Page 100 of Full Circle

Silence stretched between us like an empty vacuum. There was no way her stubbornness could beat mine, and I suspected that all of her protests had more to do with how broken she felt rather than how honest she could be with me. Hell, she probably wasn’t even being honest with herself at the moment.

Forcing her hand wouldn’t help the situation, though. “Tell me about Iris. I need to hear the truth from you.”

She winced again. “What is there to tell? Desiree has her and I’ll likely never get her back.”

This wasn’t making any sense. I frowned at her. “What does Desiree have to do with it? Iris never should have even been around that bitch.”

She pulled her long, blonde hair over one shoulder and moved to the living room. Sinking down on the weathered sofa, Celeste looked like she aged ten years overnight. Everything about our situation was beating her down, covering the radiant light I knew she emitted.

“Iris was born on February 8th. When I was still at the hospital, Desiree told me that since I was a minor, she was the legal adult who had custody of Iris. She said she could take her away from me any time she wanted, especially if I didn’t do the things she asked. That if I tried to talk to you in any way, I would never see Iris again. Desiree had already made Nana move out, so I didn’t want to call her bluff.”

All I could see was red as her words sunk in. Desiree lied, and that was the reason I missed out on one of the most precious moments of my life. Thank God I didn’t look good in prison orange or that bitch would be eviscerated.

“None of that is true,” I told Celeste through clenched teeth. “Just because you were a teenager doesn’t mean Iris belongs to her. Unless you signed legal custody papers, Iris belongs to you and has always belonged to you. Desiree has no right to take her from you.”

Celeste blinked at me like I sprung a second head. “What?” she squeaked out.

My rage was too great to fence in and I started pacing the room. “I graduated from Harvard Law School, Celeste. I promise I know what I’m talking about.” Too infuriated to hold back, I punched the wall closest to me. The resounding crack did little more than split my already callused knuckles. “Why didn’t you ever consult an attorney?” I inquired.

She whimpered. “Because I don’t have any money! Desiree told me that I had to earn my keep by running the restaurant or else she wouldn’t allow me to live in Nana’s cottage anymore. Sometimes Marla or Nana have to help me out just so I can pay Jesse, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to stay open.”

It was the wrong thing to say to me. I exploded like a volcano. “YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT FUCKING WOMAN HAS BEEN STEALING FROM YOU?!” Breathing like a wounded bull, I made to punch the wall again until Celeste darted in front of me.

“Stop, Wesley! You can’t keep lettin’ your temper do the talking! I’m just trying to explain what I’ve been through,” she finished.

“That doesn’t matter, Celeste!” I seethed. You mean to tell me that you haven’t seen a penny of the money you earned after working like a slave in that diner for TEN YEARS?!”

She flinched at the storm in my voice, choosing to remain silent rather than add to my fury.

The reproach hung heavy between us, however, which stopped me from breaking anything further. My mind flipped through a thousand facts at once to make sense of the chaos around us. One thing was certain. We were getting our daughter back immediately.

“Right,” I finally said, hands on my hips. “So we’re gonna get Iris back, and then we’re gonna get married. I’ll figure out a way to stop my dad from doing all this. Hell, all I really have to do is show up and he’d probably let it go anyway. Let’s just?—”

“Hold up, Wesley Madden,” interjected Celeste. “I am not marrying you!”

I blinked at her like I was stupid. Hell, I must’ve been because I could have sworn I heard her say she wasn’t marrying me. “Yeah the fuck you are,” I replied firmly. “Father of your baby, remember?” My finger drew an air halo over my head as if she had forgotten to whom I was referring.

She rolled her eyes and stood up to leave again. “That’s not how it works anymore, Wes. You’re in the wrong century.”

I huffed in exasperation as I trailed after her. She threw open the front door and ran down the steps like her feet were on fire. “Celeste, you love me! I know that you love me! So yes, that’s exactly how it works! It’s not like we wouldn’t have gotten married if I had been here for everything.”

She rounded on me with the grace of a dancer, and I had the fleeting thought that Iris got all her ballet talent from her mama. The idea brought me a ridiculous amount of giddy excitement.

“Why can’t you understand?” she shouted. “I’m not the girl you think I am! I’m not who I used to be! If you got to know me now, you wouldn’t still love me, Wes. Nobody could.” Her voice broke on the end, a pitiful squeak as her jaw clenched to prevent tears.

Desiree truly broke her spirit. She took my sweet, kind Celeste and offered her a world filled with cruelty, loneliness, and despair. Petty, jealous women like Desiree, and probably Hillary too, if she were anything like her mother, were the worst sort of people.

There was nothing I could say now that would convince Celeste otherwise. She needed time. The more, the better.

“Believe what you wanna believe,” I argued, “because my truth still stands. I love you, I’ve always loved you, and I’m not going anywhere. We’re getting our kid and getting the fuck outta here! Period!”

Celeste was on the brink of madness. She threw up her hands and screamed into the night sky. “I’m not leaving River’s Run, Wes! This has always been my home!”

This woman was going to be the death of me. Not even ten minutes ago she was insisting that she had nowhere to go and nothing left, yet she wasn’t going to take my offer to get us out of here.

I sneered. “Your home? So that your entire fucking life can pass you by while you live out your parents’ dream rather than your own? Hell, do you even know what you want out of life, or is everything just supposed to stop because they’re gone?”

It was a low blow.

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