“She doesn’t have one.” I manage out, fighting back the tears that have formed in my eyes.
Maverick’s eyes shoot back into my direction at the admission. “What?” he whispers out, the pain in his eyes matching mine.
“She doesn’t have one,” I repeat, shrugging my shoulders.
Before I know what’s happening, Maverick crawls over to me on his hands and knees. When he reaches me, he sits in front of me, his face so close to mine that I feel his breath on my nose. He cups my face with both hands, and I sag against them, aching for the comfort that he always brought me.
“What happened, Firefly?” He whispers once again, his green eyes inflamedfrom the anger I see burning up inside of him.
Watching the emotions pouring from his eyes, I feel the tears slipping down my cheeks. I open and close my mouth several times, Maverick never taking his eyes off mine.
“Fuck, baby, come here,” he says before sitting back on the blanket, spreading his legs. He turns me round and pulls me into him, my back leaning against his chest and his strong arms wrap around me.
What I would have given up at any point tobe back in these arms after all these years.
Twenty-Four
Maverick
My heart’s fucked up, all over again.
Watching Mabel admit to me the fears that I expected, especially after today, that Ellie’s father isn’t involved, I’m struggling, doing my best to stop myself seeing red.
The anger boiling within me, doing its very best to consume me, and I haven’t even heard the story yet. What type of scumbag would leave this beautiful girl to raise their daughter alone?
A dead one, that’s for sure.
Watching the pain rise into Mabel’s eyes, and then, the tears that start to fall, Irefuse to sit here and not try to comfort her.
I pull Mabel in between my legs and make her lie back against my chest, wrapping my arms around her which she’s gripping onto like she never wants to let go.
“Baby, what happened?” I whisper into her ear, calling her that twice in a few short seconds not knowing what’s coming over me. I’ve got no right to call her baby, I lost that right all those years ago, but memory takes over, failing to stop me.
I hear her sniff, as she refuses to let go of me, leaning her weight into me, but I don’t care. There isn’t a lot of her to hold up.
I’ll hold this girl up forever if she’ll let me.
I feel her body sag once more before she starts talking and I hold us both up as she tells me about the one-night stand she’d had, with a man named Austin around four years after I left. An out of towner, no last name or a way to trace him. His shitty condom broke, neither of them knowing until he was long gone.
I listen as she speaks, stroking her arms with my fingertips, trying to give her some comfort in all the pain that she’d experienced, the pain she’d endured because I listened to something I shouldn’t have all those years ago.
“I tried to find him. I tried so hard...” she sighs out in defeat. “But do you know how many mencalled Austin there are in New York?” she says as she looks up at me. A smile spread across her face as she attempts to make a light joke.
“I don’t, Firefly,” I laugh back with her, still holding my grip tightly around her.
“Hundreds, maybe thousands.” She turns her head to the side, so she’s now looking back at me from over her shoulder, my head leans against hers as she tells me her story.
I feel the corner of my mouth turn into a half smile at her efforts to try and make light of her situation; the situation that I no doubt left her in.
“I’m sorry,” Is all I can muster out.
“Don’t be, I have Ellie,” she smiles brightly at me, not moving her face an inch away. Her face dangerously close to mine.
“She’s amazing,” I agree along with her.
“That she is.” The lightness coming back into her eyes as she speaks about her daughter.
I could use this moment to press further on her name, but I know that it’s a story for another time.
