Chapter 28 Scott Jagged Little Pill
SCOTT: JAGGED LITTLE PILL
The Beverly Regent. A place as pretentious as the assholes who owned it.
Hard to believe it had only been yesterday that I was here, asking the front desk if they’d seen my wife.
And instead of answers, I’d been not so politely escorted out.
Their lack of hospitality could have meant one of two things: either they were allergic to guys like me…
or they were hiding something. And by something, I meant my wife. And my kids.
So yeah, it was with some serious hesitation that I agreed to accompany Michelle back to the Regent after her discharge from the hospital.
She refused to go back to our apartment while an open threat still hung over us, though, so it was either come here with her or watch her go one way while I went the other.
With my arm around her waist, I guided her through the lobby, each step hurting her more than the one before.
It killed me to see her like this, knowing that if I hadn’t pushed her away, she wouldn’t have been in that car at all.
I’d tried to talk to her at the hospital, wanting her to know I was fixing everything, but Michelle either couldn’t or wouldn’t engage me in conversation. The second I had her alone, I’d try again. There was so much she didn’t know.
The job. The move. The plan to end the blackmail.
The fucking truck.
And she had some explaining to do. Taking the kids without so much as a call…
and the baby? She’d said she didn’t know, but I wasn’t sure what to believe.
We’d had that incident a few months back with the busted condom.
You’d think with that distinct possibility in mind, she would’ve taken a pregnancy test after missing her period?
And why not tell me she’d missed it at all?
Something wasn’t adding up.
We took the elevator in silence. The air between us felt fragile. Michelle and I had always been so solid. We fought, sure, but we always found our way back. We talked. We tried. This felt different. After just over a week apart, there was a distance between us I didn’t recognize.
But deep down, I knew. The Carvers had gotten to her.
They started closing ranks the moment I arrived.
Lydia even tried to have my name pulled from Michelle’s hospital visitor list. Not happening.
She was my wife! But when they tried to stop me from bringing her back to the hotel, told me I could see my kids after she recovered—that was when I knew this had to end.
They didn’t get to call the shots. If Lydia thought she could quietly cut me out of their lives, she’d underestimated just how deeply I was rooted in my family.
Nah, I could handle the Carvers. It was Michelle who scared me.
She’d been so reserved, so unsure. Like she could take me or leave me.
Yes, I’d made mistakes. I’d put the family in danger, lost my truck, and gotten in over my head, but I still believed in us.
And I knew Michelle did too. She just needed reminding.
Michelle slid the key into the lock, and the door opened to Melanie and Lydia sitting in armchairs, wine glasses in hand, looking perfectly at home in their natural habitat.
All they were missing was Bill and his hired muscle, waiting to finish what they’d started six years ago.
Lydia’s face tightened when she saw me. The feeling was mutual.
I stayed where I was, refusing to shrink under their polished stares.
My eyes swept the room, searching for the only people who mattered.
Then I heard it: a thud, followed by a giggle.
“Daddy!”
Keith barreled around the corner, barefoot, with a smile that stretched for miles. Emma raced after him, her tiny legs working overtime to keep up. A woman hurried after them, close enough that I assumed she was a nanny.
I dropped to one knee, bracing as the kids collided with me. Keith’s arms locked around my neck while Emma plastered herself to my chest, reaching instinctively toward Michelle.
“Mommy’s hurting right now,” I said, getting back to my feet with two little bodies latched on. “So we’re gonna let her rest. But I’ll take all the hugs you’ve got.”
They didn’t hold back, packing a week’s worth of love into thirty seconds. Keith fired off questions like where I’d been, when we were going surfing, what happened to Mommy, and was he still starting school in the fall?
“Daddy,” Emma said in the sweetest little voice, her face tucked into my neck, her fingers patting my shoulder. “Why you leave me?”
“Aw, baby girl,” I whispered, pressing my cheek to her hair. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
“Hey, what about me?” Michelle said, offering a small, careful smile, the first I’d seen since the accident.
She opened her arms, just enough. Keith instantly repositioned and looped one arm around her, turning my hug into a lopsided family pile-up.
Emma squealed. Michelle laughed, really laughed, and for a second everything else just… dropped away.
Michelle caught my eye, something bright flickering back on in hers.
