They disappeared inside and I glanced at Adeline, who’d stayed behind with me in the driveway. Since I was sure she didn’t want to let Lu out of her sight either, I opened my mouth to tell her she could go inside too and that I would be right there, but before I could get a word out, she folded.
Her shoulders dropped and she pressed her trembling fingers against her mouth like she was trying to hold herself together through sheer force of will. Fresh tears were running silently down her cheeks in devastating little rivulets as she slowly lowered herself into a crouch.
Clearly falling apart, she obviously didn’t want them to bear witness. Immediately sinking to my knees beside her, I slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into me.
“Hey,” I said quietly, stroking a hand through her hair. “It’s okay. She’s fine.”
“I thought—” She stopped abruptly, shaking her head. “She could’ve gotten hurt.”
“I know, but she didn’t, okay? I mean, sure, she’s got a few scratches, but I think her ego is more bruised than her body.”
“Yeah, but she was lost, Zach.Ilosther. How can I ever forgive myself?”
Her breathing hitched and it suddenly clicked into place for me that she’d been doing this alone. Technically, she had Amber, and once upon a time, she’d had a husband, even if only in title, but practically, this woman had been carrying the entire weight of raising two little girls by herself for years.
I pulled her closer and smoothed a hand over her hair again and again. “Everything’s going to be okay, Adeline. I’ve got you.”
As I said the words, I meant them, but I also realized that the implications stretched much further than just letting her cry in my arms. Those girls were her whole world. If I really was going to have her back, that would mean being there for her kids too.
Which begs the question, am I really ready to be a parent?I thought it over for a beat, but the fact was that I kind of had to be ready. I would figure out a way tomakemyself ready.
“Are you okay with me stepping up like this?” I asked quietly against her hair. “Filling the void Louis left behind, I mean?”
Adeline lifted her head from my shoulder, the tears slower now, but she was still looking overwhelmed and exhausted, fragile despite the fact that I knew she wasn’t. For a long minute, she just looked at me, but then she gave this tiny helpless shrug.
“It’s not like either of us have a choice.”
Well, fuck.
She wasn’t wrong, per se, but hearing her put it that way felt exactly like getting stabbed straight through the chest.
CHAPTER 36
ADELINE
My nerves were shredded, every terrible feeling I’d spent years trying to swallow too close to the surface. “It’s not like either of us have a choice.”
The second the words left my mouth, I knew I should have phrased it better. Zach even flinched a little and guilt crashed through me like a wave, but I was too emotionally wrung out to wrap it up in pretty paper.
The facts were the facts, and the fact was we didn’t really have a choice. I loved seeing him step up, but how I felt about it didn’t technically matter.
Zach’s arms finally loosened around me and he pushed back up to his feet, nodding slowly and repeatedly, like he was trying to process what I’d said. I stood too, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “I just… I don’t even know what I’m thinking right now. Today just scared me.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Unfortunately, my tone came out sharper than I’d meant for it to be, but he really didn’t know. He couldn’t. It wasn’thiskids that had found us in bed together this morning orhisex threatening our futures.
His features tightened slightly, but he stayed quiet, evidently just listening. Louis had never done that. He’d never listened to me, but Zach just stood there, absorbing every ugly thing thrown at him without a word, which made me feel both safer and more vulnerable than I had in years.
“I keep thinking about Lu out there alone,” I whispered. “She’s five, Zach.Five. Do you have any idea how bad this could’ve been?” I laughed weakly, but there wasn’t anything funny about it. “I’ve ruined them, haven’t I? I’ve scarred them forever and they haven’t even hit the double digits yet.”
My voice cracked. “Jennifer still thinks her father is coming back someday. Lu already understands he’s not. They’re children and they’re already scared people will leave them all the time.”
I wrapped my arms tightly around myself. “Idid that to them, because I’m not good enough. I always thought that once people have kids, they somehow, magically know the right things to say and do, but I don’t. I’m broken.”
