Page 45 of One Little Kiss

Colton’s strides are no match for mine, though, and he’s halfway up the stairs before I reach him.

“Colton,” I gasp. “Please. Please don’t.”

But it’s too late. Colton rips open the door, nearly tearing it from the old, wooden frame, and then it comes. The scream. The sounds of skin hitting skin.

I bound up the stairs as fast as my body allows.

At the top, I push Colton out of the way and enter our small home. I drop to my knees in front of Weston, holding his hands at his sides. Holding his little body to mine. I rock and sing and cry. It’s the only pattern I know some days. Rock. Sing. Cry as Weston writhes beneath me, attempting to free his hands. Little hands that want to connect so badly with something. Anything. Usually his head. I don’t understand it. I hate it. I hate it more than anything, but I know it will pass. I just have to hold him. Rock him. Sing to him. And cry.

Long moments, or short hours, I’m not sure. Eventually, his body goes limp. His fingers doing their dance, searching for his trains. Ring fingers, pointer fingers, middle fingers. Over and over again until I fill his tiny grasp with a blue toy train that cut my forehead open earlier, and a little white helicopter with a painted-on smile in his other hand.

At almost three years old, Weston’s words, when he chooses to use them, always threaten to rip my heart from my chest.

“Momma. Momma,” he whispers, running the back of his knuckles over my face.

“Shhh. Wes. Shh. It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay. It was an accident. I’m okay.”

When his eyes dart around our home as they always do when he’s nervous, I know the instant he notices Colton and my heart breaks all over again. I’m not surprised he stayed for the show, but it’ll only be a matter of minutes before he runs away as fast as he can.

“Thupahero?” Weston asks with wonder.

It takes every ounce of strength I have, but I turn to face Colton, fully expecting to give him an out. What I see stalls the breath in my lungs.

Colton smirks at my little brother with kind eyes and a gentle demeanor. He crosses the room slowly and kneels down beside me.

“Do you like superheroes, little man?”

Weston nods with a smile that could rival Christmas morning.

Colton grins, easy and loving as he rests back on his heels. “Then I guess I’m your superhero, buddy.”

“Thupa. Thupa fly?” My little brother is full of wide-eyed wonder, and I’m struggling to breathe.

My mouth is moving, but once again, I’ve forgotten how to speak. Colton reaches over and closes my mouth. The gesture is so innocent yet so familiar tears spring to the backs of my eyes.

“I can’t fly, buddy. But I can fix things.” He’s speaking to my brother, but his gaze never leaves mine. “Right now, I’m going to fix up Winnie here. Is that okay?”

Weston whimpers.

“I know, buddy. It’s okay.”

I need to put a stop to this insanity. But Wes is attempting to talk. To a stranger. I don’t know if it’s the superhero angle, or if he’s as smitten as I was the first time I met him, but I can’t take my eyes off the two of them. Wes doesn’t do strangers. He took stranger danger to new heights, and it never left him.

Weston holds up his train, then covers his ears.

“The train came, and we weren’t ready for it,” I explain. “Loud noises scare him.”

“A train came, and you don’t like the noise?” he repeats to Wes, who shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything.

When his little lip trembles, I know we’ve pushed him too much. “Wes? Buddy? How about if I let you watch a show while I help Mr. Westbrook out?”

Wes is a kid that needs a routine. I’ve known that for a while, and this is surely going to make tomorrow miserable, but I don’t have much of a choice. Moving through our home, my body suddenly feels too heavy to hold myself up. I need to get Colton out of here.

“Well, that’s not happening.”

My head whips to Colton, and I blink away the sudden wooziness. “What’s not happening?”

“I’m not leaving you here, Winnie. Not with that cut on your head, and not with your front door like that.” He points to the open door, and I cringe. My front door hangs by one hinge, and I can tell it won’t shut properly just by looking at it.