Chapter 21
RUSH
"Everly," I say quietly. "Please tell me what's happening."
But she just stands there frozen, her eyes wide and terrified. The silence stretches and I watch her trying to speak, but nothing comes out.
Something is deeply, fundamentally wrong.
My mind races through possibilities, each one worse than the last. She's sick, someone hurt her, she's leaving me. I step closer carefully, like she's a wild animal that might bolt.
"Whatever it is, we can handle it," I say. "Just tell me."
She opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. Then she whispers so quietly I almost miss it.
"I'm pregnant."
The words don't land properly at first. There's a moment of complete blankness where my brain can't process what she just said.
Pregnant. She's pregnant. There's a baby. Our baby.
Then it hits all at once and the air leaves my lungs.
Shock slams into me first, pure disbelief that this is real, that this is happening.
Then fear, immediate and visceral, flooding through my veins like ice water.
And underneath it all, something dangerously close to hope that I immediately try to crush.
My chest tightens and I can't breathe properly.
My hands are shaking. All I can think about is my father.
The violence, the cruelty, the constant fear, the way he turned our house into a war zone, the way he looked at me and Ruby like we were problems to be solved with his fists, the way he enjoyed hurting us.
What if I become him? What if I have a kid and I turn into that monster? What if I'm standing here right now carrying the same capacity for violence he had, just waiting for the right trigger?
"Rush?" Everly's voice cuts through the panic, but I can barely hear her over the roaring in my ears.
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. My mind is stuck on a loop, replaying every time my father hit me, every time he made Ruby cry, every time he proved that men could be monsters to the people they're supposed to protect.
"Say something," Everly whispers, and she looks terrified.
I realize I've been standing here silent for too long, just staring at her while my brain short-circuits.
"What if I turn into my father?" The words come out broken and raw.
Her face crumples. "What?"
"My father, he was a monster. He beat the shit out of me for years. He turned his violence on Ruby when she was six years old. What if I'm like him? What if I have a kid and I become that?"
"Rush, no—"
"I don't know how to be a father when the only example I had was someone who terrorized his family. What if I hurt our kid the way he hurt me?"
The fear is overwhelming. It's crushing my chest and making it hard to think. I'm that scared thirteen-year-old again, holding a gun with shaking hands, becoming exactly what I was trying to protect Ruby from.
Everly steps forward and grabs my face in her hands, forces me to look at her.
"No," she says firmly. "You are nothing like your father. You have never been like your father."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do. Rush, you are the most controlled person I know. You walk away when you're angry. You lock down the violence instead of unleashing it. You protect people without hurting them."
"That doesn't mean I won't fuck it up. That doesn't mean I won't lose control one day and—"
"You won't, because you're already different than him. You've already broken the cycle."
Her certainty cuts through some of the panic but the fear is still there, humming under my skin.
"How can you be so sure?" I ask.
"Because I know you, Rush. I've seen you at your worst and you've never once made me feel unsafe. You're not your father."
I want to believe her but the doubt is overwhelming. I pull her against me and hold her so tight I'm probably hurting her, but I can't let go. This is real. She's pregnant. There's a baby growing inside her.
My baby. Our baby.
The thought makes my chest tighten with something that feels dangerously close to joy, but I crush it immediately because I don't deserve to feel that yet. Not when I'm this scared, not when I don't know if I can do this.
"I'm terrified," I admit against her hair.
"I know. Me too."
"How long have you known?"
"Since this afternoon. I took a test with Gráinne."
"And you've been sitting with this alone all day?"
"I was trying to figure out how to tell you."
I pull back and look at her, really look at her.
She's pale and shaken and she's been crying. Her eyes are red and puffy.
"Why were you scared to tell me?" I ask.
She looks away. "Because I didn't know if you wanted this."
"Everly—"
"We've never talked about kids, Rush. Not once. And then Ciara said—" She stops herself.
My jaw tightens. "What did Ciara say?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does. What did she say?"
Everly takes a breath. "She told me you never wanted kids. That you told her multiple times you despise women who trap men into fatherhood."
Rage flares hot and immediate in my chest. I lock it down hard before it can show on my face, before it can scare Everly, but inside I'm fucking furious. Ciara cornered Everly when she was vulnerable and twisted my words, used my past against me to make Everly doubt us.
