “Okay.”
He sighs. “I need some time. To process.”
“O-of course,” I reply, backing to the door and nodding like a bloody muppet again. “I understand.”
And I do. And it’s not his fault this feels like every time my dad leaves. Every time he missed some event of mine. Every time he told me I wasn’t enough. It’s not mine either, but it hurts just the same because I want Steele’s big arms around me so badly I can’t take a full breath.
“Blossom—” He finally turns and I freeze when his pain filled brown eyes lock with mine. “I’m not mad at you.”
My lips part, and once again my head bobs. “But you’re not okay either.”
His large shoulders sag, and the distance of the kitchen tiled floor between us seems insurmountable. A vast ocean we can’t hope to cross. “No.” His voice is gentle, tired. Hurt. “I’m not.”
That lands like another blow, because I know I did that. I ruined this between us. I hurt him and how can he ever look at me the same?
I nod a final time, my throat too tight to speak, then turn around before the tears that are burning my eyes can fall.
“NUMB” BY TOMMEE PROFFITT, SKYLAR GREY
STEELE
She's gone before I can find the words.
I hear her footsteps retreating down the hall, soft and quick, and I stand here with my hands braced against the sink and my chest doing something I don't have a name for.
I should have turned around. Should have looked at her when she asked if we were okay, instead of staring out at the dark yard like a coward.
But I couldn't. Because I don't know what my face would have done if I had.
Are we okay?
The honest answer sits in my gut like broken glass.
I don't know. I genuinely don't fucking know, and I've never been a man who lies to make things easier, so I told her that.
And I watched the reflection of her take it.
Watched her nod and back toward the door like she was trying to make herself smaller, and still I didn't turn around.
Because if I had, I would have crossed that kitchen and pulled her into my arms.
And I can't do that yet. Can't hold her close and pretend the thing she told me in that car isn't still sitting in my chest like a coal, burning slow and steady. Isn’t painful.
She handed two hundred thousand dollars to men who would have called Noah a slur while they hurt him. Who would look at me and see something less than human. Who would look at Nox and see a problem to be solved.
She did that. She knew what they were. And she did it anyway.
I know why. I can understand the why. I even understand that I might have done something just as impossible for the people I love.
But understanding something and being okay with it are not the same thing. And I am not okay yet. I’m not sure I ever will be okay with it. It’s not something that deserves forgiveness, regardless of understanding.
I am not leaving.
That I know with a certainty that sits beneath all the rest of it, solid and unmoving. But I need to find a way to hold what she did alongside who I know her to be, and right now those two things don't fit together in my hands.
The yard is dark outside the window. Somewhere upstairs, Noah is asleep. Safe.
I stay at the sink for a long time, staring into the darkness, choking on words.
“BAD LIAR - STRIPPED” BY IMAGINE DRAGONS
BLOSSOM
Rubbing the sleep from gritty eyes, I wake up later than usual. My body feels too empty, but that’s what I asked for last night. To sleep alone. Needing to lick my wounds in solitude, not feeling deserving of comfort from Ant or Nox.
The light of the morning makes things feel a bit better, especially now that we have Noah back and Steele just needs some time, that’s all.
He’ll leave.
I shake my head, brushing the thought aside as I climb out of bed and wince.
My muscles ache this morning, like I spent all night tense, holding myself rigid.
With a sigh I pull on a pair of leggings, put my hair up into a messy bun, and make my way downstairs where the sounds of everyone eating breakfast makes me feel like it’s any other morning.
Why then does it feel so dark and gloomy?
I step into the kitchen and it feels too big, too empty despite the fact that everyone is here.
My gaze roams across the table, stalling when I find Steele, sitting at the opposite end of the table he usually sits at.
He’s as far away as he can get from my seat and sitting to the side so we don’t have to look directly at each other and my stomach cramps.
“Morning, Bloom,” Ant says from the chair next to my empty one. His brows are lowered as he looks me up and down. “Sleep okay?”
“Um-hum,” I mumble back, shuffling to my seat and sitting down.
“Here, dearie,” Tina says, a frown on her face as she puts down a plate of my favourite French toast with bacon and maple syrup. Bile fills my mouth at the sight, but I smile and thank her anyway.
Chatter flows around me as I push my food around my plate, the thought of eating making my stomach do somersaults. I look up at a chair scraping, catching Steele’s eyes as he stands. He quickly looks away, and my chest tightens as he leaves the room without saying a single word to me.
I know what I did was wrong. Funding those people. Hurting people who look like Steele, like Noah.
But standing here watching him pull away, all I can think is: Dad was right. I'm not enough. Never have been.
A bronze coloured hand wraps around mine, stilling the movement of my fork.
“He just needs time, Petal,” Nox whispers as everyone finishes their food and I sit here just wanting to crawl into somewhere dark and hide.
“I know,” I reply, removing my hand from his, and standing up. “I’m going to make sure all the school bags are sorted.”
“You didn’t eat,” Ant states, and I look at him to find his jaw tight as he stares at me.
“I’m not hungry.”
You don’t deserve it. Think of all those people who were hurt because of you. No wonder dad never stayed. You’re a terrible person.
I hate that my brain goes there. Hate that I can't separate Steele needing time to process something genuinely hurtful from Dad walking away. But the end feeling is the same.
Abandoned. Not enough. Alone.
“TRAIN WRECK - ACOUSTIC” BY JAMES ARTHUR
STEELE
I feel her eyes on me the whole way out of the room. Burning, but not like fire. Like ice that you don’t feel until it’s too late and you have frostbite.
