Page 59 of His Holy Chaos

"Stop. Listen to me." I shift so I'm facing him, my knee touching his shin. "What you just described, the way you attach, the way you need, the way you hold on, that's not a defect. That's not something broken. That is one of the most valuable things about you."

His eyes find mine through the blur of tears. Red, swollen, devastated. Listening.

"You love with your whole body," I tell him. "You love with your hands and your voice and your ridiculous, beautiful, exhausting brain. You love my daughter like she's yours. You love your friends like they're oxygen. You loved a man who told you it was too much, and instead of dimming yourself, you just kept burning. That's not a flaw, Jude. That's a superpower. The problem was never the intensity of what you offered. The problem was that he didn't have the capacity to hold it."

His lower lip trembles. I reach toward the blood at the corner of his mouth, slowly, giving him time to flinch, and press my thumb gently against the bitten spot. He winces. I hold it there, a point of pressure, grounding.

"And that's fine. Some people love differently. But you are not too much," I say. "Not for me. Not for this house. Not for that little girl who falls asleep to the sound of your voice. Do you understand?"

He doesn't answer with words. He answers by collapsing forward, his forehead hitting my chest, his hands fisting in the front of my sweater, and I catch him. One hand cradling the base of his skull, fingers threading into his hair. He's shaking again, but it's different now.

He cries into my chest.

"I thought I was over it," he chokes out between sobs. "I thought I was… this whole week, Daddy, I was so happy. I was so fucking happy. And then one stupid video and it all just… it came back. Everything. The way he'd look at me when I asked for too much. The way he'd go quiet. That specific silence that meant I'd done it again, I'd crossed the line, I'd been too needy, too clingy, too much. I'm not crying because I miss him, Daddy. I don't miss him. I want him out of my mind. I'm crying because once again I'm sad and ruining everything because of a ghost from the past. I'm sorry, Daddy!"

"Shh." I press my mouth against the top of his head. "Healing isn't linear. You know that. You told me that yourself, about Callum, about Alfie."

"That's different."

"How?"

"Because Callum and Alfie are strong. Callum got through it. Alfie wouldn't fall apart on someone's guest room floor because of a fucking cat video."

"You don't know that. You don't know what they do when no one's watching."

He lets out a small, watery laugh. I'll take anything that isn't the sound he was making five minutes ago, because it was breaking my heart.

"And for the record," I continue, my hand making slow, firm passes down his spine, "falling apart doesn't make you weak. It makes you human. The weakness would be pretending you're fine when you're not. The weakness would be hiding this from me and letting it rot."

"I was hiding it," he admits, so quietly I almost miss it. "I came up here so you wouldn't see. I didn't want you to… I was afraid you'd think…"

"Think what?"

A long pause. His fingers loosen in my sweater, then tighten again. "That I'm not over him. That I'm still… that this means I still want him. Because I don't. Daddy, I swear to God, I don't. I don't want him. I want this. I want you and Angel and Martha's casseroles and the stupid laminated schedule and the choir and the…"

His voice breaks again, and he buries his face deeper into my chest, and I hold him tighter.

"I know," I tell him. "I know you don't want him. That's not what this is about."

"Then what is it about? Why do I know it so clearly, but I still cry?"

I think about this carefully. I think about how healing doesn't mean the wound closes. It means you learn to live with the scar. It means the body remembers what the mind has moved past.

"It's about the version of yourself that you were with him," I say slowly, choosing each word. "You're not grieving Emmett. You're grieving the Jude who didn't know he deserved better. The one who shrank himself to fit inside someone else's comfort zone. That version of you is gone now, and you're allowed to mourn him, even as you're glad he's gone."

The silence that follows is vast. His eyes fill again.

"I'm a loser. I don't know why you'd be with me. Just let me go and save yourself the trouble," he says, and it breaks my heart. I hold him closer, resting his head on my chest. I have to hold him firmly or he'd pull away. But I'm not about to let that happen when he's this vulnerable.

"Jude, look at me," I tell him and make him meet my eyes. "Do you think I'd allow a loser to get close to Angel?"

He tries to look away, but I don't let him. "She's the most precious thing in my life. I'd kill for her, easily. Sign me up for a life sentence. Do you think I'd allow a loser in her life?"

He's crying silently again, tears rolling down his face.

"And I have a secret. You're also very precious in my life. When you say bad things about yourself, it's as if you're saying bad things about Angel, because you both are precious to me."

"I'm s-sorry, Daddy," he says, the realization hitting him. "I'd never want to say anything bad about Angel."