Page 102 of Maximus

My breath seized in my lungs at my son’s harsh response.

“Bud, I know you—”

“You don’t know anything!” Liam shouted. “I can watch Eli. We don’t need a babysitter.”

“Liam, baby, why are you so upset? And don’t talk to Max like that.”

I glanced from Liam to Max, my heart beating a mile a minute, my mind reeling from Liam’s out-of-character outburst, but the fire blazing in Max’s eyes turned me inside out.

“Why does it matter? He’s gonna leave. Who cares how I talk to him?”

“I do, Liam. It’s not—”

“Liam, look at me,” Max ordered. When Liam turned his glare to Max, I held my breath wondering if I should intervene and take the boys into the other room so we could work out whatever was bothering my son so deeply he’d lashed out.

But I didn’t have the chance, Max started speaking and when he did, my already broken heart splintered into a bazillion jagged pieces. “First, I’m not going anywhere. And second, I know.”

Max slowly walked toward Liam, then knelt in front of him and held out his right arm, turning it to show Liam a series of small, faded scars on the inside of his forearm. “I know, bud. I have the same marks you have. I got mine the same way you did.”

Excruciating silence ensued.

Max and Liam’s eyes locked in the most agonizing battle I’d ever witnessed. If my son’s tears weren’t my undoing, the wetness beneath Max’s eyelids would’ve done it.

“Your dad burned you, too?” Liam whispered.

“He did,” Max confirmed.

“Why?”

A sob tore from my soul.

Why?

That one loaded word really asked a thousand questions my boy didn’t know how to articulate.

“There’s no answer to that, Liam. There’s never a reason for a father to hurt his son. There’s no excuse for a man to harm those in his care. The only thing you need to know is, Jay was absolutely wrong and it will never happen again. No one will ever hurt you or your brother again.”

Elijah’s little body collided with my legs and I quickly scooped him up. His legs wrapped around my waist and he shoved his face in my neck.

The room was stifling, my skin crawled with more hatred than I knew I could possess. I actually itched with it. Jay Dawkins was the devil, I despised him with every cell in my body. I hated him so badly I thought I was going to explode with it.

Then Max changed everything.

He placed his hand on my son’s shoulder, leaned in close to Liam, and in that moment, all pretense was gone—and the real Max Brown spoke.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispered. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now. And it won’t feel like it tomorrow. It may take months, but one day you won’t feel it anymore. The pain will be gone. But until that happens, until the pain fades, you can’t bottle up all the anger. It’s okay to be mad about what your dad did. It’s okay to be angry he hurt you and your brother. It’s okay to be upset he took you guys away from your mom. You get to feel anything you want to feel. But, bud, you don’t get to yell at your mom. You can yell about what he did to you. You can cry, you can shout, you can sit quietly and think about it, anything you want except raising your voice at your mom. She loves you and Eli. What your dad did, he did to all three of you. She hurts just as bad as you do. So does your brother, he just shows it differently.”

“I don’t want him to be my dad.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“I hate him.”

“I bet you do and that’s okay.”

“I don’t ever want to see him again.”

“Good, because you never will.”