It's not entirely logical when I'm the one that broke us, but it's a question I've had none the less. A reminder to why he should just let me go.
But he doesn't move. Doesn't even blink.
"You think that matters to me?" His voice is impossibly gentle. "You think I'm here because I believe you can have biological children?"
"Why else would you?—"
"Because I never stopped caring about you. Because watching you leave was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Because—" He shifts Maeve to his other shoulder, stepping closer. "Because I spent so long barely existing and then I saw you again and I remembered what it felt like to be alive."
Tears burn behind my eyes. "Don't."
"Don't what? Don't tell you the truth?" He's so close now I can smell his cologne, feel the warmth radiating off him. "You're not broken, Zola. You never were. And you're an incredible mother to Maeve. I see how you are with her—how you put her first, how you keep showing up even when you're exhausted,how you're doing everything alone because you think you have to."
"I do have to." My voice breaks. "I'm all she has."
"You don't have to be." His free hand comes up, fingers brushing my cheek so gently I barely feel it. "Let me help. Let me be here. Let me?—"
"What?" I'm crying now, can't hold it back anymore. "Let you what? Throw away your life again? Tie yourself to someone who can't give you a family?"
"You are a family." He says it like it's fact, like there's no argument. "You and Maeve. That's a family. And if you'd let me, I'd like to be part of it."
The words hit me like a physical blow. I want to lean into him, to let myself believe this could work. That maybe I didn't ruin everything. That maybe there's still a chance for us.
But the fear is louder. The certainty that I'm not enough, that eventually he'll realize what he's missing, that loving me means sacrifice and compromise and giving up things he doesn't even know he wants yet.
"You don't know what you're saying."
"I know exactly what I'm saying." His thumb traces my cheekbone, catching a tear. "I've had eight years to think about this. Eight years to realize what I lost. And Zola—" His voice drops. "I don't want to lose you again."
Maeve stirs against his shoulder, making a soft sound. He automatically adjusts her, still watching me with those dark green eyes that see too much.
"I can't—" I pull back, putting distance between us because if I don't, I'll do something stupid like kiss him. Like believe him. "I need to think."
"Okay." He doesn't push. Just stands there holding my daughter—not my daughter, Nia's daughter, but mine now—looking at me like I'm something precious. "Take all the time you need. I'm not going anywhere."
That's what I'm afraid of. That he'll stay, and I'll let him, and eventually it'll all fall apart again because I'm fundamentally not what he needs.
But right now, with him standing in my bookstore holding Maeve like she's his, I can't remember why that matters.
I can't remember anything except how much I want this to be real.
14
DECLAN
I'm standing in the driveway staring at the massive house I bought to escape ghosts and somehow filled with new ones instead. The sun's setting, casting everything in that golden light that makes the place look almost warm. Almost livable.
It's not.
Inside it's just silence and expensive furniture and Bianca's shrill voice cutting through rooms like nails on glass.
I don't want to go in.
My phone's heavy in my pocket, still warm from where Zola texted me twenty minutes ago. Just a simplethank you for todaythat I've read approximately fifteen times trying to decode whether she means it or if she's just being polite.
She let me hold Maeve for two hours. Let me talk to her about the bookstore's finances while she restocked shelves. Let me see the exhaustion behind her eyes and didn't snap when I pointed it out.
Progress. Stellan would call it progress.
