Chapter 35 Michelle My Chemical Romance #2
“I’ve got you,” he soothed, but my mind kept slipping past his arms, past the room, past everything that still existed. I couldn’t see a version of my life that didn’t include Jake, and the one unfolding in front of me felt wrong. Unlivable.
I didn’t want to be strong. I didn’t want to survive this. I didn’t want the days that would keep coming, whether I could stand them or not. I wanted my son back—or I wanted out of the life that had taken him.
Scott guided me down the hall into our bedroom and lowered me onto the bed. I curled in on myself, knees drawn tight. The mattress dipped behind me, and Scott’s arms came around from behind, something he’d done a thousand times before, but never like this. Never to keep me from slipping away.
“It’s true,” I said, the words breaking loose before I could stop them. “What Melanie said. It’s true.”
Scott didn’t move. He didn’t pull away either.
“When I found out I was pregnant with Jake, we were in a bad place. I was scared,” I said. “I was thinking about leaving. I couldn’t see how to bring another child into that uncertainty.”
My voice shook, but I didn’t stop. “I’d already made the appointment… and then Marty came to the apartment.” Silence. “And after I ran to my father’s hotel, the decision felt… settled.”
I waited for his anger, but when it didn’t come, I kept talking.
“Melanie was taking me to the clinic when we crashed,” I said. “Then you came to the hospital and found out I was pregnant. It took me a little time to get used to the idea that we were having another baby, but once I did… you know how much I love him. How excited I was for him to be born.”
“I know, Babe,” he whispered. “I know.”
I nodded, needing to hear it. Needing to know that he knew.
“And once he was here, I never thought about it again. He was just—” my voice broke. “Just my Jake. My baby. My everything.”
The sob tore through me before I could catch it.
Scott turned me toward him. I tried to look away, the ache too exposed to face him, but his fingers found my face anyway.
His touch was soft. Gentle. Not the hands of a man who hated me.
I looked up at him then, undone by the depth of his devotion. The way he was still here.
“Why do you love me?” I whispered.
“Why’s the sky blue?” he said softly. “I just do, Michelle. I always have.”
I kissed him with what little strength I had left. “I love you,” I said, my lips trembling against his. It wasn’t enough, but it was all I had.
“What if she’s right, Scott? What if I doomed him? What if this… what if this is fate circling back around?”
Scott’s hands stayed firm on my face, steadying.
“No,” he said. The word was final. “There’s no force in this world that punishes love. And there is no version of reality where our son is a mistake.”
My lips trembled, and I broke open all over again.
“I can’t feel him anymore,” I sobbed. “I don’t feel him. Why don’t I feel him?”
He tightened his hold, anchoring me there, keeping me from coming apart.
“I don’t know why you can’t,” he said. “But I can.”
I stilled, waiting, needing something to hold onto.
“With everything I have,” he continued, “I feel him. He’s alive, Michelle. And I’m going to find him.”
After Melanie’s final blow, insomnia took over.
I drifted through the house like a ghost, pacing the halls, staring at the walls, and waiting for dawn to rescue me from myself.
Scott finally called our victim advocate.
A doctor showed up in my living room and prescribed sleeping pills.
As needed, he said. It turned out I needed them all the time.
After that, the days blurred. I didn’t know how long Jake had been missing.
I didn’t remember much of anything, and that was the point.
A feminine hand rested on my cheek, cool and trembling.
“Mom?”
Emma’s voice sounded older now… but still too young for this. I forced my eyes open, and the room swam.
She poked my shoulder again. Harder. “Mom?”
“What?” The word came out thick and slurred, and I hated myself for it. The look on her face told me she did too.
“Wake up!” She grabbed my shoulders and shook me, harder than she ever had. Fury burned behind her eyes, but beneath it was a daughter begging her mother to come back. “Quinn and Grace need to be fed and bathed. Kyle hasn’t come out of his room in days. Is anyone even checking on him?”
I didn’t know. Was there anyone? I’d tapped out the second Melanie walked away and left me with her poisonous words.
“You,” I said, opening my eyes just long enough to look at Emma.
“Me what?”
“Do something.”
“Me?” Her laugh was sharp and incredulous. “These are your damn kids, not mine.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
“How many of these pills have you taken?” she demanded, snatching the bottle from the nightstand and shaking it. Relief flickered across her face when she realized it was still half full. My poor daughter, clinging to whatever hope she could find.
“Not enough,” I said, crushing her optimism.
Emma’s breath faltered. “Mom, please,” she begged. “You’re not helping Jake like this. You don’t want him to come home and find you like this.”
And that was the difference between us—the line she was still standing on and the one I’d slipped off days ago. I rolled toward her, my eyes drooping, my chest hollow. “You don’t get it, do you? He’s dead. Jake’s dead. He’s not coming back.”
The scream that followed wasn’t hers.
“Jake’s dead?”
Quinn stood frozen in the doorway, his eyes blown wide, fear spilling out of him. I’d done that. I’d shattered something sacred in him, and I was too far gone to stop it.
