Page 6

Six

Belle

I hear the video game turn on and suck back my soda for courage.

He remembered I’m addicted to it.

Will drink it any time of day—or had drank it any time of day before shit got real and my budget meant that I couldn’t afford it.

Now, it’s an indulgence that’s few and far between.

Food for my kid, drinks for my kid and then stuff for me.

It’s how it should be.

It’s not how I had it, but it’s how West had it—good parents, people who looked out for him, who loved him, who loved me …

At least until I drove them all away.

But I still kept him, kept them…in Quinn—giving him the love he needed, giving him everything I could.

And that all worked great.

Until Quinn got sick.

And the bills piled up.

And I was evicted.

And I was— am —desperate.

“I shouldn’t have gone to the rink,” I begin, setting my can onto the counter with a soft click .

“Why’s that?”

So many reasons.

So many that I can’t immediately answer.

He sighs when the silence stretches and comes close, resting a hip against the cabinets. He’s all of three feet away from me, but he may as well be on the other side of the Grand Canyon.

And I did that. I created that gulf between us.

But he doesn’t push—just keeps leaning against the counter, keeps looking at me.

Keeps waiting .

It’s stifling, that attention. Painful, the memories. Terrifying, being here.

And yet…I have nowhere else to go.

And those are the words that slide off my tongue, drift through the air.

“I have nowhere else to go,” I whisper, tracing my finger through the condensation on the side of the can, creating nonsensical patterns on the aluminum. “ We have nowhere else to go.”

He had been leaning, his arms and ankles lazily crossed, but my words have him straightening. “What do you mean that you have nowhere else to go?” His voice is quiet, his eyes flicking toward the family room.

“Quinn—”

My voice cracks, tears filling my eyes. “He knows,” I whisper. “I tried to hide it from him, spin it as an adventure. But…” I exhale, try to blink back the tears.

“He’s smart.”

I nod, a bolt of warmth sliding through me at the matter-of-factness in West’s tone. “He’s smart,” I agree. “He figured it out, even though I tried to shield him from the reality of our situation.”

“And what is the reality of your situation, Belle?”

A quiet question, but one that’s as insidious as what I’d asked him earlier in the locker room.

I force my eyes to remain on his as I say, “The reality is that I have nothing but the car back at the arena and our bags of clothes in the trunk. And Quinn,” I whisper. “I have Quinn, who’s everything.”

West’s expression is unreadable. “Where’s Quinn’s dad?”

I sigh. Because it’s a fair question. Because I wish I knew.

“He was a one-night stand,” I say softly.

The silence that falls between us is terrible. “Right after you left—” He jerks and I hurry to go on, “I couldn’t hack it at home any longer. My parents were…” I shake my head. “They were themselves, and your parents were upset for you, obviously.”

He jerks again.

“So, I finished my junior year, waited it out until I turned eighteen that summer. Then I used my savings to buy a car, packed up my stuff, and got the hell out of there. I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving, didn’t bother with my senior year, and I certainly didn’t graduate”—something that’s come back to bite me time and again during my job searches over the last decade—“I just…left. And for a while, it was great. I had all the confidence of a newly turned eighteen-year-old with no fear and a joy for everything that I was experiencing—the open road, lots of odd jobs, sleeping under the stars, seeing all the things I dreamed of.”

“Yellowstone?” he asks softly.

My heart spasms—he remembered that too—but I nod, force myself to keep going. “Yes,” I murmur. “I spent six months in Wyoming, working and saving up money so I could keep moving west, and I did it spending every single free moment seeing all that Yellowstone has to offer.”

“Was it what you wanted it to be?”

“Better.” My mind drifts, bringing me back to that time. “It’s so vast and varied and, aside from holding Quinn that first time, I’ve never experienced something so awe-inspiring and beautiful. Not before or since.”

“I’m glad you had that.”

I shake myself, realize that West has come closer—near enough that he brushes away a rogue tear that has escaped and is skating down my cheek.

“It’s where I met Quinn’s dad,” I tell him. “I was working at a restaurant in Jackson, picking up a couple of shifts before I moved on and…I did something rash. He flirted. I flirted back and”—a breath to shore myself up—“I took him back to the room I was renting. But the condom broke and”—I force myself to keep my eyes open, to hold this man’s gaze—“he left while I was cleaning up and I never saw him again. Stupid, huh?”

West’s face is gentle. “You were a kid—stupid kind of goes along with that.”

I smile begrudgingly. “You’re not wrong.”

His soft laughter is one of the best sounds I’ve ever heard.

I always loved making him laugh.

That unsticks something in me, and the words I never wanted to say aloud slip out, “He looked like you.”

West’s mouth drops open.

“He had your eyes and he was strong and…I let myself pretend that night.”

“Baby.”

“But he wasn’t you,” I whisper. “Though he gave me the best gift of my life.”

“ Baby.”

“I waited for him to show up,” I go on, having to finish this. “But when he didn’t come back after a few months…I knew I had to move on. My car wasn’t equipped for winter somewhere that actually snows, and the drive to my doctor alone would be dangerous once the weather turned. So, I headed for sunnier climates and better social services and schools and…somewhere I would just be another face, rather than the girl who got pregnant.”

And I made it work. It was hard, but eventually, I found work as an assistant. It was— is —demanding. But it’s also fun and challenging and I like my boss.

“We were steady. Stable. Always riding that razor’s edge but surviving. I even put money away for Quinn for college”—money, that if I was able to touch again because it wasn’t in his protected account, would have saved us from the eviction—“but then Quinn got sick and I had to take paid family leave and FMLA.” He jerks. “He’s okay now,” I hurry to add. “He had a really bad infection and spent nearly two months in the hospital, but he’s okay.”

“I’m glad, baby.”

I nod. “So while my job was safe, I only got seventy percent of that pay during that time and…” I bite the inside of my cheek. “That razor’s edge…it cut.” More tears slip free.

He touches my cheek again, catching them as they fall. “You don’t have to tell me the rest.”

Except…I do.

Because I need him to understand.

“And then my car bit it. That was the death knell. I had to buy the beater you saw that barely runs because it was all I could afford. And buying it meant I got further behind on everything—rent, work, those medical bills.” Shame ripples over me. “I tried everything—food pantries, negotiating with the hospital to lower the debt, making installment payments. I applied for grants, begged my landlord…”

His hand finds mine.

“Today was the day we had to leave our apartment,” I say softly. “And Quinn won tickets to the game tonight, and I knew we couldn’t go home, same as I knew that I had no business taking him to the game. But he won the tickets at a raffle at school and, yes, my boy has a phone and he has food in his belly, but he’s never had that —never gone to a sports game, never sat in great seats, never had souvenir snacks or a hat with a hockey team emblazoned on the front…”

It’s all secondhand clothes and store-brand foods and far too many cans of beans.

“And then,” I whisper, “I saw you out there on the ice.”