Chapter 15 #2
What if this baby inherits Mom's wiring?
Her bi-polar disorder jumped from her grandfather straight to her, skipping a generation like a goddamn genetic time bomb.
I've dodged that bullet - knock wood - but my kid?
The math isn't just "not in our favor"—it's a fucking sentence waiting to happen.
And when—not if—those symptoms start showing up, I need to handle it my way.
Christ, normal parents lose their shit over bedtimes and screen time—imagine the absolute nightmare when your kid's screaming about monsters that only exist in their fractured brain.
And Cameron? The guy's already survived a battlefield of emotional carnage.
He deserves something pure, something untainted.
Not some ink-stained disaster with mother issues and a kid who might need psychiatric holds instead of timeout.
I clawed my way through hurricane-force chaos—it's burned into my DNA. Survived Cat 5 chaos once, can do it again if the kid loses the genetic lottery and inherits Mom’s mental illness.
But Cameron's the superhero who held his shattered family together when their dad bailed, who stitches up broken refugees and literally saves lives at Cedars while I'm drawing pretty pictures on skin.
He deserves better than being dragged into the hellfire of my family's demons. I won't fucking do that to him.
I roll my eyes. "No, Mom, it's not that deep.
I don't need someone dictating my life choices, and I sure as hell don't want that for my kid either.
I mean, yeah, I'll guide them, but on their terms. If they're running around with a toy stethoscope, maybe they've got Cam's medical gene, and I'll support that path.
But if they're smearing paint everywhere and dropping Basquiat references before kindergarten, I'm not letting some guy squash their creative spirit because 'artists starve. '"
"Tally," Mom sighs, "what makes you think Cameron would be controlling? He seems level-headed to me."
"Because—" I throw my hands up, then let them fall. "Okay, fine. Maybe he is chill. But what if he's not? What if he turns into this helicopter parent who micromanages everything and screws the kid up?"
Mom gives me that look—the one that sees right through me. "And what if the baby inherits my issues? And you don't want him dealing with that burden."
I slam my palms against the kitchen counter.
"That's not it!" The words explode out of me, and Mom's eyebrow arches in that knowing way.
Damn it. She's always said my volume rises with my bullshit.
I might as well have tattooed "LIAR" across my forehead.
Her lips purse, and I know she's pieced it together.
Fine. Whatever. If this baby comes out wired like her, I'll handle it myself.
“Oh,” she says. “But it is it.” She shakes her head. “Don’t even try to lie.”
I sigh. "That is it. But not all of it. Most of it is because I…" I trail off, twisting my rings around my fingers. Mom waits, that patient look on her face that always makes me crack.
"Fine. I'm terrified he'll wake up one day and realize I'm this massive mistake.
That someday I'll overhear him telling his fancy doctor friends about his 'tattooed phase' before he got serious about life.
That if he gets roped into being with me just because we have a kid together, he'll one day look at me across the breakfast table with this kid between us and think about the bullet he didn't quite dodge. "
Now, Mom's crying. "Oh, Tally." She says my name three times like it's a spell that might fix everything.
"I did this to you, didn't I? Made you build these walls?
I dragged you through a childhood where nothing ever stayed the same.
I should've been your rock—told you every single day how amazing you are.
Then maybe you'd believe you deserve Cameron.
Because you do deserve him, baby. You do. "
I blink. She means well, but she's got it twisted.
I know damn well I deserve Cameron. That's not what keeps me up at night.
What scares me is how different our worlds are, and how eventually the shine will wear off.
When it's 3 AM diaper duty and screaming matches about private versus public school, he'll look at the tattooed mess across from him and wonder what the fuck he was thinking.
But fine, she's right about the trust issues.
Probably comes with the territory when your childhood address changed more often than people change their goddamned underwear.
Not that I'll say that out loud. She's already carrying enough guilt about the bi-polar disorder genes I might be passing down.
I roll my eyes. "I know I deserve Cameron, Mom," I say, my voice tight.
"But I'm not exactly what he's looking for.
He's probably dreaming of some trust fund princess who summers in the Hamptons and wouldn't be caught dead with ink on her perfect skin.
The kind of woman who'd rather die than wear the same outfit twice and thinks a Birkin bag is a basic necessity. "
"And how exactly do you know that?"
"Celeste filled me in. His precious Alecia taught kindergarten while living off daddy's money and jetting off to her Hamptons mansion every summer. Trust me, Mom, guys like him don't trade in their perfect porcelain dolls for tattooed girls like me. That's not how the world works."
Mom's voice softens. "Tally, honey. This goes both ways, you know.
When's the last time you dated a guy who wore pressed khakis instead of leather? Who probably has NPR programmed in his car instead of KROQ? Who probably has never created an urban mural?” She tilts her head.
"Remember how you and Jake followed the Drop Kick Murphys around the country that one summer and that was the guy you saw yourself with?
I'm guessing Cam's idea of a wild night involves wine that doesn't come in a box.
But here you are, falling for him anyway. "
I sigh. Mom's words hit like a sledgehammer.
This clear-eyed, rational woman—this stranger in my mother's skin—makes me wonder what kind of person I'd be if I hadn't spent my childhood hiding in closets while she screamed at invisible demons.
But fuck that. My art work became my lifeline in that house of horrors.
Every canvas I painted and sketched was a scream I couldn't let out, every color a feeling I couldn't name. Pain carved me into who I am.
"Jesus Christ, fine! I'm fucking crazy about him, okay?
" The truth rips out of me. The sex? It demolished me.
But it's HIM. I close my eyes and his scent floods back—Dior's Sauvage Elixir, so goddamn dark and spicy it makes my knees weak.
So opposite to his golden-boy vibe that it gives me whiplash.
I drown myself in Black Orchid for the same reason—to warn people there's danger beneath my skin.
He's got hands that stitch up war refugees by day and coax jazz from piano keys at night with such raw emotion I had to hide my tears in the dark club. He sees straight through my bullshit. Nothing about him screams future asshole—he’s not the type who'd crush our kid's dreams.
And that terrifies me more than anything. I'm drowning in feelings for a man who deserves someone who didn't grow up feral. Someone whose damage doesn't run soul-deep. On paper, we're from different planets. And sometimes "on paper" is all that matters to people like him.
Mom leans in, eyes laser-focused. "So the truth is out. You're absolutely fucking obsessed with Cameron, this gorgeous doctor who would walk through fire for you. You're carrying his child. What the hell is your problem?"
"Me." My voice cracks. “Like Taylor Swift says, I’m the problem, it’s me.” My chest feels like it's being crushed.
I'm self-sabotage personified, the hurricane that destroys everything it touches.
I dig my nails into my palm until it hurts.
Everyone else figures their shit out eventually, right?
Maybe I could stop being such a disaster long enough to not obliterate the one perfect thing that's ever happened to me.
Or maybe not. Either way, I'm taking this secret about the baby to my grave.