Page 74 of This Reckless Home

“BAD LIAR - STRIPPED” BY IMAGINE DRAGONS

BLOSSOM

Rubbing the sleep from gritty eyes, I wake up later than usual. My body feels too empty, but that’s what I asked for last night. To sleep alone. Needing to lick my wounds in solitude, not feeling deserving of comfort from Ant or Nox.

The light of the morning makes things feel a bit better, especially now that we have Noah back and Steele just needs some time, that’s all.

He’ll leave.

I shake my head, brushing the thought aside as I climb out of bed and wince. My muscles ache this morning, like I spent all night tense, holding myself rigid. With a sigh I pull on a pair of leggings, put my hair up into a messy bun, and make my way downstairs where the sounds of everyone eating breakfast makes me feel like it’s any other morning.

Why then does it feel so dark and gloomy?

I step into the kitchen and it feels too big, too empty despite the fact that everyone is here. My gaze roams across the table, stalling when I find Steele, sitting at the opposite end of the table he usually sits at. He’s as far away as he can get from my seat and sitting to the side so we don’t have to look directly at each other and my stomach cramps.

“Morning, Bloom,” Ant says from the chair next to my empty one. His brows are lowered as he looks me up and down. “Sleep okay?”

“Um-hum,” I mumble back, shuffling to my seat and sitting down.

“Here, dearie,” Tina says, a frown on her face as she puts down a plate of my favourite French toast with bacon and maple syrup. Bile fills my mouth at the sight, but I smile and thank her anyway.

Chatter flows around me as I push my food around my plate, the thought of eating making my stomach do somersaults. I look up at a chair scraping, catching Steele’s eyes as he stands. He quickly looks away, and my chest tightens as he leaves the room without saying a single word to me.

I know what I did was wrong. Funding those people. Hurting people who look like Steele, like Noah.

But standing here watching him pull away, all I can think is: Dad was right. I'm not enough. Never have been.

A bronze coloured hand wraps around mine, stilling the movement of my fork.

“He just needs time, Petal,” Nox whispers as everyone finishes their food and I sit here just wanting to crawl into somewhere dark and hide.

“I know,” I reply, removing my hand from his, and standing up. “I’m going to make sure all the school bags are sorted.”

“You didn’t eat,” Ant states, and I look at him to find his jaw tight as he stares at me.

“I’m not hungry.”

You don’t deserve it. Think of all those people who were hurt because of you. No wonder dad never stayed. You’re a terrible person.

I hate that my brain goes there. Hate that I can't separate Steele needing time to process something genuinely hurtful from Dad walking away. But the end feeling is the same.

Abandoned. Not enough. Alone.

“TRAIN WRECK - ACOUSTIC” BY JAMES ARTHUR

STEELE

I feel her eyes on me the whole way out of the room. Burning, but not like fire. Like ice that you don’t feel until it’s too late and you have frostbite.

I know what it looks like. Know she's sitting there reading my silence as something it might not be, or might be, and I can't seem to untangle one from the other long enough to stay at that table and look at her across it.

Because that's the thing no one tells you about trying to hold two truths at once. It's fucking exhausting. Every minute of it.

I love her.

She told me in that car what she'd done, and then I watched her walk into a stranger's house with her chin up and her hands steady, cash in a bag, there to bring Noah home. A child who is not hers biologically. And I thought, there she is. There's the woman I'm going to love for the rest of my life. That feeling didn't go anywhere. It just has company now. Unwanted, painful, immovable company.

She pushed her food around her plate and didn't eat a single bite and I noticed every second of it and said nothing because what would I say. Eat something, Flower and then what? She looks at me and I have to look back and she'll see everything I'm carrying and it'll break her, or it'll break me, or both.