Page 32 of Chasing Riddick

Alexa Play: Young I’m out on a jog. No need to come by. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.

Turtle:

Woah, no way, dude. That’s dope! Happy 2 hear. Have a good run; holler at me later, brother. Let’s shred the cove tomorrow *hang loose emoji*

Finn:

*hang loose emoji*

I tossed the phone back on the table and crawled into bed with

Finn. Slipping under the covers with him, I lay down, positioning my head directly in his line of sight.

“Hey, baby boy…” I murmured softly, brushing his hair away from his face again. It’d become a bad habit of mine. Any excuse to touch him, really.

I loved his hair so much. It was so soft, and I imagined it was liquid sunshine every time I ran my fingers through it.

“I didn’t realize today was the anniversary of your mom’s death,” I whispered, and his empty expression sharpened slightly.

He winced, and my heart cracked. Seeing him in pain felt like a punch to my gut.

“Shh, it’s okay, baby; we don’t have to talk about it. If you want to lie here all day, I’ll lie with you. ”

His eyes finally locked with mine, and I watched as they filled with tears, somehow making them look even bigger and more expressive than normal.

“She… she used to tell me that I wasn’t alone because I had her.” He hiccupped, his voice cracking over his words like tiny shards of glass.

“Oh, baby… come here…” I whispered, wrapping my arms around him and tugging him into my chest.

He broke down and sobbed, curling his hands in my T-shirt like he was a drowning man and I was his life raft.

“I’m here, Finn. I’ve got you. You’re not alone,” I whispered to him, rocking him gently as he continued to cry.

Even as I said the words, guilt curled in my gut and I hated myself for saying them when they weren’t promises I could keep.

When the time came, I would have to let him go.

He couldn’t stay with me. He deserved more than a secret relationship born in a closet full of skeletons.

He deserved to be loved in the sun by someone who still knew how to find joy in life.

And I could never give him that.

But… for right now, he needed to feel like he wasn’t alone, and he wasn’t. He had me. I was here. I was with him.

I would go to war against the universe itself if it tried to make me leave him when he so clearly needed me here to hold him.

His tears soaked through the cotton of my shirt, and in that moment, if I could have traded places with his mother and given her back to him, I would have done it in a heartbeat… but that’s not real life, and real life is shit.

So, instead, I just held him until his sobs turned into sniffles, and his sniffles turned into tiny, gentle snores.

I don’t know how long we laid there, but the sun went down, and the moon came up by the time he finally woke up.