Page 92 of Beautiful When He Breaks

Eli glances at me again, catches me looking, and gives me the smallest smile over Mila’s head.

I smile back before I can stop myself.

Then Ryan’s voice explodes from the stairs about needing coffee, or he’s going to die in a dramatic and unnecessary way, and the morning becomes the Sin Bin again.

29

Eli

The second I see them standing on the Sin Bin front steps, my stomach drops so hard it feels like a physical hit.

My brain tries to make them into strangers: a man in a dark coat and a woman in a cream cardigan despite the heat. Familiar posture. Familiar stillness. Familiar judgment in the very way they occupy space.

Julian parks the car, but we don’t make a move to get out. My mother is standing with both hands wrapped around her purse strap, and my father has his jaw set in that hard, familiar line I know too well. The one that means he’s already decided what this conversation is before the first word gets spoken.

They look wrong here. Too church-clean. Too much like the life I came from, standing on the steps of the life I have now.

I knew this day was coming ever since my father told me exactly what kind of son he wanted and what kind he was prepared to bury if I didn’t obey. I knew showing up was the next move. People like my parents do not leave things alone when they think they still have the moral upper hand. They don’t walk away quietly. They come back with scripture, shame, and a fresh strategy, convinced enough of their righteousness to mistake persistence for love.

Still, I wasn’t ready for this.

Mila makes a soft little noise from the back seat, half awake after her four-month checkup, and that snaps me out of the freeze.

I unbuckle too fast, push my door open, and turn toward Julian. “Take her inside.”

“Eli,” he says quietly. His face is unreadable at first glance, but I know him too well now to miss the sharpened edge under the calm. He’s already deciding whether he needs to stay beside me, step in front of me, or ignore whatever my parents say to keep this from becoming uglier than it’s about to be.

“Take her inside,” I repeat, firmer because I can already feel my father looking toward the backseat, and I will not let that man lay eyes on my daughter long enough to decide what kind of grandparent performance he wants to put on today. “Please, babe.”

His eyes flick past me to the front steps, then back again. There’s no hesitation after that. We get out of the car together. Julian moves to the backseat while I stand and keep my eyes on my parents. I can feel the way they’re looking at us.

Julian lifts her from the seat with a practiced ease. Mila makes a tiny noise, little legs kicking once in sleepy protest as he settles her against his chest. My mother sees that first. I watch her eyes catch on the foot hanging out of the small fleece blanket Jules covers her in, then move up to Julian’s face, then back to the baby. My father watches too, and there’s something in his expression that makes my skin go cold—judgment sharpening itself in real time.

I step forward before either of them can say a word about what they’re looking at. “Jules, go.”

He hesitates only long enough to say, low enough that only I hear it, “You don’t have to do this alone.”

I almost laugh because he doesn’t know how impossible that sentence is. I’m not alone, not really. The whole house is behind that front door. Him. Mila. The boys. The life I’m building out of wreckage and improvisation. But I need him inside because if my father says one wrong thing to him while he’s holding my daughter, I will stop being a civilized person.

“I know,” I say. “Please.”

He gives me one more nod and squeezes my shoulder before walking away, while my parents watch him all the way to the house.

That pisses me off more than it should because it means they came here ready to inspect. Ready to weigh what kind of home this is and to decide what version of my life they’re willing to condemn from the outside. Julian disappears through the front door with Mila, and now it’s just them and me.

My mother’s eyes are already bright, but not in a way that softens anything. My father looks at me the way he always does when he thinks he’s about to talk sense into me by force of will. For one fleeting, stupid second, I am fifteen again—mud on my cleats. A bad grade on the counter. His disappointment filling the whole kitchen until there was no room left for air. Then I remember Mila in Julian’s arms and that I am not fifteen, and they are not here to save me from some temporary mistake.

I square my shoulders and face my parents properly.

“Elias,” my father says.

I don’t answer to the name. “What are you doing here?” I ask instead.

My mother’s expression pinches. “That’s how you greet us?”

“That depends,” I say. “Are you here to apologize?”

My father’s jaw goes hard immediately, and there’s the man I expected. The one who wears disappointment like armor and thinks being older makes him right by default.