Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
CURB STOMP A BITCH’S LIGHTS OUT
LOUISIANA
A month later
We’d just finished dinner when Crow called, asking if I could close Bangers—something came up with their sister. I didn’t hesitate. It’s a Wednesday night, slow enough I could handle it without blinking.
The bar is quiet, just a few regulars tucked into their usual seats, sipping on beer and half-watching a rerun game on the TV.
I had my sketchbook open beside the register, pencil in hand, working on a rough drawing of Henry and Dallas out at Thunder Lake.
Henry’s hat pulled low, Dallas holding up a fish like it was the damn crown jewels.
“Haven’t seen that in a while,” a familiar voice calls from down the bar.
I don’t have to look to know it’s Vic.
“Didn’t think I ever would again either,” I say, eyes still on the page, not needing to pretend.
He takes a slow sip, then says it quiet, honest. “Murph would be proud.”
I don’t deflect. Don’t hide behind sarcasm or attitude. Instead, I look up and give him a small smile. “I think so too.”
And I do.
I’ve spent so long scared that picking up a pencil again would feel like bleeding. Like carving into an old scar. But drawing with Dallas…it’s different.
Most evenings, Henry and Dallas are gone before the sun’s fully tucked below the trees—rods slung over their shoulders, boots thudding down the porch steps, their laughter echoing into the woods like it’s always belonged there. Like they’ve been doing it for years, not just a few weeks.
After Dallas met the Wilder clan, Henry caught him saying he’s never been fishing—softly, like the words themselves were too heavy to admit.
He didn’t look anyone in the eye when he said it, just stared down at his hands like the confession made him smaller.
Henry didn’t miss a beat. Just stood up, grabbed two rods, and said, “Hell no. Come on, D. Let’s fix that. ”
And just like that—Thunder Lake became theirs.
But on the nights they stay in, it’s just me and Dallas at the kitchen table. No TV. No phones. Just two sketchbooks, a mess of pencils, and the kind of silence that feels intentional. Comfortable.
We don’t talk much. We don’t need to.
He’ll draw fish with fangs and Henry reeling in sea monsters. I’ll sketch them both—Henry’s stubborn jaw, Dallas’s wide-eyed grin. Sometimes, just for a breath or two, it feels like everything’s okay. Like the ache in my chest has been scooped out and replaced with something warm.
Something like peace.
But it never lasts.
Because no matter how many smiles Dallas gives me…no matter how many quiet, steady glances Henry throws my way from the living room couch…there’s always that voice. That awful, insidious voice that creeps in the second the room goes still.
You don’t belong here.
Not really.
You’re a stand-in. A soft place to land until someone better comes along. Someone who can give Henry the things you can’t. A baby. A future that looks like all those perfect little family pictures on greeting cards and fridge magnets.
I swallow hard and blink down at my sketchpad, eyes burning.
Because no matter how much I try to shake it, the truth stays buried in my bones: I can’t have children. It’s final. Unforgiving. It makes me feel…broken. Like a defective part in a machine that still wants to work.
And as much as Henry’s never once made me feel less for it, I see it in the corners of things. The way his eyes linger on other people's kids. The pause in his breath when Maddox palms Evie’s swollen belly. The quiet ache in his smile when Dallas leans into his side.
I see it. I feel it.
I know staying means settling.
That all I’ll ever be is a temporary patch on something bigger. Something I’ll never be able to give.
Dallas hands me a new drawing without a word.
It’s the three of us again—sitting at this table, light spilling over our faces like sunshine.
Only this time, he’s drawn a flower in the center of the table.
A wildflower. Its petals are a little uneven, a little unruly, but it’s still bright.
Still blooming. In shaky block letters underneath, he’s written:
Home.
I have to look away. I can’t let him see the way my lips tremble.
Because I want to stay. God, I do. I want this more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. But want has never been enough to silence the guilt. Or the fear. Or the thought that one day, Henry will look at me across this same table and wonder what he gave up by loving me.
Wonder what he could’ve had—if only he hasn’t wasted all these years waiting for me. If only he’d chosen someone whole.
I reach across the table and ruffle Dallas’s hair, letting my hand linger on the crown of his head a second longer than I mean to. He just grins and keeps drawing like I didn’t just fall apart in front of him.
That’s the cruelest part of it all.
That I love them so much it hurts.
That I don’t feel worthy of being someone’s home when I can’t give them the one thing I know part of them still hopes for.
So I draw.
