Page 27 of Beautiful When He Breaks

He lets out the smallest huff, almost a laugh. Then his eyes drop to the floor for a second before coming back to me. “I missed you, too.”

He looks tired. God, he looks tired. More than tired—used up. And still he came here first. Still, he walked into my room and asked how the meeting went before dealing with whatever the hell is gnawing at him from the inside. Gratitude hits me so hard it almost makes me sick.

“I don’t want us to be fucked up anymore.”

Julian’s face changes again, this time in a way that hurts to look at. Hope, maybe. Fear too. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what any of this is gonna look like tomorrow, or after the DNA results, or after I finally deal with my parents, or after all the legal shit. I don’t know any of it. But I know I don’t want to keep pretending I’m fine with you being halfway out of my life. I want my best friend back.”

He drops his gaze for a second and lets out a breath that sounds wrecked. When he looks back up, his eyes are bright again, and I have the strangest, fiercest urge to get up and cross the room and hold on to him until whatever’s wrong in him loosens its grip.

Instead, I stay where I am and let him come to me if he wants to.

After a long second, he crosses the small space between us and stops in front of me. He doesn’t say anything clever; he just reaches out and presses one hand to the back of my neck, warm and steady, and familiar enough that my whole body sags with relief.

“You’ve still got me,” he says.

That does it. Not enough to make me cry—fuck that, I’m still holding that line—but enough that my eyes sting and my chest hurts in a different way than it did an hour ago.

I tip my head forward until my forehead hits his stomach lightly, the position humiliating and comforting at once. “I don’t deserve you.”

His fingers tighten slightly at the back of my neck. “Probably not.”

A laugh cracks out of me, muffled against his shirt. Then his other hand comes down to rest on my shoulder, and the humor fades into something quieter. “But you’ve still got me anyway.”

I close my eyes as I sit on the edge of my bed with a lawyer’s advice still echoing in my skull, my whole life hanging on test results, court filings, and five unanswered calls from my father.

8

Eli

I don’t expect the call to make me feel anything clean. That’s the part that catches me off guard more than the words themselves.

When Killian’s phone buzzes five days after they took our swabs, and he glances at the screen before looking up at me, I’m already braced for impact in every direction. I’m ready for dread and confusion. I’m ready for another round of legal language that sounds too polished for the mess it’s describing.

What I’m not ready for is the weird, terrible calm that opens in my chest the second Mara’s voice comes through the phone and confirms that the DNA test establishes paternity.

The baby is mine. I am her father. We are moving forward with formal custody, documentation, and the rest of the legal process exactly as discussed. She says a few more things after that—about filing updates, next steps, timelines, and what she’ll need from me by morning—but all of it fades because all I can think is, Thank God.

The relief is immediate enough to make me hate myself for it. My first real feeling isn’t horror or grief. It isn’t even anger at Celeste, though that’s interwoven in there too. It’s relief—relief that the baby I’ve already started loving belongs to me in a way the law and biology can confirm. Relief that I don’t have to hand her over to some stranger with better paperwork. Relief that when I hold her now, it isn’t a maybe. Relief that when she cries and I reach for her, I’m not trespassing in someone else’s story.

The horror follows right behind it, because if she’s mine, then it confirms my fears. If she’s mine, then the blank places in my memory aren’t just stress or shame or my brain scrambling to make itself feel less dirty. If she’s mine, then Celeste took something from me while smiling in my face afterward. But part of me still feels monstrous for being glad my daughter came from it anyway.

Killian must see the whole mess of that in my face, because he immediately says, “Don’t.”

I blink. “What?”

“Whatever self-blaming spiral that just started. Shut it down.”

My mouth turns dry. “So, now what?”

Killian leans back against the counter, crossing his arms. “Now we move forward. Mara says this is the cleanest part of the process. Now that paternity’s confirmed, we’re not arguing over whether you have standing—you do. Next comes formalizing custody and making sure the relinquishment paperwork is handled properly under actual supervision, not whatever half-assed bullshit her family thought dropping an envelope on a doorstep counted as.”

That gets my head up. “So, she can’t just…” I gesture helplessly toward the baby in Julian’s arms. “Come back and take her or something?”

Killian’s expression goes murderous. “Not if I can help it. Nothing’s instant, but the confirmed result helps. It also means you need to keep your head on straight. No panicked texts. No calls to Celeste. No calls to her parents. No saying stupid sentimental shit in writing because you feel bad for her.”

I shake my head. “I don’t feel bad for her.”