Page 75 of This Reckless Home

So I left.

It's not fucking clean, what I'm doing. I know that. I'm not proud of the fact that the most honest thing I can manage right now is absence. But I'm a man who means what he says and right now I don't have words that are both true and kind, and she deserves both.

She deserves everything.

That's what makes this so impossible.

I stand in the hallway for a moment, the sounds of the breakfast table filtering through the door. Jus laughing at something. One of the little ones asking for more juice. The ordinary noise of the family we've been building.

I put my back against the wall and close my eyes.

I'm not leaving, I think, like if I say it enough to myself it'll find a way to reach her too.

I'm right here. I just don't know how to be here and carry this at the same time.

Not yet.

“IDONTWANNABEYOUANYMORE” BY BILLIE EILISH

BLOSSOM

I spend Saturday drifting around the house, feeling lost, like a dandelion seed being blown about on the wind and not knowing my destination. It’s like I’m going through the motions, not really seeing or feeling anything fully.

I’m walking around the front of the mansion, not really having any goal in mind other than hoping the fresh air might help lift my mood, when I spot Steele in the garage, the hood of his truck open. Noah, Mitchel and Anna are all with him, and I watch as he teaches them something — looks like how to check the oil in the truck. He’s patient. Gentle. Seems extra attentive and one of his large hands comes out to give Noah’s shoulder a squeeze when he gets something right.

Noah laughs at something Steele says, his traumatic few days away seemingly already forgotten. He’s safe. Happy. And that band around my chest tightens.

I know what I did helped him. But it was because I broke the law. Because I paid a million dollars to get him home. Because I threatened his parents.

Acid churns in my stomach.

Steele looks up, catches me watching, hand over my stomach like I might throw up the little I’ve been able to eat today. His happy expression shutters and it’s as if a dark cloud came over the sun. He’s not angry, just closed and I can’t bear it even if it’s all my doing.

I turn away before he can see the tears burning in my eyes.

“SKIN AND BONES” BY RUELLE

STEELE

I see her the moment she rounds the corner.

She doesn't know that. She thinks she's watching me without being watched, standing at the edge of the drive, her eyes full of something I recognize even from here.

I keep my attention on Mitchel, on the dipstick in his small hand, talking him through what he's looking at. Noah is pressed close against my side the way he's been since we brought him home, like he needs to know I'm still there. I understand that more than I can say.

Good, I tell him when he gets it right, and feel the small earthquake of his laugh against my ribs.

This is what I know how to do. Show up. Be steady. Make the small things feel safe. I have been doing it my whole life and I know how to keep doing it even when everything inside me is anything but steady.

But then I look up and find her eyes.

And I watch her hand move to her stomach like she might be sick, and my heart does something violent and complicated, because I did that. My distance is doing that to her. And I hate it. And I also can't seem to stop it, can't seem to find the fucking bridge between where I am and where she is and cross it yet.

So my face does the only thing it knows how to do when I don't have words.

It closes.

I watch her see it happen. Watch her read it as something I don't intend and can't correct from here, across a driveway, with three children between us. Her eyes go bright and then she turns away, and I have to look back down at Noah because if I keep watching her walk away I will go after her.