Poison

And that’s when I knew it.

That’s when I knew the answer.

The choice wasn’t his to make, the choice was mine.

It stabbed.

Oh fuck, how it stabbed.

But it was there. And it was real. The answer staring me in the face through the shit storm, while we were still choking and trying to breathe in some semblance of an answer from the clouds.

This time around it wouldn’t be Lucas walking away, it would be me.

But this time I’d be doing it for him.

Him and his little girl.Chapter ThirtyLucasI burst through the door at my mother’s house and I didn’t give a shit about how fucking fierce I looked. I was straight through to the living room where she was sitting in her armchair staring over at some mindless bullshit on the TV, and I closed the fucking distance like a fucking bull at a red rag.

I nearly threw the TV remote across to bust through the screen, but managed to hold my temper back enough to press the power off and toss it back onto the side table, and then I asked her the question. Yelled it out with a voice racked with pain, and rage, and pure fucking panic.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!”

Her eyes were a mirror of fierce on mine, lips pursed as she glared back at me.

“Because somebody had to see sense, Lucas. Somebody had to see sense and solve this ridiculous situation!”

I leaned into the chair, my hands on the arms, and she pressed herself back into the cushions, with her eyes opening wider.

I hadn’t been this close to her in years.

“IT WAS NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS, MOTHER! IT NEVER HAS BEEN!”

It was then that she flipped back with her authority. She pushed me backwards and jabbed a finger straight at my face.

“It’s always been my fucking business, Lucas. Millie is my fucking granddaughter, and it’s you who’s being a selfish idiot enough to watch Maya taking her away!”

“Selfish?!” I barked. “What’s selfish about wanting to be with Anna? Maya was the one who walked away from me!”

“Because you were a selfish idiot to her! Right the way through your marriage, Lucas! She’s had years of your selfish bullshit! Years!”

I stepped away from her and caught my breath, and there was that flash of guilt again in my gut. The whole world was spinning, reeling, driving me fucking insane, and there was still no way through. No fucking way at all.

My hands were in my hair.

My lip was pinned between my teeth.

My heart was thumping.

Mother used my silence to carry on speaking.

“Maya’s a lovely woman,” she said. “Loving and genuine and honest. She’s always done her best with you, right from the beginning when you got her pregnant in one stupid night’s mistake. She committed everything to you! But you don’t, do you? You never make her feel like she’s worth anything, least of all the mother of your child. The least you can do is commit to her right back. Just like she deserves, Lucas!”

Another pang of guilt hit hard, but there was more. A whole ocean of churned feelings battling deep.

My words came out in a hiss.

“I did commit to her right back. And I did always do my best with her, right from the beginning when I got her pregnant in my one stupid night’s mistake. Why does that make her so much better than me?! I was the one who gave up my whole fucking world for one stupid fucking mistake! ONE STUPID FUCKING MISTAKE!”

“You gave up your whole fucking world to start a new one!” she hissed back. “To start a new one with a woman who loved you!”

“ANNA LOVED ME!”

She stood up from her chair and the finger jab was even stronger. “YOU DIDN’T GET ANNA PREGNANT THOUGH, DID YOU?!”

The atmosphere was toxic, both of us desperate and pained. Mother swallowed, and I saw the fear and the hurt in her eyes staring right back at me.

And I felt it. It was right there in me too.

“Millie needs to come back to us,” she said. “Whatever the cost, Lucas, Millie needs to come back to us!”

I couldn’t argue with that, so I didn’t try, just stared at a picture of my beautiful little girl hanging above the TV, with her sweet little smile grinning bright as she held up a handful of daisies she’d picked from the garden. I wanted my daughter back enough that I’d have bled for her, but it wasn’t fair. Surely it couldn’t be fair to lose Anna. None of this could be fair for Anna and I to lose each other all over again.

“You are going to try again with Maya, aren’t you? You are going to get your family back together and get Millie back here?”

And the pang of guilt in me said that I should. Just like it always had done, right from the beginning. It said that I’d misread everything about Maya and how she felt about me. That maybe all the spite and disgust and criticism she’d dished out to me over the years was because I didn’t love her enough and never had. And maybe I should’ve seen it. I saw it as her not giving any more of a shit for me than I gave about her and being trapped for the sake of Millie, but maybe I was wrong.