Before I could think better of it, I leaned in and kissed her.
It was soft, quick, and entirely instinctive.
Keith followed suit, planting his own kiss on his mom and stealing the moment.
Emma clung harder to my neck, and for a moment, we were exactly what we were supposed to be.
I knew Michelle felt it too. I reached across the small gap to brush her fingers with mine.
Just a touch. Enough to remind us that underneath everything, we were still us.
“Can we go home now?” Keith asked, tugging on Michelle’s bad arm. She flinched.
“No touching!” Lydia snapped, motioning for the nanny to take him. “Your mother is injured.”
Keith recoiled, his eyes filling fast. He buried his face in my shirt and started to cry.
Michelle’s gaze cut to her mother. “Do not raise your voice at my son.”
“The boy needs to calm himself. There’s no reason for him to be pawing at you like that,” Lydia said, unmoved.
“Yes,” Michelle replied, calm and unwavering, “there is. He just turned five.”
Lydia stood, setting her drink down. “I was only trying to help.”
“It’s fine, Mother. Scott and I will handle the discipline.”
Hell, yes. My pride did a full fist pump. Michelle was back in charge, right where I wanted her to be.
Lydia’s lips tightened, but she didn’t push it. She shot me a glare that could melt bone, shook her head, and swept out of the room. Mirroring her mother, Melanie stood, setting her drink down as she rose. “I’ll give you both some privacy.”
Michelle walked her to the door, whispering something I couldn’t catch. They hugged, and just as Melanie was about to slip out, she pinned me with her eyes. I’d never felt her opinion of me before. Now I did. And it wasn’t neutral.
Getting out of bed without waking the kids was like disarming a bomb in the dark.
Emma’s leg was slung across my chest, Keith was snoring into Michelle’s hair, and a stuffed rabbit had claimed my armpit as its new home.
One wrong move and we’d have two awake offspring demanding waffles at 2 a.m. We exchanged a silent, panicked look—then executed the slowest, most careful extraction in parental history.
A creak, a held breath, a last-minute Hail Mary, and we were free.
Only once we were on the other side of the door did we allow ourselves to exhale. Michelle leaned against the wall, steadying herself. Her sling was tight around her shoulder, the bruising on her face giving her a hollowed look that had me a little worried.
“You okay?” I asked,
“I’m dizzy,” she said, reaching for me.
I wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her into the adjoining bedroom. The bed was oversized and far too luxurious for a working man like me. Michelle eased down carefully, propped herself against the headboard and swept her hair over one shoulder. I climbed onto the bed beside her.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The silence pressed in. She broke it first.
“I hate this,” she whispered.
“Me too,” I agreed.
“This distance. I hate feeling like I can’t talk to you.”
“You can talk to me.”
“Can I?” She shook her head. “Because lately it feels like I’ve been talking and you haven’t been listening.”
“I know, but I’m listening now.”
“First. I’m sorry,” she said, a tear slipping down her cheek. “For keeping you from the kids. It was wrong. They need you. I just…”
I stayed quiet, letting Michelle say her piece.
“…I needed time to think. Life has been hard lately. I worry all the time—about the bills, about missing money, about getting kicked out of the apartment,” she said.
“I lived with that fear, Scott. And then money started disappearing from the emergency fund, and Marty showed up…” She stopped, her voice catching.
“When I took the kids and left, I didn’t even know where to go.
I just knew I couldn’t stay there and pretend everything was fine. ”
Her hands twisted in her lap. “And when we got here, I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, I didn’t have to worry.
But it’s a false sense of security. My mother’s watching every move I make.
Her voice is in my ear, her money is in my life…
it’s comfort with strings attached, and I’m honestly not sure which is more frightening. ”
Hearing it laid out like that hurt. If she hadn’t felt safe with me, then I’d failed her. There wasn’t a smart answer or a joke that could fix this. I had to show her… prove to her that things would change. I reached for her hand. She hesitated, then threaded her fingers through mine and squeezed.
“I don’t want to keep living like this, Scott, always wondering what tomorrow will bring or when we’re going to lose everything. My mother… she offered me an out.”
“What kind of an out?” I asked, already not liking the sound of this.
“A rich guy to marry me. Give me an easy life. She set up a meeting—”
I stiffened. “You went on a date?”