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And I deserve to have the wrongs righted.
“I need to pick Ave up from school. The others, too,” I say, standing and changing the subject.
Lance watches me, his gaze unforgiving. “I’ll walk back in a while, if that’s okay.”
“Of course,” I tell him quickly, desperately needing to be alone. Or just… away from whatever this is.
I brought him here to help him heal. But this, him apologising and making promises… I’m not ready for it.
I’m not interested in it.
“Why can’t you sleep?” I ask before I walk away, knowing if I can help him sleep, I can heal him quicker. “In the hospital, you struggled, and Mason said you weren’t sleeping before at Elliot’s… I was just curious why?”
His jaw goes taut, eyes glazing over as he drops his stare to my feet. I see him contemplate telling me and realise the mistake I made asking him at all. “Inside, I had the four walls of my cell, a shitty little mattress, and a blue door I’d stare at for hours on end. It was my safe space from everything going on around me.” His eyes travel back to me, back to the now. “I’d spend my day looking over my shoulder, making sure…” He locks his jaw again and frowns, the words dying off before he can utter them. “There was no sunshine,” he eventually says. “And I had to learn to sleep without the moon and stars. I guess no matter how fucked it was, I got used to that cell enough to now miss the escape it gave me.”
But I’m your sunshine, when all you can see is the moon and stars.
My heart thrashes in my chest, my eyes wide. “I…”
He shakes his head, cutting me off. “You don’t have to find answers to make it better, Scarlet. It’s going to take time to adjust.”
I nod. “Here… do you sleep here?”
He takes a second too long to reply, and I know. “I get sleep.”
A lie. He’s lying.
“You’ll be late,” he tells me, gesturing toward the house.
I turn wordlessly and walk back across the meadow to the first gate.
I feel his eyes on me the entire walk home.
Lance
My smile isn’t fake, but as Waverley hops out of Scarlet’s car, her ponytail swishing from shoulder to shoulder, I have to fight to keep it on my face.
“Daddy!”
I surrender the internal battle in an instant, laying down my shields at her feet. And it’s not just my smile that falters. My heart, the world around me, it all seems to slow as she clocks me on the steps and rushes for me.
Daddy.
“Did you know that the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows? Some guy cleaned her so much that they rubbed off!”
I try with everything in me to shake off the initial surprise. Waverley isn’t even aware of what she’s said, or if she is, she doesn’t know. Doesn’t understand.
Pulling myself together, I sit back on the stone step and pat the granite beside me. “I didn’t know that.”
She settles close at my side, her full focus on me. “Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. They are gone.”
A small smile tugs at my mouth. “Did you have a good day at school?” I ask.
“It was okay. I just wanted to be here. Mum wouldn’t let me in your room this morning because you were sleeping.”
I wasn’t sleeping, but I’m not about to undermine Scarlet by telling Waverley that. “I’ll try to wake up a little earlier next week, maybe I can help you get ready.”
She shakes her head, as if telling me no need. “Mummy sets an alarm before everyone else. She gets everything ready for me. You can help me feed Bear, though. That’s my job. And I have to walk him, but he walks himself. I just follow.”
