Avenging Angel (Pounding Hearts 5)

Everyone looks so happy, so relaxed and at ease with each other, I can’t help but be a little disturbed by it.

Yeah, I guess I’m really fucked up if the sight of a happy family seems strange to me. It’s so foreign to me, I might as well be watching aliens.

Aliens who seem to be happy just being in each other’s company.

Standing here in the doorway, I’ve never felt more like an outsider.

Where do I even fit in here?

I don’t know how to act like them… to be like them. Not with all this shit I’ve got up in my head.

My eyes drift over to my mom sitting beside Logan. He has his big, hairy arm wrapped around her waist and she’s leaning into his side with a smile on her face.

She’s always been my anchor, my place in the world. The only other person like me. But, even seated across from Chase and Avery, she looks like she belongs here. That she’s always belonged here, with her family.

The urge to flee, to escape, suddenly hits me. I’m an intruder, an interloper, and I should have never come here.

But before I can act on the urge, Logan’s deep, booming voice calls out to me.

“’Bout time you joined us, Ms. Sleepyhead.”

Panic grips me, and for a moment I can’t breathe.

I don’t want to ruin my mom’s happiness, but now that I’ve been spotted I can’t run away.

What the fuck do I do? I don’t want to taint this happy family with all my shit.

“Aubrey!” my mom exclaims and stands up from her chair.

I thought she looked happy before, but as soon as her bright gaze lands on me, her entire face lights up with unrepressed joy.

It’s enough, just enough to shatter all these insecurities that have suddenly consumed me.

I start to take a step toward her so she doesn’t have to leave her place when two little bodies suddenly slam into me.

“Aunt Bree!” two little voices squeal as they wrap themselves around my legs.

“Emma, Emily, let Bree go!” Avery says in her stern, mommy voice.

Ignoring their mother, Emma and Emily tip their identical little faces up to peer at me.

“We missed you!” one gushes with pure, childlike honesty while the other frowns, her eyes darkening with reproach.

“Yeah, why haven’t you visited us?”

I open my mouth, at a loss because I wasn’t expecting to get scolded by a five-year-old. Especially a five-year-old I’ve only met once before.

Yeah, I played with them off and on during the wedding to help keep them busy because there were points when they seemed to be getting antsy and bored, but I definitely didn’t expect them to remember me.

Stepping in to save me, Avery says, “Emily, don’t give Aunt Bree a hard time. You know she was at school and school is important.”

“Is that true?” Emily asks with a look of doubt that makes her look twice her age.

It’s mostly true, so I swallow down the sudden, unexplainable sense of guilt I’m experiencing and answer, “Yes, it’s true. You know I go to school in California…”

Emily purses her lips for a second, as if she’s digesting that information. Then, as if her reproach never existed, she beams at me.

“Okay! Want to play with us? Daddy let us bring our Barbies.”