Page 95 of Break Me, I Beg You

I press a kiss to Jase’s shoulder, then lie back, my hand resting over both of them. My husband and my son. My entire world. Everything I lost led me straight to this, and I wouldn’t change a single broken piece of who I was or what I became.

A few minutes go by before Jase’s fingers thread through my hair, his mouth up against my forehead in a tender kiss.

I glance up at him through wet lashes, watching his lips curve slowly. “We made him,” he whispers.

“We did,” I murmur, brushing a fingertip down Atlas’s impossibly small arm. “I still can’t believe he’s real.”

“He’s perfect,” Jase says just as I lean up to kiss him. Our kiss is gentle and conveys so much of the love we both feel. There’s no urgency to consume because we know we have our entire lives to do just that. This kiss is about more than our attraction and desire for each other. It's a vow to love each other until we’re gone, dead and buried—and even after that.

“Do you realize what we’ve done?”

He nods, his voice a low rasp as he tries not to wake Atlas. “We built a life. We didn’t even mean to, but we did, and I can't imagine things being any different.”

My eyes sting, happy tears exploding along my cheeks. “We still have so far to go.”

He kisses me again. “I know. But we’ll go together.”

Atlas stirs, tiny lips parting in a sigh, and Jase’s big hand covers his whole back, protective and gentle all at once.

Here they are. The careless boy who once broke my heart and the loyal man who put me back together, holding the little boy who will carry it forever.

“He has your nose,” Jase says, tilting his head back as he admires me.

I have no makeup on, and am still terribly swollen, but I feel like the most beautiful girl in the world when he looks at me.

“He has your scowl,” I reply, watching how Atlas's nose scrunches softly.

It’s both terrifying and beautiful to see ourselves stitched together in him. Jase strokes a hand over Atlas’s back, eyes hooded but tender. I see the way his jaw softens when Atlas nestles closer, the way he bends his head as if he can’t stop breathing him in.

I don’t doubt his love, because I know this kind of love is exactly what he deserves and what I was denied. Jase needs his parents, not to learn how to raise a baby, or tell him how to be the father he’s already proving he was made for, but he needs them to see the man he’s become.

The man I unconditionally love.

I want that for him, even if it’s complicated. Even if it means standing in the same room as Magnolia King, trying not to shrink under her judgment. Because we all deserve more than the broken pieces of our past. Atlas deserves grandparents who learn to apologize and learn from their mistakes.

I press my hand gently over Jase’s. “He’s you,” I whisper, “and he’s me, but most importantly, he’s better than both of us put together.”

Jase looks up at me, eyes shining in the dim light, and in that moment I know he hears me. We need to be the bigger people to ensure the cycle ends here with us.

“I’ll call them,” he says, understanding what I haven't said. “Tomorrow. Tonight it’s just the three of us.”

“I love you,” I murmur against his lips.

“I’ll always love you, Moonshine.”

THE END