“Breathe,” my mom whispered, holding my hand tight as I stared at the tall, wooden door.
Brady on my left.
Tom at my back.
My little boy just a few feet away.
We were waiting for the social worker to give us the go-ahead to enter.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“You’re crying,” she said softly, giving my hand a squeeze.
I swiped my fingers under my eyes, nervously flashing my gaze to Brady to make sure he hadn’t seen. Luckily, he was staring down, enthralled with his shoes.
“Are you going to be okay in there alone with Brady?” she whispered.
I looked at my mom. She was crying too. The only difference being that hers were tears of joy. She hadn’t stopped smiling since Tom had shown her a picture of Lucas he’d snapped on his phone.
I grinned tightly. “Lucas is in there, Mom. Brady won’t even know I’m there.”
She brushed the hair off my neck. “Okay. Well, if he gives you any shit, you let me know.” She lowered her voice and leaned in close. “I have no problem kicking his ass.”
My lips tipped up into something that I thought resembled a smile. “Thanks, Mom.”
She winked. “Any time, baby.”
We all jumped when the door suddenly cracked open. A young woman with thick, red curls piled on the top of her head appeared, wearing a navy blazer and a warm smile. “Ms. Mills? Mr. Boyd? You can come in now.”
My whole body tensed as if I’d been invited to take a stroll down death row, but Brady moved fast, all but plowing me over as he raced inside.
“Lucas?” he called.
I had no choice but to follow him. That’s what good parents did. They ran to their children, relief flooding their systems, tears overwhelming them.
They didn’t stand frozen with fear in the middle of the hallway, nerves rolling in their stomachs while contemplating the merits of throwing up.
No. That’s not at all what good parents did.
Which probably explained why that was exactly what I did.
“Go,” my mom urged, giving my shoulder a gentle shove.
Stiffly, I shuffled into the room with my heart in my throat, prepared to face the little boy I’d failed so many years ago.
“Stop!” Lucas yelled before I’d fully cleared the door.
Brady was squatting low, his shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. Lucas was tight in his arms, his face the picture of horror, as he frantically tried to shimmy his way out of Brady’s embrace.
“Mr. Boyd,” the social worker scolded.
We’d been briefed for twenty minutes on how to handle this reunion. During this time, we’d learned that our son had specifically asked that we not touch him. I assumed that this request had been given after my showdown with Porter back at the house. He’d also asked that we called him Travis. The social worker had urged us to stay calm and keep our emotions in check. And further that, if we found ourselves unable to keep it together, given the emotional altitude of that day, we were simply to excuse ourselves so as not to upset him.
And there Brady was, not ten seconds after he’d entered the room, breaking every last rule.
“Brady!” I hissed.
“I’m sorry,” he said, reluctantly letting him go and rising to his feet. “I…” He trailed off and used the back of his arm to wipe his face. “Shit. I’m so sorry. I thought I could do it.” He looked over his shoulder, his red, tear-filled eyes slicing through me as he said, “It’s Lucas.”
“My name’s Travis,” he said, scrambling away, not stopping until his back was against the wall. His lungs wheezed as he added, “Travis Reese. And I want my dad.”
I slapped a hand over my mouth. After the last ten years, I didn’t have much of a heart left, but what was left shattered into a million pieces.
“I am your—”
“Brady, don’t!” I snapped, cutting him off.
He wanted his dad.
And, suddenly, so did I.
Squaring my shoulders, I took a step toward my son. “Hey, Travis. I’m Charlotte.”
His dark-brown eyes, which matched my own, slid to me, and then he sank deeper into the corner.
“I won’t touch you. I promise,” I assured, moving to the other side of the large conference table. I slid a chair out and sat. “I’m really sorry about all of this. Especially for when I freaked out on you back at your house. That won’t happen again. You have my word.”
He didn’t move or relax, but he continued to wheeze.
I had no idea what I was doing in the parenting department, but his every strangled breath was my territory.
“I met you once before today. At the doctor’s office. You stood outside with my best friend, Rita, while your dad and I talked. Do you remember that?”
He nodded cautiously, and just that little acknowledgment sent a wave of relief crashing over me.
“Okay, good. Then maybe you remember that I’m a doctor too, right?”
He nodded again.
“Perfect,” I breathed, leaning forward on my elbows. “Now, listen. I know you’re scared. Today has been crazy. But I really need you to sit down and try to relax. Did you bring your inhaler?”
His eyes cut to the social worker in question.
“Oh, right,” she said, jumping into action. After grabbing a small, neon-green backpack from the corner, she carried it straight to me. “There’s a lot of medicine in there. I’ll be honest. I have no idea what’s what.”
I smiled up at her. “I think I can manage.”
