Chapter 23 #2
Then with a slow, deliberate roll of my hips, I sink down—inch after glorious inch—until he’s fully buried inside me.
His head drops back, a groan torn from his throat, raw and guttural, and his hands tighten on my hips like he’s barely holding it together.
I feel the stretch, the burn, the overwhelming fullness, but more than that—I feel him.
Every inch, every inch of him claiming me like I’m something he thought he’d never get close enough to keep again.
I stay there, straddling him, holding still as he fills me to the edge of pain, the edge of something I don’t have words for. His breath is uneven against my skin, like even now—inside me—he’s still trying to hold back. Still trying to survive me.
But this moment isn’t survival. It’s ruin.
He lifts his eyes to mine, and I swear something inside him fractures. Not in fear. Not in regret. But in surrender.
“Fuck, Lou,” he whispers, voice torn and shaking. “You feel like everything I never thought I’d get back.”
I know what he means. Because he feels like war and worship inside me, and I’m too far gone to tell the difference.
I start to move—slow, grinding, aching—and every inch of him is like a confession. A reckoning. I take him deeper, and deeper still, like I’m trying to bury every word we never said. Every pain we refused to name.
When he meets me, hips rising to thrust up hard and deep, it’s not desperation anymore—it’s rage. Not at me. Not even at himself. But at how inevitable this was. At how we were always going to end up here: naked, breathless, tearing each other apart just to finally feel whole.
His grip on my hips tightens—bruising, grounding—and he’s gasping like I’ve knocked the wind out of him. Because maybe I have. Maybe we’ve done that to each other from the very start.
“Does this feel like hate to you?” he rasps.
“Not sure,” I breathe. “It’s not deep enough for me to tell yet.”
He gets it. Fuck, he gets it. Because he stops trying to love me gently, and starts loving me honestly—with every raw need, every unspoken wound. He fucks me like I’m his last prayer and final punishment.
I meet him thrust for thrust, letting it tear me open—because that’s what this has always been.
Not tenderness.
Not mercy.
A violent reckoning.
And I wouldn’t survive it for anyone else.
Once we got home, Henry didn’t say a word—just kissed my temple and disappeared down the hall to run me a hot bath. He knew I was at my edge, and in his quiet way, he was giving me a soft place to land.
Maggie met me in the living room. One look—just one—and her arms were around me, wrapping me up in the kind of hug that had the power to undo you. The kind that doesn’t ask questions, just holds you like you are already forgiven for things you haven’t said out loud.
Nothing compares to Maggie’s hugs. The boys always say she hugs you with her whole heart, and that’s why you feel so much from one. Damn, are they right. It feels like everything I’ve been holding in—the fight, the fear, the fury—starts to crack under her arms.
She pulls back slightly, her hands warm and soft as she cups my face. I meet her eyes, and that familiar ache stirs in my chest—like I’m a kid again, scraped knees and trembling lips, just needing someone to tell me I am good enough.
“Look at me,” Maggie says, pulling back just enough to cradle my face in her hands—those warm, weathered hands that still carry the faint scent of lavender and old wood, the same hands that once patched torn skin, braided messy hair, and held me through the worst storms of my life.
Her palms are dry, calloused at the edges, but her touch is gentle, reverent—like she’s holding something holy.
Her thumbs brush the wetness from my cheeks, and I realize I’ve been crying. Her eyes are glossy, shining with unshed tears and something older—grief, maybe. Or pride. Or both. Her voice is thick, raw around the edges.
“I don’t care why she’s here, or what kind of hell she’s dragging in with her,” she says, the words low and certain, the kind that don’t leave room for argument. “What I care about is you. My Little Lou.”
I close my eyes, but she doesn’t let me hide. Her thumbs press just slightly firmer, anchoring me to the moment.
“You used to curl up in my lap with a busted lip and fire in your belly,” she continues, softer now, like she’s talking to the girl I used to be. “You were a hellion even then. Wild, hurting, stubborn as hell, but you never gave up. Not once.”
A tremble runs through me, sharp and silent. Her words burrow deep, scraping against everything I’ve buried.
