Chapter 10
SCOTT: THE OUTSIDERS
I almost didn’t come. Every bone in my body told me to stay away, to keep MGM far from the people who’d pushed me out of their lives because he’d come into it.
But that was exactly why I showed up. Not to pay my respects—I’d barely interacted with my aunt—but to make damn sure they saw him.
To show them what they’d lost: me, and the grandson they’d never know.
Heads turned when I walked in, confirming what I already knew: I wasn’t on the guest list for the mourning committee.
Whispers followed. Only a couple of dozen people had shown up to pay their respects to Aunt Dawn, proof that she hadn’t exactly left a legacy.
When I died, the pews would be packed, and my parents had better not be sitting in the front row.
I hitched Mitchell higher on my hip, and his tiny hand tugged at my collar. He didn’t know it, but he was the weapon I was carrying into this battlefield, the evidence I wasn’t some lost cause. I’d made something good. Something special.
My father saw me coming and immediately looked away, his posture locked tight, jaw clenched, eyes fixed forward like I wasn’t even there.
My sister Erica, ten years older, sat beside her husband and two straight-backed daughters.
She met my gaze long enough to offer a polite, brittle smile, similar to what you’d give a neighbor you barely knew. Yeah, right back at ya, sis.
I glanced around for Paul and wasn’t surprised to find he hadn’t made it.
Despite being in his late twenties, my brother was one of those guys who’d never grown up.
He lived his life without the slightest concern for those around him.
And yet, in some twisted way, I admired him for that.
He didn’t care what anyone thought. Didn’t waste time trying to measure up.
Out of all of them, he was the only one I’d ever choose to keep around.
I hadn’t noticed my mother when I first walked in.
She was standing by the casket, saying goodbye to her sister.
When she turned, I saw how grief had softened the lines of her face.
For a brief moment, I almost felt for her.
But that flicker of sympathy vanished the second I remembered our last conversation.
Her eyes swept the room, and I saw the exact moment she spotted me.
The surprise was brief, followed by that familiar tension, like she was calculating the damage my presence might cause.
Then her gaze fell to Mitchell, and her composure slipped.
Just for a second. Long enough for me to see it, and know better than to believe it.
The service began. My father reached for my mother’s arm, pulling her down beside him, but she kept turning, kept looking at the baby.
I steeled my expression and faced forward, pretending to listen as the minister spoke of my aunt like she was a saint I’d never met.
There were prayers, promises of peace, and talk of a better place.
I felt nothing. Just waiting for it to end so the real fireworks could start.
Because if they thought they could erase me, they were wrong.
I was still here. And I wasn’t about to let them forget it.
The hymn started, low and mournful. “Amazing Grace.” The melody crawled under my skin, pulling me backward through time, back to this same chapel, this same song, the day we’d buried my mother. My real mother.
A memory returned of me at ten years old, shuffling down the aisle in a too-small suit while strangers whispered condolences.
My eyes found the open casket I wasn’t ready to see.
There she was, lying still in a satin-lined box, her hands folded neat and proper.
I remembered waiting for her chest to rise, for her eyes to open, for her to be her again.
But she didn’t move. That was the moment I accepted the truth.
My mother was gone for good. She was the only person in this world who had ever truly been on my side, and she’d never reach for me again.
MGM stirred in my arms, breaking the spell. The hymn faded, and a slow line of mourners filed past the casket, whispering their goodbyes. I wouldn’t be one of them because I realized then that coming here had been a mistake. No amount of payback was worth tearing open that old wound.
Clutching Mitchell tighter, I rose, walked the aisle, and slipped out the same door I’d come through.
“Scott, wait!”
My step faltered, but I kept moving.
“Please… let me see him,” said the woman who’d reluctantly raised me.
I stopped and turned. She approached slowly, wary, like I might spook.
“He’s beautiful,” she whispered, running trembling fingers over my son’s curls. “What’s his name?”
“Mitchell,” I said, my voice harder than I meant. “April named him after her grandfather.”
“It’s a strong name,” she said, her eyes marred by tears.
I shifted my weight, already bracing for the blow. “Don’t pretend you suddenly care, Sue.”
She flinched at the name, like she always did. “I’m not pretending. I’ve always cared.”
“Yeah? Then you and I have different definitions of the word.”
“Just stop, Scott. I did the best I could… under the circumstances.”
“You threw me out.”
“No,” she said. “I tried to stop it. I begged him to slow down. To listen. But you and your father couldn’t have a civil conversation.”
“Because he was kicking me out for getting April pregnant. And you let him.”
She flinched.
“So tell me something,” I went on. “Was Mitchell a mistake too—or was it just me?”
Sue’s eyes filled. “No,” she whispered. “Neither of you were mistakes. I’m sorry, Scott. I should’ve fought harder for you. And I didn’t.”
“Nah,” I said. “You don’t get to excuse yourself from this. I was still in high school with nowhere to go. Don’t stand here now like you give a damn. You were never there for me… never.”
“Because you wouldn’t let me,” she said, her lips trembling. “I had to compete with your mother. Your angel. No matter what I did, you never let me love you.”
I stilled, her words bruising me from the inside out.
She reached for my arm, her eyes wet. “Scott, please—”
I jerked back, clutching MGM tighter, his small weight the only thing keeping me steady.
Rage burned through me, but underneath it was something worse, an ache I didn’t want to name.
Because deep down, in the same hollow where grief for my real mother still lived, I knew she was right.
I hadn’t let her love me. And standing here now, in the echo of that loss, it was way too late for either of us to fix it.