Page 159 of Like A Moth To A Flame

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Don’t you know that lovers shouldn’t make you cry?

Moth

Amelia tried to insist on staying with me. I put a stop to that right away. Tommy going to work wasn’t anything to be worried about, and certainly, nothing to stop her from going on what was possibly one of the last date nights she and Carl could have for years to come.

Children, after all, took up a lot of time—and even more space, I was learning.

In the nursery, I was having trouble organizing everything. I had multiple totes of clothes, all washed, tags removed, and ready to be folded.

Except I had already filled up both dressers.

I stood in the middle of the dimly lit room, my hands on my hips as I looked down at another half-filled tote, a sigh slipping from between my lips.

Maybe Amelia had been right. I had overdone it.

“Well,” I said, looking at the open closet doors. “I guess it’s better to have too much than not enough.”

My mom had always said that.

Fuck, I missed her.

Why so much now than ever before?

A hard kick to the belly reminded me, and I snorted, reaching down to place a hand across my stretched skin.

Oh yeah, that was why.

I had just bent to grab the tote when the sun streaming in the window caught my eye. It was slowly sinking beneath the horizon, kissing the tops of the tufted grass that waved in the abandoned horse pasture.

Was it really that late already?

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and the minute it lit up in my face, I frowned.

It was 5:30.

I quickly opened my texts, and when I did, my heart fell into the pit of my gut. Tommy hadn’t said a single thing to me all day. This wasn’t normal, terrible fire or not.

What if Amelia was right? What if something was wrong?

The thoughts stopped when I heard a loud knock on the door from downstairs, and Duke, lying in the doorway, perked up, looking down the stairs, and then over at me.

That was the answer to that, then.

Tommy had been working hard all day and had forgotten his keys.

Tucking my phone back into my back pocket, I stepped out of the room, Duke scurrying ahead of me to get to the door before I could.

My first mistake was not looking before I opened the door.

I should have known better. I should have done better, but my hand fell to the knob, flipping the lock and yanking it open without a second thought.

When I looked outside, squinting through the howling wind and the curtain of white flakes that fell in front of my eyes, it didn’t even register. My brain was the stalled engine of an old, broken-down car, and no matter how many times I turned the key, it just wouldn’t start.

I barely had time to register a pair of green eyes looking in at me before he pulled back, his fist slamming into my nose so hard I stumbled back and hit the ground hard, a lightning bolt of pain slamming into my stomach and wrapping around to my spine.

I couldn’t see. My vision was clouded by darkness and rainbow-colored stars. My ears were ringing, my head swimming, and when I slowly began to float back into the real world, the first thing I heard was Duke’s booming barks.

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