Page 61 of Omega's Fire

“I don’t know yet.” I’ve avoided thinking about names. Planning feels like tempting fate when my life remains so unstable.

“And the father?” Mom says carefully, her fingers tap against her saucer nervously.

Nash’s face flashes through my mind. “It’s complicated.”

Mom’s mouth tightens almost imperceptibly. “He’s not involved?” Fleur asks with the bluntness of youth.

“I told you, it’s complicated.” Sharpness creeps into my voice.

“Is it Nash Thorndike?” Mom asks.

I hesitate then nod. “Can we talk about something else?”

“Of course.”

But we don’t. Instead, the silence stretches uncomfortably. Mom refills our cups while Fleur fidgets with her napkin, picking up on the tension between us.

Finally, Fleur asks, “How long are you going to stay, Leo?”

I say, “I don’t know,” at the same time that Mom says, “He’s home now.”

“I think I need a shower,” I say. I don’t want to think about this now. I just want to get clean and then I want to sleep for about a month.

I don’t sleep for that long, but it’s not far off.

The days blur together in a haze of sleep and gentle maternal care. Mom brings me meals on trays, fusses over my prenatal vitamins, schedules doctor’s appointments with her family physician.

I don’t even look at my phone for the first three weeks. I just turn it off and spend my time sleeping.

I sleep fourteen hours a day, my body finally surrendering to exhaustion I’ve been fighting for months. Years, maybe. Everything crashes down at once.

Fleur stays with me, curled up on the guest room bed next to me while I doze. She talks about school gossip and about the college applications she’s already thinking about.

“I want to study political science,” she tells me one afternoon. “Maybe law school after that.”

Following in my footsteps, or Dad’s?

“Why?” I ask, genuinely curious.

She shrugs, suddenly shy. “Someone needs to fight for peoplewho can’t fight for themselves. Like you.”

My throat closes unexpectedly. I’ve never been hero-worshipped by a kid before. It’s nice.

“Dad used to talk about you sometimes,” she adds quietly.

“He did?”

I don’t know how I feel about that. I don’t know how I feel about a lot of things. It feels as if everything has become so fucked up.

I don’t want to talk about Dad. I change the subject. “Have you seen my phone?”

“Yeah,” Fleur says. She leans over the side of the bed and passes it over to me. “I charged it up for you.”

“Thanks.”

I have a lot of missed calls and texts.A lot.

Guilt flashes through me. Yes, I needed this but I should probably have let people know where I went.

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