Page 125 of Shattered Promise

“Okay,” I whisper. “Hospital first.”

He presses a kiss to my forehead. Then we step toward the door together—his jacket still around my shoulders, his arm tight around my waist.

The night outside smells like petrichor and clean rain. Somewhere, behind us, Lisa screams again. But I don’t look back.

Because I’m walking forward into the rest of my life with Mason at my side.

And I’m finally free.

47

ABBY

The porch swingcreaks under my weight, wood warm beneath my bare legs. It’s midmorning, the kind of bright that makes everything feel freshly laundered. Sunlight catches in the curls at the ends of my hair, still damp from a shower, and I wrap both hands around the mug resting on my belly. Chamomile and honey. Mason’s new mission is hydration and rest, in that order.

Inside, Theo babbles at his stacking cups, his voice drifting through the screen door in soft bursts. He’s so close to talking that the girls and I have taken bets to see what his first word will be. The winner gets to choose the book club picks for three months.

I still think it’s going to be Dada.

A month ago, I was tied to a chair inside a strange apartment after being abducted from my cabin. Now, I’m wrapped in quiet and birdsong, the wind rustling through trees like a lullaby I forgot I knew. The safety is so quiet it feels surreal.

A soft creak of the screen door, and then his shadow. His presence always arrives a second before he does.

Mason steps onto the porch, barefoot, carrying a folded blanket and Theo. He doesn’t say anything at first, just gives methat quiet, scowling once-over like he’s trying to diagnose me by proximity.

“It’s seventy-five degrees,” I murmur without looking up.

He drops the blanket in my lap anyway. “You need to rest. And there’s a breeze.”

I smirk. “A seventy-five degree breeze.”

He crouches beside me, warm palm brushing over my knee, then up and over my stomach, slowly. “How’s our baby today?”

A small smile tips up the corner of my mouth. I love it, the way he’s so attentive, so invested in this tiny little miracle we’ve made.

“Good,” I murmur, resting my hand over his.

Theo’s squeal of delight breaks the air a moment later, and he crawls from Mason’s knee into my lap. I hand Mason my mug and settle Theo on top of me, kind of wedged along the back of the newly installed porch swing.

Mason settles onto the porch next to the swing, his arm stretching to rest his palm on Theo’s ankle and my stomach.

He’s not even trying to hide it anymore, the way he needs to be touching both of us at once. Like that contact is the only thing keeping the world from splitting open. I pretend not to notice, but the truth is, it never stops undoing me.

“I love you,” I murmur, brushing my lips over Theo’s hair and looking at Mason.

He meets my gaze head-on, the words snagged somewhere in the rough of his throat, but his hand tightens over mine, thumb stroking the sensitive skin at my wrist. “Love you too, Trouble,” he says, voice low and almost reverent, like he’s just now figuring out how to say it without breaking.

Theo giggles at nothing and tries to pull a tassel off the blanket. I watch them both, the way Mason’s eyes soften around the edges of his scowl, the way he lets his guard slip for this boy, for me.

I never understood before—how love could be something that cracks you open and then stitches you back together, softer and stranger, with the seams showing. I used to think love was about being seen at your best—your most polished, your most together. I thought if I could just be the perfect daughter, the perfect sister, the perfect girlfriend, then maybe I’d finally be enough for someone to stay.

But Mason doesn’t love me for my pieces, or for the shine I put on for the world. He loves the parts that are bruised and unfinished, the parts I used to hide. The way my hands shake after nightmares, the way I hum when I’m nervous, the way I never learned to sleep through thunderstorms and wake up gasping for air. He sees it all, and doesn’t flinch. He just learns the shapes of my fears and fits himself into the gaps, a gravity that holds me steady even when everything else is spinning.

Theo babbles something that sounds like “dada,” and Mason’s face splits in a reluctant, lopsided grin.

“I told you,” I murmur, staring at our boy.

“Yeah, you were right,” he says, not looking at me, but I can hear the smile in his voice, the pride that softens every line of him.