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“I have everything I need right here.” Kissing the top of her son’s head, who has laid down on her chest and closed his eyes, she looks up at me. “I’d really like to talk more about the future when we get back home.”
A huge grin pulls the corners of my lips; I love hearing her say home. Because that’s what it is, precisely. Our home.
* * *
EmaLeigh
I knew it was coming. Something terrible always happens when a positive light presents itself to me. It’s been that way my entire life. I decide to tell my parents Damien and I are leaving Alaska, and I get into a car accident. I decide that I want this thing with Sebastian to work and in they pop. Just as we’re about to head home.
“Who called you?” I snap before either of my parents can say a word to me. They burst into my room as Sebastian is helping me put on the sweater he bought earlier.
“We’re your emergency contacts. Why wouldn’t they call us?” Mom rolls her eyes like it’s obvious.
Dragging my shirt down my stomach, I step out from behind Sebastian just as Damien takes my place back there, and a cold chill runs up my spine as a rather horrifying thought presents itself. “No, you’re not. You haven’t been my emergency anything since I became pregnant. Chloe is, so she was called, and she would never have contacted you.”
They aren’t used to me challenging them. “It doesn’t matter.” Mom swats her hand like the discussion has been dismissed. “We’re here to take Damien home.” His whimper has me staring down at him as he clings to Sebastian, who keeps a steady hand on my son’s head.
“No, you’re not. You’ll never be going near him again until you can explain why he has this sudden fear of you.” Damien has been a completely different child around Sebastian and Jack. He’s grown in ways I didn’t think I’d ever see while we were on that mountain, and now, it’s all starting to make sense, and I feel like the worst mother in the world for it.
“I know you’ve never hit him because I don’t leave him alone with either of you, but you say things all the time. What have you been saying to him that I don’t hear?” It could be any number of things. It could even be his own observations. He’s two, not dumb. And children pick up on so many things that we don’t even realize. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. We are going home with Sebastian, where Damien will grow up knowing he’s loved, with two parents who adore him, and you will never see him or me again.”
Feeling Sebastian’s hands on my shoulders gives me the strength to keep myself from breaking down. I had always been hopeful that they would come around. Grow to love Damien as much as I do. I should have known better.
“You can’t do that. We raised that boy, too,” my father protests while my mother glares at me.
“No! I did. I raised myself while raising my son, and now he’ll never experience your disdain again. Not while there’s breath in my body.” Reaching for my coat, I have it on in the same amount of time it takes Sebastian to pick up Damien and the bags they brought in with them. Walking away from my parents for the second time in a single day brings a relief I hadn’t realized I needed.
I was so afraid to acknowledge the truth about my parents that I did everything I could to keep them from being alone with my child, and still, they’ve impacted him in ways I don’t know if I’ll ever truly understand.
“Bas my dada?” Damien asks as we leave the clinic, snow swirling around us as he holds the older man’s face between his little fingers.
Both of them look down at me for the answer as Sebastian intertwines our fingers while we shuffle to his truck. “Yeah, baby, Bas is Dada.” I see tears enter Sebastian’s eyes as he places Damien in the back seat, buckling him into his new car seat. Closing the door, he crowds me into my side of the vehicle.
“Christ, I love you,” he mutters before lowering his head and stealing a kiss that warms me all the way to my toes. Heating my core in a way that fills me with promises for the future.
“I love you, too,” I whisper as he pulls back and opens my door, buckling me in before kissing me again.
“When we get home, we’re working on that second baby.” His heated promise has anticipation flowing through my veins, and I know that no matter how chaotic this day turned out to be, it’s given me the surprise of a lifetime.
epilogue
SEBASTIAN
Four Years Later.
Watching our son with my arm around Ema’s shoulder as he and the wolf dog take part in this year’s polar plunge makes me so fucking proud. “Come on, Jack!” Damien calls right before they jump.
“I can’t watch!” Ema hide’s her face in my chest as the pair jump into the icy water.
For the last two years, they have been doing the plunge together. It freak’s my wife out to see it too. I think it’s because she doesn’t like seeing Damien grow up. She says she’s worried he’ll get sick. It could be both.
“Daddy!” Our three-year-old daughter CJ (Chloe, Jr., after her aunt, who moved here when she found out Ema was pregnant with her) screams as JJ (Jack, Jr.) chases after her. The wolf pup adores my daughter, and honestly, who can blame him? She’s the spitting image of her mother.
Picking her up before she plows into her very pregnant mother—with twins this time—I place the girl on my shoulders out of the pup’s reach. “JJ just loves you.” I laugh as she sticks her tongue out at him. He drops to the ground and begins whining, which I know will have her asking me to put her down in a minute.
“That is so cold!” Damien yells as he and Jack rush over after getting warmed up and into something comfy again.
“Can we go now?” Ema gazes up at me. We saw her parents not too long ago, and despite the kids knowing who they are, we still don’t have anything to do with them. Ema can’t find it in her heart to forgive them for the way they spoke to and about her when Damien was in earshot.
