He wouldn’t last much longer before breaking down. His skin burned from where his father had taken out his anger and grief on him. His chest ached. His head throbbed. His mind swam with memories and flashbacks.
“What do you want from me?”
“I’m not naïve enough to think I can just walk back into your life and it will fix everything.”
“Then, what? What do you need?”
“I want us to catch up, to talk about your life, to get to know who you are now. I want to try to mend what I broke, Finn.”
“Bullshit.” The simmering in his chest threatened to boil over. “Why now? Why right this minute?”
Her shoulders sagged and her eyes dropped to the mug on the table in front of her. “Your brother is sick.”
His stomach lurched. “My brother is dead.”
She winced again and shook her head. “Your half-brother.”
A bitter laugh escaped him before he could stop it. “You show up after years of not talking to me, to ask for my help for a kid I’ve never met? Wow.” He raked his hands through his hair. “That’s… something.”
“No, Finnegan.” Her face softened. “That’s not it. If you don’t want to help Noah, that’s fine. It’s your choice and I won’t hold it against you. He needs a kidney transplant and the doctor said there’s a higher chance of finding a match if we ask family to get tested. But I still wanted to talk to you, to ask if you would consider letting me back in your life in any way.” She dropped her shoulders. “I miss you Finnegan.”
He didn’t reply. His muscles ached from holding themselves poised. Would he want to help a brother he’d never met, from a family she abandoned him for? His replacement.
She cleared her throat. “I… I’m going to go… give you time to think it over. You have my number and I’d love nothing more than to hear from you again. Truly. I know showing up here doesn’t do anything to fix the past, but I’m hoping over time we could maybe move forward together.”
She stood, leaving her untouched coffee, and hesitated. He didn’t stop her. She’d shown up, asked for a favor, and told him what she thought he needed to hear. He wasn’t going to ease her guilty conscience.
She took two steps toward the door before laying her hand on his shoulder and patting twice. “I have no expectations, Finnegan. Just hope. We’ve both been through enough pain to last us a lifetime, and while I don’t want to forget about what happened, I’d rather not lose another son if I can help it. I’m ready to try to rebuild our relationship, and I hope someday you will be too. Let me know.”
He didn’t turn around to watch her walk away, and he still didn’t stop her. He wasn’t sure how long he sat staring at the wall before Molly slipped onto the chair where his mom had been sitting. She didn’t say anything, she simply picked up his hand and cradled it in hers. Her eyes burned into his face but he couldn’t bring himself to lift his head to meet her piercing stare.
After a couple of minutes, Molly brushed her hand over his damp cheeks and stood, not letting go of his hand. “Let’s get you out of here.”
He nodded and followed her out of the café. They didn’t speak again until they were back at Molly’s apartment. She guided him to the armchair in the living room and waited for him to sit before crouching down to his level. She plopped onto the floor at his feet and crossed her legs before picking up both his hands and holding them on his knees.
Her touch was comforting… warm… safe, the only thing penetrating the tingling numbness spreading from his heart into his chest and the assault on his mind by his childhood memories. Tears plopped from his face onto their joined hands. He still couldn’t look at her. She sat in silence for a minute before standing, sitting next to him, and pulling his head onto her shoulder.
He should have been stronger, he shouldn’t have needed her consolation, and he certainly shouldn’t have allowed himself to touch her. Once he’d held her hand – had that first taste of how soft her skin felt in his palms – he’d wanted more. With his head on her shoulder the embers in his chest burned brighter.
She smelled like the beach, wild and free, strong waves crashing against the sand, and with just a hint of oranges and vanilla. He shuffled his face closer to her neck so it could envelop him entirely.
He could get lost in her and for just a moment forget about his dead brother, his half-brother, transplants, his manic depressive mother, and his abusive alcoholic father. She was his lighthouse in a raging sea, his rock, the north point on a compass when he was lost in an unknown land – and she had no idea how much she really meant to him.
Her strength was a force of nature, her soul was pure, and she had the heart of a lion. Her delicate fingers stroked his hair as she held him, gliding along the curve of his head and down his neck. When another wave of tears hit, she shushed him like she had so many times over the years. “I’ve got you.”
And she did. She owned him body and soul, and she was clueless that all she had to do was ask, and he’d walk through the fires of hell for her.
He loved Will, with everything he had, but Will didn’t feel emotion the same way he did, Will didn’t understand the extent of the trauma he had been through, and Will wasn’t always the best at providing comfort.
The more Finn cried, the tighter Molly held him against her. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
He could have sworn her lips brushed against his head more than once which only drove his heart to hammer harder. He drew back enough to look up at her face. Her profile was striking. High cheekbones, pale skin, perfectly shaped eyebrows over green eyes with tiny flecks of gray around her pupils.
When she met his gaze, his breath caught. What did she see when she looked at him?
“You gonna make it?”
He nodded. “We’ve had a lot of feely things in the past twenty-four hours. You must need an exorcism.”
