She pivots to me, eyes cold. “Maybe if he had a mother worth a damn, I wouldn’t be cleaning up after him every day.”
The words slice deep.
“You’re lucky he has me,” she continues. “You know that, right?”
“Please…just let me see him. I won’t stay long.”
Camille crosses her arms. “You can see him when you get your life together.”
“I’m trying.”
“Not hard enough,” she says flatly. “When you can afford your own place and when you stop drinking, you can have Milo.”
“I’m not drinking.” The words rush out, like I can force her to hear me if I say them fast enough. “I told you I wasn’t drinking that day. I went out with coworkers. They can back me up. It was my boss’s birthday. Everyone was drinking around me. That’s why you smelled it on my clothes.”
But she didn’t care what I said. She kicked me out anyway.
She lets out a snicker. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes. Because it’s the truth.”
Her gaze turns icier. “Have you forgotten how many times you’ve lied before? What happened the last time you drank?”
The question lodges in my throat so fast it hurts. I try to swallow past it, but the memory comes anyway: water, screaming, a body floating.
“You want Milo to end up dead in a pool too?” Camille keeps going, like she can see the picture in my mind. “You forget how angry you get when you’re drunk. That is, when you’re not passed out in your own vomit. How many times have I cleaned you up, Eden?”
That name again.
Tears spill before I can will them away, turning everything into a blur. “I’m not that person anymore. I’ve changed. I’m doing better.”
“You always say that.” She steps closer until there’s barely space between us. “But people like you never change, and it’s time you realized that. Now excuse me. I have to get ready for work, and Milo has school.”
My hands curl at my sides, nails biting into my palms because if I move the wrong way, I’m going to fall apart right here on the porch. “I’m his mother.”
Her mouth presses into a line. “You don’t get to use that word until you earn it.”
The door snaps shut in my face, and I just stare at it like if I don’t move, if I don’t breathe too loud, it might swing open again and Milo will come barreling down the stairs into my arms like none of this ever happened.
But he doesn’t.
I don’t know how long I stand there before my body finally remembers how to move. Turning away takes everything in me. Walking to the car is like treading toward the edge of a cliff, each step wrong, like I’m leaving a piece of myself behind on that porch.
I don’t look back. If I do, I won’t make myself leave at all.
The car door barely shuts before the sound breaks out of me, raw and uncontrolled. My body folds forward, forehead pressed to the steering wheel as everything caves in at once. My chest aches, breath coming in shallow pulls, grief spilling everywhere with nowhere to go.
I need more money. There has to be another job I can take, but I’m already at the diner six days a week. Friday is my only day off, the one sliver of breathing room I’m supposed to have. What can I even find for one day a week that pays enough to matter?
I need something to give in my shitstorm of a life before the idea of jumping off a cliff sounds better than this reality.
But I can’t leave Milo. I won’t do that to him. I have to fight. I’ll get enough money for my own place, take my son out of that house that isn’t mine anymore, and prove to Camille that I can stand on my own without begging her for permission to exist.
There’s no other choice. Court isn’t an option. I can’t tell the truth about who I am without ripping open a past I’ve spent years burying, and I won’t drag that kind of danger anywhere near my son.
So I sit here crying until my chest throbs. Then I wipe my face and breathe through it, because one thing is clear.
I won’t let her take him from me. No matter the cost.