I love.
And I stay—for now.
But every night, when the house is quiet and my heart starts asking questions, I still don’t know if staying is the right kind of selfish…or if leaving would be the cruelest thing of all.
Because even with Dallas’s laughter in the next room and Henry’s hand brushing mine over the kitchen sink, there’s a part of me that still can’t stop wondering—am I enough?
Am I anything more than broken ribs held together with good intentions and silence?
The door creaks open behind me.
“Whiskey neat, Louie.” Her voice slices through the quiet like a jagged shard of glass—sharper than memory, colder than bone.
Suddenly, I’m ripped out of the safety I’ve been trying to let myself believe in.
That nickname. Louie. It rolls off her tongue like poison wrapped in honey. A name that used to mean comfort, warmth…before I learned it was a leash.
My grip on the sketchbook tightens, the paper warping beneath my fingers. I don’t look up right away. I don’t need to. That voice still lives in my marrow. Still haunts the darkest corners of every doubt I carry. But eventually, I lift my gaze.
And there she is.
Aged like time got tired of her and left her to decay—roots grown out three inches, skin sallow and sunken like a cigarette left burning too long. But those eyes? They haven’t aged a day. Still mean. Still sharp. Still searching for weakness.
My mother.
The woman who taught me how to ache. Who taught me love could feel like a threat.
She glances at the sketchbook like it’s filth beneath her boot. “Murph still has you scribbling those little stick figures, huh?”
A storm crashes through me—hot, wild, and all-consuming. It burns under my skin, tightens in my chest, pulses in my throat like a scream trying to claw its way out.
“Why are you here?” I ask, and my voice doesn’t sound like mine—it’s rough, splintered, shaking with everything I’ve spent a lifetime trying not to feel.
She cocks her head, eyes gleaming like she enjoys this. Like she feeds off it.
“A mother can’t come visit her daughters?” she asks, and I nearly choke on the laugh that breaks loose from my chest. It's bitter and hollow.
“No mother raised me,” I bite. “Magnolia Wilder did. You? You just fucking left.”
Her face contorts with disgust, the years of hard living etched deep into every line. Her yellowed, plaque-stained teeth flash as she sneers, voice thick with scorn.
“Of course she did,” she spits, slow and deliberate. “Always swooping in like some God damn angel, saving your sorry ass. Magnolia Wilder—always the martyr, the saint, the one everyone owes everything to. Like she’s the only thing standing between you and ruin.”
My sorry ass? We were just children. Just shows how fucking sorry the waste of space is sitting before me.
I grit my teeth until the pencil in my hand snaps clean in two. “Yeah, maybe she is. But we never went hungry under her roof. We weren’t covered in grime or left to fend for ourselves, and nobody had to walk on eggshells, praying she’d drink enough to finally pass out.”
She doesn’t say a word. Instead, she lets her eyes roam me slowly—cold, sharp, the same shade as mine, the same as Soph’s. Like she’s weighing me up, deciding if I’m good enough—or if I’m just another disappointment.
Her lips curl into a bitter sneer, voice dripping with venom as she finally breaks the silence. “Where’s Murph?”
I meet her gaze without flinching, even though a cold knot tightens in my stomach. Part of me wants to break, to crumble under the weight of her words—but I steel myself.
“He’s dead.”
Her smirk curls with cruel satisfaction, like she’s feeding off my pain. “Now that’s the best fucking news I’ve heard in decades.”
A fire ignites inside me, hot and unforgiving.
It starts deep in my chest, crawling up my throat and settling behind my eyes.
My fists clench so tight my nails dig into my palms, sharp pain grounding me as blood rushes like wildfire through my veins.
Her words—cold, sharp—cut through years of silence, igniting a fuse that’s been smoldering, barely contained, for far too long.
I taste bile and rage, a bitter cocktail swirling in my mouth. I want to scream. To break something. To make her feel even a fraction of the hell she’s dragged us through.
Without warning, the restraint snaps. I shove off the stool with every ounce of strength, launching myself across the bar.
Time fractures—sounds dull, movements slow. My fingers find their way into her cottony hair, gripping tight, desperate to hold onto this moment of raw, unleashed fury.
Every ounce of rage I’ve been burying bursts free as I slam her face down against the bar. The sickening crunch of her breaking nose echoes through the room, the sound like thunder cracking through a stormy sky.
Her body jolts beneath me, stunned and raw, as if the years of absence and cruelty have condensed into this single, violent impact.