Childstar 2

“You worry about me, and I’ll worry about you. That’s how we work. Right now, I’m the one who’s fine. You, on the other hand,” I said, giving her a look as she pouted, taking the spoon from me. She ate a couple bites of soup before pausing, the spoon hovering over her lips.

“I think it was my mom,” she whispered, her head drooping. “All of this. I don’t know how yet, but I know it was her.”

“Amelia—”

“And if I’m right, then I really don’t have a mother. She’s just a monster sharing my last name. The things Ray said…he was obsessed with me, and it’s not a new obsession, either. He’s a pig, and she tried to feed me to him.” The spoon dropped from her hand, and for the first time since all of this happened, she cried. All I could do was move the tray over and hold her in my arms.

“If you hadn’t come—”

“But I did.” Thank God I did.

We had gotten over one hurdle, but this wasn’t over yet.

It didn’t take long for her to cry herself back to sleep. I was grateful she got something into her stomach, but I wished she had eaten more. Taking the tray, I got up off the bed, pulling the sheets back over her.

Closing the door behind me, I made my way to the kitchen, my hands beginning to shake the more I thought about the situation, until I finally lost it, throwing the goddamn tray right into the wall. The glass and plates shattered on impact, the leftovers splattering everywhere. Falling back onto the cabinet and clenching my jaw, I tried my best to ignore the shakes as they overtook my body again.

“Noah?”

Austin came in from the balcony, the phone still up to his ear. Upon seeing me, he hung up quickly, reaching into his bag to get my pills.

“No, I’m fine.” I didn’t want to be so dependent on those goddamn things.

“Noah, you’ve gone days without taking it. We aren’t doing this again,” he said, pouring them into my hand. Knowing I wasn’t going to bother with water, he made no moves to get me any as I threw the pills into my mouth and sank to the ground.

“You can’t allow yourself to get riled up like this—”

“I don’t have choice!” I snapped, breathing deeply. “While I’m shaking on every fucking floor in the city, she’s alone, trying to save me. I need to get riled up. I need to be…I need to be better than this, Austin. I gotta be.”

Running my hand through my hair, I tried not to think of it, but I would never get the picture of her struggling in Mallory’s hands out of my head. “If I was one second late. If I hadn’t been so annoyed that she was taking too long and wanted to leave…she would have...”

“But you were there. You saved her,” Austin reassured me.

“I got myself thrown in jail with no contingency plan, so she didn’t sleep or eat until she got me out. I feel useless, Austin. I keep asking myself, am I really the best person for her? She’s the best person for me, but if I only make her life more complicated—”

“You’ll leave. Didn’t you do that already?” He leaned on the counter. “If I were you, I’d spend just as much time with her as you did apart, and then decide.”

“So get back to you in a decade, then,” I said.

“Exactly.”

A decade of Amelia. I wasn’t a fortune teller, but I was sure that would involve us spending most nights alternating between work, sex, and Netflix. Every once in a while, we might do something

crazy like socialize with other human beings. We’d fight at least once day, and she’d probably always ask me why I loved her, like it was something I had a choice about.

Sounds like paradise.

“I want to do something for her. The studio gave us the day off tomorrow, right?”

“You could ask the studio for anything at this point, and they’d give it to you. They almost screwed themselves with that board meeting. Add that to Amelia’s ‘if he goes, I go’ speech.”

“She went?”

He nodded, and I threw my head back, laughing. I was always one step behind this woman. I’d probably never stop chasing after her.

Amelia

What was that?