“No, Quinn. No.” Emma grabbed his little hand, her voice shaking but unbreakable. “Come on.”
She pulled him out of the room like she could shield him from me. God help me—maybe she should.
“Dammit, Mom!” she shouted right before the door slammed.
I didn’t know how much time passed. A minute. An hour. A day. Then she was back, shaking me and calling my name. My eyes fluttered open. Emma was standing over me, her eyes blazing with something between fury and pure panic.
“Mom. Kyle needs you.”
There was an edge to her voice sharp enough to cut through the fog in my head. I groaned, burying my face deeper into the pillow. “Get your dad,” I mumbled, turning away because facing her felt impossible. “I’m sleeping.”
“Then you better wake up,” she snapped. “Unless you want to lose another son.”
The air left my lungs. Another—
“He’s in his room,” she said. “Cutting himself with a knife. If you even care.”
I bolted upright so fast the room spun, my hair sticking to my face in tangled clumps. “What are you talking about?”
“Kyle. He needs his mother. Pull yourself together and be one!”
I didn’t remember standing. One second, Emma was shouting that Kyle needed me, and the next, my wobbly legs were moving, carrying me down the hall faster than my mind could keep up.
“Kyle.”
My voice barely made it past my lips as I pushed open his door.
The smell hit first: sour, sharp, unmistakable.
Then I saw him. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, his knees pulled tight to his chest. Shirtless.
Gray-skinned. Dried blood streaked his face where stitches should have been.
His hair had been hacked unevenly, and clumps were scattered around him like he’d been trying to erase himself piece by piece.
And the knife… in his hand.
He didn’t look up. Didn’t blink. Just stared at the wall. I stepped closer, looking down at his hair in the carpet and the dried brown-red droplets beside it. My stomach rolled.
“Kyle.” My head was foggy, but I forced it clear. I’d done this to him. My failure as his mother. But there would be time to face that later. Right now, I have to save my son. “I know you’re hurting. I’m going to help you, but I need you to give me the knife.”
He lifted his eyes slowly, and the emptiness in them nearly dropped me to my knees.
This wasn’t Kyle, not the kid who cracked jokes like a pro or tested boundaries just to see where they were.
That boy was gone. In his place was someone who had seen too much and didn’t know how to handle it…
because I hadn’t been there to show him how.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” he whispered.
“No, baby. I should’ve been here sooner.” I took a careful step closer. My voice shook. “You’re hurting yourself.”
He didn’t deny it. Just stared at me, vacant and worn down.
“I can’t,” he finally said. “I can’t keep doing it. It hurts too much.”
“I know.” I moved closer again. Every instinct in me wanted to grab him, but I didn’t know if I should, or if I’d just make it worse. “Tell me what hurts.”
“Everything. It’s everywhere.” He tapped the side of his head. “It’s loud in here. It doesn’t shut up.”
“What does it say?”
“That it should’ve been me,” he said. “That’s what you would’ve wanted.”
“Kyle, no—”
“Yes. You can’t deny it, Mom. Jake was—” He caught himself. “Is special. He was going to be somebody someday. I’m not going to be anything at all.”
Tears sprang to my eyes as I lowered myself slowly to the floor, close enough for him to know I was there but far enough not to trap him.
“Kyle,” I said. “That voice is lying to you. I would never want you hurt so someone else could be safe. Not ever.”
“Jake’s not someone else,” he said.
“No. And he’s not you.” I reached over and touched his cheek. “Remember what Jake said that day—the three things he loved about you? You’re loyal. You always put other people first. That doesn’t make you less.” I held his gaze. “It makes you rare.”
His eyes flickered, just a little.
“Baby, I’m so sorry. That night, the ambulance… you needed me.”
He burst into tears.
“You needed me, and I wasn’t there for you. And I made you think that somehow you carried the blame. That’s not true. It was cruel to put that on you. And I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Please let me help you. I love you so much.”
“I don’t want you. I don’t want anyone… except Jake.” His body shook. “I want to go be with him.”
His confession snapped something in me back into place. It was painful but necessary. “I want that too. More than I can say.” I held his gaze. “But we can’t. Because then someone else will feel this. And then someone else. And we’ll lose everyone.”
I drew in a steadying breath, clearing the fog. “I know I haven’t been there for you, but I’m here now. We’re going to do this together. You and me.”
He looked at me, and our eyes held for a long, fragile moment.
I closed my fingers around the handle, slow, slow, waiting for the flinch that never came.
The blade left his palm with a small, wet sound.
He didn’t resist. Didn’t look at the knife.
Just kept his eyes on mine—hollow, yes, but still here. Still my boy.
“We’re going to get through this,” I reassured him, reassured myself. “I don’t know how yet. But we will.”
He nodded. Trusting me. Remembering the mother I used to be, and maybe the one I could be again. I combed my fingers through his ruined hair. “What are we going to do about this?”
“Shave it off,” he said. “Start over.”
I pulled him closer. “Yes,” I said. “We can do that.”
Sunshine crept through the window, cutting across the floor and settling over us. And for the first time since Jake was taken, I felt my heart beat like it wanted to stay.