"When did she say this?" I ask, keeping my voice carefully controlled.
"Tonight at the clubhouse. She said she overheard me and Gráinne talking about the pregnancy."
I close my eyes and force myself to breathe through the anger.
"Did I ever say something like that?" I ask. "Years ago, maybe. Probably."
"You don't remember?"
"I might have. I don't know. But if I did it was before I met you, before any of this meant anything."
"So it's true?"
"Maybe, but that doesn't matter now. Whatever I said back then doesn't define who I am today or what I want."
She's quiet, and I can see her trying to decide if she believes me.
"Everly, look at me."
She does.
"I need you to hear this, really hear it. Whatever I might have said years ago when I was a different person doesn't matter. What matters is right now, in this moment. And right now I'm telling you that I want this."
"You're sure?"
"I'm terrified but yeah, I'm sure."
"Even though we've only been together properly for two months?"
"Two months and change," I correct her. "And yeah, even though it's fast and scary and I have no idea what I'm doing."
She starts crying and I pull her close again, pressing my face into her hair.
"I'm sorry," she says.
"For what?"
"For being scared, for letting Ciara get in my head, for not telling you right away."
"Don't apologize. You had every right to be scared. And I'm going to deal with Ciara."
"Rush—"
"I'm not going to hurt her," I say quickly. "But I am going to set boundaries that should have been set a long time ago. She doesn't get to manipulate you. She doesn't get to use my past against me."
"Okay."
We stand there holding each other and I try to process everything.
A baby. We're having a baby. The reality of it settles over me slowly, sinking in piece by piece.
We move to the couch and Everly curls against my side, her head on my chest. I can feel her breathing, steady and even now that the initial panic has passed.
"Tell me what you're thinking," she says quietly.
I take a breath and try to put it into words, trying to explain the fear that's been clawing at my chest since she said she was pregnant.
"I'm thinking about my father," I say finally.
She doesn't say anything, just waits for me to continue.
"He used to beat the shit out of me when I was a kid," I continue. "For any reason, sometimes for no reason at all. I'd come home from school and he'd be drunk and angry and I'd end up with bruises."
My hands clench into fists just remembering it—the helplessness, the constant fear.
"Violence was normal in my house," I say. "Fear was constant. I learned early that men could become monsters behind closed doors, that fathers could hurt their kids and nobody would stop them."
"Rush—"
"Let me finish. I need to say this."
She nods and I keep going.
"And then when Ruby was born, he started hurting her too." My voice breaks on Ruby's name. "She was six years old and terrified of him. I tried to protect her but I was just a kid. I couldn't stop him. I'd get between them and take the hits but it was never enough."
Everly's hand finds mine and squeezes.
"When Ms. Michaels, Octavia, my teacher, called child protective services, my father found out. He was going to sell Ruby as punishment, make her disappear. He told me if I wanted to save her I had to go hurt Octavia, make her pay for calling CPS."
I close my eyes and see it again—the fear, the desperation, the gun shaking in my hands. "I didn't want to do it, but he had Ruby and I knew he'd go through with his threat. So I went to Octavia’s house with a gun he gave me."
"Rush, you don't have to—"
"Yes, I do. You need to understand what I'm capable of."
She's quiet and I force myself to keep talking.
"Octavia tried to talk me down. She wasn't scared.
She was kind. She kept saying my name, telling me it was going to be okay.
My finger squeezed the trigger and I shot her.
" The memory makes my stomach turn. "There was so much blood," I say quietly.
"And I just stood there frozen, the gun in my hands, knowing I'd become exactly what I was trying to protect Ruby from. "
"But you didn't mean to shoot her, right?"
"I did. I’d do anything for Ruby. In juvie I learned just how much violence I'm capable of. I fought a lot at first because I didn't know how else to handle the anger. Other kids would come at me and I'd put them down hard."
"You were defending yourself."
"Was I? Or was I just looking for an excuse to hurt someone?"
She sits up and looks at me. "Rush, you were a scared kid trying to survive in a horrible place."
"Maybe, but I liked it. That's what terrifies me. I liked the feeling of hitting someone, of being stronger, of making them afraid. Just like my father."