Brynn considered this, her face serious.“That would be acceptable,” she finally declared, in that formal way she adopted when she felt uncertain.
Ada had grown into a beautiful woman.The gangly teenager who used to trail after her big brother now carried herself with quiet confidence.I remembered her tear-streaked face at the sentencing, how she’d clung to her brother before they took him away.Now she sat beside my daughter, her niece, creating a bridge I never thought possible.
My throat tightened.This scene before me felt like witnessing a small miracle.Brynn had all but stopped engaging in normal conversation.For months, Brynn had retreated into herself, her world shrinking to that of hospitals and doctors’ offices.The only connections to the outside world she would accept were her books and the tablet I’d scraped enough money together to buy her.
What would Knight’s presence mean for her?For us?The question circled my mind like a hungry shark.I’d spent eleven years building a life without him, convincing myself we didn’t need him.Now he’d swooped back in, proving I needed him in more ways than only metaphorical ones.But what if Brynn got attached?What if he left again?What if he stayed?I didn’t know which possibility terrified me more.
The low rumble of Knight’s voice in the hallway mingling with someone else’s caught my attention.My skin prickled with awareness, every nerve ending suddenly alert.My fingers froze on the frayed edge of my shirt.
Ada looked up, her gaze finding mine across the room.Something passed between us, woman to woman, beyond the history that both connected and separated us.She gave me a slight nod, a silent acknowledgment of the reckoning that waited outside that door.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, my voice sounding distant to my own ears.
Brynn barely looked up, already engrossed in whatever Ada showed her.“‘Kay, Mom.”
I slipped into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind me.
I turned away, squaring my shoulders.Down the hall, Knight stood with his back to me, talking to one of the men who’d accompanied him earlier.The one with the buzz-cut.Jag.
Eleven years of questions crowded my throat, fighting for the chance to be voiced first.I took a step forward, then another, moving toward the man who had once been my entire world.
My heart hammered so hard I thought it might crack a rib.The stranger who used to be Rhys stood with his back to me, his leather cut emblazoned with patches I didn’t understand -- symbols of a life he’d built without me and Brynn.The tattoos crawling up the back of his neck disappeared into his shaggy hair.When Jag noticed me first, his eyes flicking over Knight’s shoulder, Knight turned.The hallway compressed around us, eleven years of silence suddenly too loud to bear.
“Lavender.”My name in his mouth still sounded the same, even if everything else about him had transformed.Those eyes -- Brynn’s eyes -- locked onto mine, and for a moment, I glimpsed the man I’d loved beneath all the ink and muscle.My breath caught and I had to fight off tears.
Jag muttered something about getting coffee and slipped away, leaving us alone in the corridor.
Knight’s tattooed arms hung at his sides.The solid black of his eye sclera made it impossible to look away, like staring into twin eclipses.Up close, I noticed one tattoo climbing his neck.A small lavender flower, nearly hidden among more aggressive imagery.My throat tightened at the sight.
“Why?”The question escaped before I could package it in something softer.“Why did you push me away?”
His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the short beard.“Lavender --”
“No.”I cut him off, eleven years of hurt crystallizing into sharp-edged courage.“I deserve an answer.How was abandoning me supposed to help me?Do you have any idea what it did to me when you said those things?When you sent back every letter unopened?”
Knight’s face contorted with raw pain, the tough exterior cracking to reveal something wounded underneath.He glanced around, then guided me a few steps toward an alcove with a water fountain, away from the main traffic of the corridor.
“I thought I could protect you,” he said, his voice dropping lower.“After the conviction, my face plastered across the news… I knew what people would think about anyone associated with me.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make.”My voice trembled despite my effort to keep it steady.“I was an adult.I had the right to choose for myself.”
He raked a hand over his short hair, the movement so familiar it ached.“You were young.Had your whole life ahead of you.I couldn’t stand the thought of you visiting me in prison for years, waiting for someone who might come out a completely different person.”He gestured at himself, at the tattoos and hardened physique.“Because that’s exactly what happened.”
“So you decided to hurt me deliberately?To make sure I wouldn’t wait?”The words burned my throat.“Do you know what that did to me?Finding out I was pregnant right before you told me to fuck off?”
Pain flashed across his face.“I didn’t know.Christ, Lavender, I never would have --”
“Never would have what?Been honest with me?Treated me like a partner instead of some delicate thing you needed to protect?I was strong enough to handle whatever came our way.As long as I knew we were a team.”The longer I spoke, the more my voice wavered.I trembled almost violently but clenched my muscles tight, trying to calm myself.I absolutely wouldn’t go back to Brynn if she could tell I’d been crying.
“I know that now.”His voice roughened.“But back then, all I could see was you giving up your future for me.I’d already fucked up by getting greedy, thinking I could score enough to set us up for life.I couldn’t drag you down with me.”He took a step closer, close enough that I caught the scent of him, leather and something darker and unfamiliar.“But you’re right.I made the choice for you.And then I missed knowing my daughter because of my own stupidity.”His brutal honesty knocked the wind from my lungs.I’d expected excuses, defensiveness, not this raw acknowledgment of fault.
“You had no right,” I whispered, but the fury had ebbed, leaving something more complicated in its wake.“I loved you.I would have waited forever.Instead, I had to figure out how to raise Brynn alone while grieving you like you died.”
“I know.”Knight’s voice caught.“You deserved better.No matter what my reasons were, I let you down in the biggest way possible.”His tattooed hands flexed at his sides, as if he wanted to reach for me but held himself back.“If I could go back --”
“But you can’t.”I cut him off, unwilling to hear hypotheticals that changed nothing.“We can’t undo the past eleven years.Brynn grew up without you.I built a life without you.”
“I know.”The simple acknowledgment hung between us.“I’m not asking for forgiveness, Lavender.I don’t deserve it.But I’m here now, for Brynn.For as long as she needs me.For as long as you’ll let me be here.”
