She stops. Swallows. Tries again.
“Bastian showed up at my door three days ago, bleeding everywhere. He told me everything. And I just wanted to be the mama who was there for you, sweetness. For once in my miserable life, I wanted to be the mother who shows up.”
“Mom,” I whisper.
I hold out my arms, and she’s on me, squeezing me tight, crying softly, shaking with the effort of it all. So am I.
“I’m sorry,” she breathes into my hair. “I’m so sorry, baby. For all of it. Every single time I wasn’t there when you needed me.”
I want to pull away and remind her of every broken promise and missed birthday, every Derek who mattered more than I did. But the time for that is behind us, and in a world that always wants to take from me, how can I be angry when, for once, it decides to give?
“You came,” I manage to squeak out.
“I came,” she agrees. “Finally.Finally, I came.”
I reach out and find her hands so I can hug her again. Her skin is more papery and dry than I remember, and she feels like she has bird bones, but she’s still my mom, dammit, so I hug her and try not to let the feelings overwhelm me. It’s a losing battle, but I fight it anyway. Stubborn pride and all that.
The commotion draws the others like moths to flame. Zeke barrels in from the bedroom, gasps, and half-tackles Bastian before his eyes catch on the way Bastian is holding himself.
“Holyshit,” Zeke breathes, pulling up short. “You’re—you’re actually?—”
“Alive,” Bastian confirms. “Barely, but yes.”
The wheelchair’s familiar squeak announces Sage. He wheels himself into the hallway and stops short, the rubber tires going silent on the hardwood. Nobody speaks. The safe house fills with the static of too many emotions trying to exist in the same space. I stay close to my mother, our hands still intertwined.
I squeeze back.
Sage breaks the silence first. “Look what the cat dragged in,” he says flatly.
Bastian laughs. “The cat should’ve probably left me out to die.”
Still, nobody moves. The air between them is boiling. Then Sage wheels forward. He stops right in front of Bastian, close enough to touch.
“You came back,” Sage says. “Again.”
“I’ll always come back,” Bastian growls. “Even when you don’t want me to. Maybe even especially then.”
I hear a strange, uncharacteristic hesitation in Bastian’s voice. A moment later, when he speaks again, I understand why.
“Can I—” He stops. Starts again. “Would it be okay if I hugged you, Sage?”
I hold my breath, my mother’s hand still clasped in mine.
“Yeah,” Sage says finally, in a surly teen boy kind of way. “Yeah, okay.”
I hear the twin thud of Bastian sinking to his knees. Then there’s the creak of the wheelchair as Sage scoots forward, and the soft collision of two bodies finding each other after too long apart.
Neither of them speaks. They don’t need to. The sound of Bastian’s ragged breathing and Sage’s quiet, hitching exhale says everything words couldn’t. I imagine Bastian folding himself around his little brother despite the bullet wound in his gut, Sage’s arms wrapping around Bastian’s neck the way they must have when he was small, before the accident, before everything went wrong.
And tears pour unchecked down my face.
46
ELIANA
live fire /liv 'fi(?)r/: noun
1: cooking over open flame rather than controlled heat.
