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“I didn’t want kids,” I ground out. “Didn’t want a family. I was fine on my own, and I had no intention of changing that.”
“I know, son.”
Bloody, bloody fuck, it sounded like she was battling tears. Something about my mum crying had black clouds filling my head. Always had. I needed someone to bleach the memory clean from my head, because the sound of her sadness was the thing that always haunted me the most.
“But you’re not him. You’renot him, Liam. You’re so good and loving, and it is an absolute tragedy that you won’t let yourself love someone.”
It did no good to argue with her. I’d given that up long ago.
But I knew.
Every time I looked in the mirror, I saw his eyes. His jaw. His height and his strength.
By now, though, I was likely taller and stronger. In my mind, he was a giant, capable of so much destruction. But as I’d grown, that mental image of him didn’t shrink down.
He simply got bigger and bigger until I couldn’t wave him away, because I’d spent so many years running from the idea of what he was. Running from all the ways I was constantly told that I was just like him.
No one knew what it meant when they said it, of course. Not what it meant to me.
No part of me could be carved out to rid myself of his memory. I’d have done it if there were a way. And no matter what my mum said, the reason I’d left in the first place was because I’d never been able to understand how she could look at me and see anythingotherthan him.
I’d left because I couldn’t handle being stacked up against him my entire life.
With a slow turn of the steering wheel, I pulled my car into the driveway and waited quietly while the garage door opened.
“You ignoring me, son?”
I grunted. “I know better than that.”
“You’re ignoring me.” She sniffled. “You know what my biggest regret is, Liam?”
“Marrying him.”
Mum exhaled a short laugh. “No, you twat, because then I wouldn’t have you. I wish I’d left the first time. I wish you never remembered anything about him at all, but it’s hard to be brave when you’re scared witless, isn’t it?”
I shifted the car into park and leaned my head back against the seat, pinching my eyes closed. “Yeah,” I answered in a gruff voice. “Yeah, it is.”
“You were the reason I was brave, Liam. Just you.” She sighed. “There’s no magic to taking a first step, son. You let yourself be scaredfor a bit. And then when that feeling ebbs—and it will—that’s when you move forward.”
With a hand covering my eyes, I opened them again, staring sightlessly at the creases in my fingers.
“How’s the friend?” she asked.
I dropped my hand. “Zoe.”
“Zoe.” Her voice was soft and questioning, and I cursed myself up and down for feeling like I needed to bring her name into this moment. As if Mira weren’t enough for me to deal with right now.
“She’s fine.”
At my curt tone, Mum laughed under her breath. “You being nice?”
“Nice enough.”
“That means no,” she said. “What does Zoe do for work?”
“She used to be an accountant at a hospital. Was for years. But she’s been ... working from home for the last couple years. Does some bookkeeping for small businesses.”
“Nice to have that flexibility when you’re a new mum,” she said. “It’s the hardest transition in the world. Figuring out who you are and not getting lost in that new person you’re in charge of.”