And then my smile fell when I unzipped the bag. She hadn’t been lying. There was a lot of medication inside. At least thirty prescription bottles, a full nebulizer including extra mouth pieces and tubing, packets of individual saline, and three inhalers.
Jesus, my baby was sick.
Clearing my throat, I laid the inhalers on the table and then zipped the bag back up, saving that nightmare for another day.
I recognized all of the labels, but handing him the right one wasn’t going to win me any affections.
“Hey, Travis?” I called. “Do you remember which one of these Dr. Laughlin gave you for emergencies?” I hazarded a glance up and found that he’d come unstuck from the corner.
“The blue one.”
Another one of those waves of relief hit me.
I purposely picked up the wrong one. “This one?”
Shaking his head, he took a step toward me and lifted his finger to point. “No. That one.”
I offered it his way. “Right. Of course. Silly me.”
He stared at me for several seconds, the scales in his head visually shifting as he weighed his options. Then he lifted his gaze to Brady, who was still standing near the door.
Understanding dawned on me.
“Brady, can you do me a favor?” I asked while keeping my eyes on Lucas. “Go see if you can find a first aid kit for me.”
“What? Why?” Brady asked.
I peered over my shoulder and flared my eyes at him. “Please. Now.”
His back shot straight for only a second before he rushed from the room.
“Why do you need the first aid kit?” Lucas asked.
“Oh, I don’t. He was just making me nervous standing back there.” I winked.
And then it happened. The most beautiful thing I had seen since the day he was born.
He grinned.
It was small. Almost imperceptible.
But it was there. And it was aimed at me.
Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry.
I bit my tongue to distract myself and shook the inhaler. “Here.”
His frail body swayed as he walked toward me. I tried not to stare, but I was desperate to memorize his every movement. To fill even the deepest recesses of my mind with ten years’ worth of memories, for fear that that moment was all I would ever get.
Our fingers brushed as he took the inhaler from my hand, and I once again ignored my overwhelming urge to cry.
Sucking in hard, he drew the medicine into his lungs with a practiced ease. He immediately started coughing, so I pushed the chair beside me out for him to sit. He didn’t delay in accepting the offer.
“There ya go,” I soothed, my fingers twitching to touch him. But I somehow managed to keep them in my lap.
His brown eyes flicked up to mine, but he didn’t say anything.
“Better?” I asked with a tight smile.
He nodded and then asked, “When can I see my dad?”
My stomach clenched, but I answered him honestly, “I don’t know.”
His chin quivered, and his eyes filled with tears. “I want to go home.”
Oh God.
There was nothing I wouldn’t do to ease that pain for him.
Even if that meant igniting my own.
Digging in my back pocket, I retrieved my cell phone. Then I pulled up my text messages from Porter.
The last message had been a picture he’d taken of us the night before. I was laughing, my eyes closed and my mouth wide. He was kissing my cheek, his nose smooshed against my face, and despite that his lips were puckered, he was still smiling. We’d been lying in bed when he’d told me that we needed a picture together. I’d argued because, well…it was what I did with Porter. So he’d held me down, tickled me, and then snapped the selfie when I’d been too lost in hysterics to stop him. When I’d sobered, he’d shown it to me, and it was the craziest thing. I hadn’t recognized myself. That woman was beautiful. And not in the conventional way where her hair and makeup were done to perfection, but rather because the woman in that picture looked genuinely happy.
And the man kissing her did too.
The truth was that, while I couldn’t think about my relationship with Porter without acknowledging the darkness, I also couldn’t think about us without remembering the overwhelming, life-altering happiness I felt when we were together.
I’d never forget his proud grin as I’d used his phone to message the picture to myself.
My whole body ached as I briefly looked at that woman on the screen. She’d only been gone for a matter of hours and I already missed her. I wasn’t brave enough to look at Porter. I was barely keeping my emotions in check as it was. Add his gorgeous, smiling face into the mix and I would have lost it.
Passing the phone to Lucas, I said, “This was taken last night.”
He looked at it for only a second as if it were merely a picture and not the most stunning image ever snapped, which was exactly the way it felt to me.
“Are you his girlfriend?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I think I was. But today has been pretty crazy for all of us. Look, the reason I wanted to show you this is because you know your dad. He wouldn’t just kiss anyone like that. He trusted me…” The L in Lucas was on the tip of my tongue, but I managed to stop it before it rolled off. “Travis.” I faked a smile. “He even asked me to be your doctor when we first met. And I’d like to think that he would still trust me to do what is best for you in this situation too.” A lump lodged in my throat, and my nose began to sting. I had no idea if I was lying to him or not.
I hoped I wasn’t.
But I was afraid I was.
Tom and Brady were still adamant about Porter’s involvement in this.
But the longer I thought about it, the more doubts I had. Though I recognized that those were probably just the hopes and dreams of the woman from the picture rather than reality.