“You grew into someone good, baby. So good it hurts sometimes to look at you.” Her voice cracks then, tears slipping down her cheeks without shame. “I know Murphy—wherever he is—he’s just as proud of the woman you’ve become as I am.”
Her words land like a stone in still water, stirring something I’ve kept buried so deep for so long, I almost forgot it was still there. And just like that, I feel it crack wide open.
That ache.
That shame.
That hollow space inside me I’ve tried to pretend didn’t matter.
Because how could it not?
I remember being that wild, scraped-up girl Maggie loved through all the storms—bruised, stubborn, always fighting to be enough. But back then, I believed I’d never be enough. Now? Now I’m not so sure.
There’s this part of me—this broken, aching part—that still thinks I failed before I ever had a chance to try.
That not being able to carry a child means I missed the one thing I was supposed to be made for.
That no matter how fiercely I love, no matter how hard I fight for the people in my life…
there’s always been this voice in the back of my head whispering, You’ll never be enough. Not fully. Not truly.
Maggie’s hands are soft on my cheeks, grounding me in a way that’s both unbearable and necessary. I want to look away—because how can she still see something good when I feel so God damn defective?
I don’t. I meet her eyes. What I see there…it splits me open.
It’s not pity.
It’s truth.
She believes it. Every word. Every bit of it. Maybe…maybe she sees the kind of mother I could’ve been in the way I love people now. Maybe she sees past what I can’t give, and sees what I already have.
“I don’t feel like enough,” I whisper, and it shatters something inside me to finally say it out loud.
Maggie doesn’t flinch. She just keeps her hands on my face, thumbs brushing gently under my eyes, catching tears I didn’t even know had fallen.
“I try,” I whisper, barely holding it together. “God, I try so hard, but it’s never enough.”
My body trembles, shoulders drawn in like I’m bracing for a blow. “I can’t give him what they can. I can’t carry his child.”
The words sting. I press my lips together, breathing shallow.
“I—”
It catches in my throat, splintering.
“I never…never could.”
My voice breaks, and I can’t look at her anymore. My shame is too loud. Too old. Too deep. “Every time I see a child look at their mother like she hung the damn moon, I feel like I’m made of nothing.”
My whole body shakes, but I don’t stop. “Like there’s something missing in me. Like I came into this world already lacking.”
Maggie presses her forehead to mine, her breath trembling now too.
“Lou,” she says, voice tight with emotion, “you think being a mother is about biology? About giving birth?” She shakes her head. “That’s not what makes someone a mother. That’s never been what made you.”
I shake my head, jaw clenched, trying to pull away—but she holds me firm, her hands gripping my arms with a strength that’s more love than force. Her skin is warm, a little damp, and trembling just slightly—like she’s holding on just as much for herself as she is for me.
“Evie named you. You. If something ever happened to her, she wanted you to raise those boys. She could’ve picked anyone—but she didn’t. She trusted you, because she saw how you love. How you give all of yourself, even when it costs you.”
My chest cracks wide open. “But I didn’t carry them. I didn’t make them.”
“No,” she whispers, her hands slipping down to clasp mine, rough thumbs brushing over my knuckles like she’s trying to soothe something deeper than skin. “You chose them. Every damn day, Lou, and that’s worth more than blood.”
Just like she chose me and Sophie, when she didn’t have too. Even when her life was dark and grim, she fucking chose us.
“And don’t you dare forget Dallas,” she adds. “That boy walked into your life like a God damn wildfire, and you didn’t run. You didn’t flinch. You chose him. You chose him on the worst day of his life. You chose him despite him not even knowing how to choose himself.”
My throat closes up, and the sob I’ve been holding finally tears free. I drop my head against her chest like I’m a kid again, like the weight’s finally too much to carry alone.
Then Maggie says the thing that finishes me, “You’ve spent so much of your life running from everyone who already knew you were enough. Running from love that’s been trying like hell to reach you for years.”
“It’s time to stop running, Little Lou,” she whispers softly.
I cry harder.
Because she’s right.
I’ve spent so long believing I was broken, I never stopped to see all the ways I’ve been whole. Loved. Chosen.
Maggie just holds me, the way she always has—not to fix me, but to remind me I don’t need fixing.
I’m enough just the fucking way I am.