I know what it looks like. Know she's sitting there reading my silence as something it might not be, or might be, and I can't seem to untangle one from the other long enough to stay at that table and look at her across it.
Because that's the thing no one tells you about trying to hold two truths at once. It's fucking exhausting. Every minute of it.
I love her.
She told me in that car what she'd done, and then I watched her walk into a stranger's house with her chin up and her hands steady, cash in a bag, there to bring Noah home.
A child who is not hers biologically. And I thought, there she is.
There's the woman I'm going to love for the rest of my life.
That feeling didn't go anywhere. It just has company now. Unwanted, painful, immovable company.
She pushed her food around her plate and didn't eat a single bite and I noticed every second of it and said nothing because what would I say.
Eat something, Flower and then what? She looks at me and I have to look back and she'll see everything I'm carrying and it'll break her, or it'll break me, or both.
So I left.
It's not fucking clean, what I'm doing. I know that. I'm not proud of the fact that the most honest thing I can manage right now is absence. But I'm a man who means what he says and right now I don't have words that are both true and kind, and she deserves both.
She deserves everything.
That's what makes this so impossible.
I stand in the hallway for a moment, the sounds of the breakfast table filtering through the door. Jus laughing at something. One of the little ones asking for more juice. The ordinary noise of the family we've been building.
I put my back against the wall and close my eyes.
I'm not leaving, I think, like if I say it enough to myself it'll find a way to reach her too.
I'm right here. I just don't know how to be here and carry this at the same time.
Not yet.
“IDONTWANNABEYOUANYMORE” BY BILLIE EILISH
BLOSSOM
I spend Saturday drifting around the house, feeling lost, like a dandelion seed being blown about on the wind and not knowing my destination. It’s like I’m going through the motions, not really seeing or feeling anything fully.
I’m walking around the front of the mansion, not really having any goal in mind other than hoping the fresh air might help lift my mood, when I spot Steele in the garage, the hood of his truck open.
Noah, Mitchel and Anna are all with him, and I watch as he teaches them something — looks like how to check the oil in the truck.
He’s patient. Gentle. Seems extra attentive and one of his large hands comes out to give Noah’s shoulder a squeeze when he gets something right.
Noah laughs at something Steele says, his traumatic few days away seemingly already forgotten. He’s safe. Happy. And that band around my chest tightens.
I know what I did helped him. But it was because I broke the law. Because I paid a million dollars to get him home. Because I threatened his parents.
Acid churns in my stomach.
Steele looks up, catches me watching, hand over my stomach like I might throw up the little I’ve been able to eat today. His happy expression shutters and it’s as if a dark cloud came over the sun. He’s not angry, just closed and I can’t bear it even if it’s all my doing.
I turn away before he can see the tears burning in my eyes.
“SKIN AND BONES” BY RUELLE
STEELE
I see her the moment she rounds the corner.
She doesn't know that. She thinks she's watching me without being watched, standing at the edge of the drive, her eyes full of something I recognize even from here.
I keep my attention on Mitchel, on the dipstick in his small hand, talking him through what he's looking at. Noah is pressed close against my side the way he's been since we brought him home, like he needs to know I'm still there. I understand that more than I can say.
Good, I tell him when he gets it right, and feel the small earthquake of his laugh against my ribs.
This is what I know how to do. Show up. Be steady. Make the small things feel safe. I have been doing it my whole life and I know how to keep doing it even when everything inside me is anything but steady.
But then I look up and find her eyes.
And I watch her hand move to her stomach like she might be sick, and my heart does something violent and complicated, because I did that.
My distance is doing that to her. And I hate it.
And I also can't seem to stop it, can't seem to find the fucking bridge between where I am and where she is and cross it yet.
So my face does the only thing it knows how to do when I don't have words.
It closes.
I watch her see it happen. Watch her read it as something I don't intend and can't correct from here, across a driveway, with three children between us. Her eyes go bright and then she turns away, and I have to look back down at Noah because if I keep watching her walk away I will go after her.
And I'm not ready.
Noah tugs my sleeve. “Steele? Did I do it right?”
I look down at him. Dark eyes. Trusting. Safe.
“Yeah, buddy,” I say, my voice coming out steadier than I feel. “You did it exactly right.”
“CATACOMBS” BY S?D VEN
BLOSSOM
Another restless night spent alone, Ant and Nox respecting my plea to be by myself. They didn’t like it, but like I’m doing with Steele, they’re giving me time. How can I tell them that it’s the farthest thing from what I want, even when I ask them to leave me alone.
I don’t know why I ask them to leave me alone when I’m desperate to be held, like somehow that will stop me from fracturing apart.
I know what this is. Know that it’s me pushing them away before they can leave me, like it feels like Steele is doing. But knowing my trauma’s ugly side and being able to stop it are two wildly different things.
I'm carrying a basket of laundry when I nearly run into Steele in the hallway.
“Sorry,” I mumble, stepping back, looking around the space which used to feel so big but now seems tiny and claustrophobic.
He steps aside to let me pass. Polite. Careful not to touch me, and it shatters my heart more.
See, he doesn’t want you anymore because you’ll never be enough.
A week ago, he would've taken the basket from me. Would've pressed a kiss to my temple. Would've made some joke about me doing too much.
Now there's three feet of space between us that feels like three miles and I don’t seem to be able to take a full breath.
“Thanks,” I whisper, hurrying past, his motor oil and pine scent a cruel reminder of everything I’ve lost.
I don't look back. Can't bear to see if he's watching me go or if he's already walked away.