Page 52 of Ruin

To be better.

Good.

But I don’t really feel like I’m good as I stare down into her eyes, glistening with tears that she tries so hard to keep from falling. Tears that I put there,weput there, because I’m falling apart and she’s not mine.

Pregnant.

I almost choke on the sharp lump that lodges in my throat.

Liquid beads in the corners of her eyes as she trembles in my hold. Then her eyes suddenly fly past mine, big and wet, gaze focusing on something I can’t see at my back.

That’s when I hear him.

“Uncle Charlie?” Frankie’s voice is gentle, but too loud.

As it is sometimes, and at others, too soft, because he can’t hear it himself, and he stutters with nerves, so he prefers to sign. So often he goes unspeaking, silent, and it makes me want to protect him so much more.

Kyla-Rose shakes her head, her eyes squeezing shut as she slumps in my hold, drawing in a ragged broken breath, and a tear slides down her nose. I release her neck, holding her up by gripping her arm instead. I rebutton her jeans, pull up the zip, smooth her hair back from her wet cheeks.

Put her back together like I wish I could do for us both.

She doesn’t want her son to see her like this, his mother, his uncle. Two people he loves unconditionally because he hasn’t seen the rot in my core yet.

I give her my back, lending her privacy as I stare across the dark room to the little blonde boy illuminated in the archway.

What’s up, little man?I sign, his eyes flicking from my hands back up to my face.

He ignores my greeting, trying to peer around me, “Mumma?” he calls, quieter than before, cautiously.

She sniffs at my back, clearing her throat, “Mummy’s here, baby,” Kyla-Rose says once she steps around me, so he can see her lips. “You ready for Fight Night, big boy?”

He nods, peering between the two of us, cocking his head at us in the same way that we so often do. Kyla-Rose steps up to him, smoothing her hand over his head of bright blonde hair, lighter than his dads, darker than his mum’s.

“Say goodbye to Uncle Charlie,” she says, a big bright smile blossoming on his face, he waves me goodbye.

I lift my hand, waving back as I stare at him, wondering, not for the first time, what he’d have looked like, had he been mine.

But now, I see him with dark hair, and blue-brown eyes and it becomes hard to see anything else as I picture it.

“Goodnight, Charlie,” Kyla-Rose murmurs quietly, turning her head over her shoulder to face me, ensnaring my attention once again.

Hair tangled at the crown of her head, eyeliner smeared beneath her eyes. I see my finger-marks starting to bruise the pale skin of her throat. And I don’t care.

I don’t take a full breath until their collective footsteps are disappearing down the hall, echoing in the foyer, then finally, the front door slamming shut at their backs.

And I still can’t find it in me to care.

Not until I start making my way from the room, stilling as I catch sight of the crushed ice lolly discarded to the floor.

And I find I do care about something, after all.

‘I’m coming right back.’

Breaking my promise to Ava.

Chapter24

Ava

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