After clearing my throat, I continued. “I know you’re scared, and I know you’re overwhelmed. Because I am too. But I swear on my life I’m here for you, Travis. And despite what happened at your house today, which I will again apologize for, I think your dad would like the fact that I’m here with you too.”
He blinked up at me, his thick black lashes fluttering as he struggled to beat back his emotions. “Do you know where he is?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I’m just as lost as you are in all of this. I don’t know what’s going on outside of this room right now or what’s going to happen when you and I leave, but I promise you I’m going to make it okay. Whatever that means. Whatever I have to do. I will make this okay.” A tear rolled down my cheek, and I quickly swiped it away. “I won’t let anything happen to you again. I swear.”
His face softened, and his lungs still rattled far more than I would have liked, but the fear had thankfully started to fade from his eyes. “Can I text him?”
My breath flew from my lungs, and I nervously cut my gaze to the social worker in the corner.
She was watching us closely, but her expression held no answers. Not a hint of sure, let the boy do it or even no fucking way. She just stared at me like I was supposed to know how to handle this.
“Please,” he whispered, drawing my gaze back to his.
Brady would have lost his mind.
But that text wasn’t about him.
It wasn’t about me.
It wasn’t even about Porter.
It was about a scared little boy. One who, in the span of a few hours, had had his whole life flipped upside down.
And he was my scared little boy, so there was not one thing, including the wrath of Brady Boyd, that could have stopped me from saying, “Sure.”
His eyes lit. “Really?”
“Of course. Go ahead. I’m not sure if he has his phone right now, but he’ll see it whenever he gets it back.”
He smiled, big and toothy. Just like his father. And I didn’t mean Brady.
Using one finger, he pecked out a message. His mouth stretched wider each time he glanced up at me.
I could have spent the rest of my life in that chair, watching him grin at that screen.
In those seconds, he looked a lot like the woman laughing in the picture, and that filled me in all the right places. I wasn’t sure if that woman was gone or not, but I’d never forget the way she felt.
And, right then, I knew that my baby was feeling it too.
I heard the swoosh of the send button, and then he passed me my phone back, a bright smile still dancing on his face, slow and steady breaths flowing from his lungs.
“My sister, Hannah, would like your phone.”
My inner smile fell flat, but the one on my lips remained strong. Tucking my phone back into my pocket, I asked, “Oh yeah?”
“It’s purple. She loves purple.”
“What color do you love?” I asked to change the subject.
“Uh.” His eyes flashed around the room while he thought. “I guess green. Or maybe blue. Wait…no. Definitely green. But blue… Ugh…I don’t know.”
God, he was cute.
“Both are good colors.”
“My dad likes blue.”
My heart dipped, but I kept smiling like my mouth didn’t know how to do anything else. “You’re right. He does.”
We stared at each other, almost like he knew he shouldn’t be talking about Porter, and he was daring me to tell him to stop.
But I wouldn’t. I didn’t care that it felt like he was twisting a knife in my stomach. Not as long as he kept smiling at me like that.
The door opened with a creak, and I turned to see Brady coming back in, panic in his eyes, a first aid kit in his hand.
“I’m so sorry. I couldn’t find one that had anything more than Band-Aids in it. One of the guys went and got this out of their car.” He raked a shaky hand through his hair and asked, “What else do you need?”
“Nothing. We’re all good now. Thanks for grabbing that though,” I said, righting myself in my chair.
Lucas was peering up at him, his mouth in a straight line, and those nerves I’d all but erased were once again present in his ashen face.
“He’s nervous, but I promise he’s a good guy,” I whispered to my son.
His gaze bounced to mine. “I’m hungry. Can we go get something out of the snack machine? I saw it when they brought me in.”
“Uh…” I drawled. “Did it have any chocolate in it?”
“I think so.”
“Then yes.”
He stared at me stoically for several beats, and then that grin that healed my soul broke across his face again.
We both stood and headed to the door, but right before we passed Brady, the world disappeared.
The past.
The present.
The happiness.
The tears.
The fear.
The pain.
The longing.
The guilt.
The loneliness.
Everything was just gone.
Well, everything except Lucas as he took my hand in his.
I couldn’t even pretend to control them anymore. Tears sprang from my eyes, and I turned my head so he wouldn’t see them.
Emotions I hadn’t felt in years bubbled to the surface. It was a miracle that I could figure out how to put one foot in front of the other.
I had missed him so damn much. And there he was, holding my hand. Of his own accord.
Doing everything I could to keep the silent sobs locked away, I allowed Lucas to lead me past Brady, who was standing with his mouth hanging open, out the door and past my mom, who was curled against Tom’s side. Their eyes filled with tears as they watched us go straight to the vending machines.
Out of the darkness.
And into the light.