Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
The message ends and the silence feels deafening. The room stays the same but nothing inside me does. My body feels wrong—too heavy, too light, like gravity hasn’t decided what it wants from me.
I haven’t heard her voice in almost fourteen years. My last communications with her were all done through the social worker assigned to my case. My mother never called me, never asked to see me. Instead, they passed along messages of disappointment in my actions, requests I change my story, and ultimately, a goodbye when they relinquished custody. That was in the form of a handwritten note.
“This is for the best,” she had written.
For a long time, I ached to hear from her. While I wasn’t overly close to my father, I had thought my mother loved me. We had a bond, but later I learned that was only as good as how obedient I was. Once I decided to be my own person, she didn’t want me anymore.
It took me until I was sixteen before I stopped wondering about my parents. It wasn’t a conscious decision to ban them from my thoughts, but more like the way you stop touching a hot surface after it burns you enough times.
Alive or dead, it hadn’t mattered. They were gone either way, and I moved on.
And now my mother is calling me, because she’s lost and wants comfort?
“Juno,” Crosby asks gently, hands moving to my shoulders, “are you okay?”
Am I okay? I mean… I found out my dad’s dead from the woman who abandoned me, and… am I okay?
I snap and rip free from his hold. “No!” I shout, the word ripping out of my chest. “No, I’m not okay.”
Crosby takes a small step back and I appreciate that space. His expression is empathetic, his unwavering gaze telling me that he’s there to catch me when I’m ready.
I pace angry steps across the kitchen, through the living room, back again. My hands shake and I don’t try to stop them.
“She doesn’t get to call me,” I say, my voice rising as I point accusingly at the phone. “She doesn’t get to cry to me like I’m some emergency contact she forgot to update. They gave me away. They didn’t even bother to sit down face-to-face and tell me. No, they wrote a note, reducing me to paperwork.”
Crosby doesn’t interrupt. He watches, eyes steady and gentle.
“They never once reached out. No birthdays. No holidays. No letters. Nothing.” My laugh is harsh and ugly. “I didn’t even know if they were alive and I didn’t care. I trained myself not to.”
I drag a hand through my hair, pacing again. “And now she wants me because she’s alone? Because she doesn’t know what to do without him? What about when I didn’t know what to do without parents?”
My chest aches, breath coming too fast.
“They didn’t love me,” I say, the words tumbling out. “Not really. Because if they did—if they loved me even a little—they wouldn’t have done that.”
“I know,” Crosby says, and those two words of affirmation have me crumbling.
The anger subsides and I’m hit with a monstrous wave of grief.
My knees buckle without warning, but Crosby is lightning fast, there to catch me and sweep me into his arms. He moves to the couch, cradles me in his lap as a sob tears out of me, violent and unrestrained.
I try to shut it off, clamping down on my emotions, but I feel like I’m strangling. Crosby’s hand is at my back, and his words come out in soothing breaths of calm. “Let it go, Juno. Don’t you dare try to hold that in when I’ve got you.”
My control breaks like it’s made of spun glass, but I know I’d never let that happen if it weren’t for Crosby’s strong body holding me. I cry—soundless at first, then breaking, gasping.
I clutch at his shirt, fingers curling tight as I finally let it go. “I wasn’t worth staying for,” I choke. “I wasn’t worth fighting for.”
“No,” he says firmly, one hand cradling the back of my head, the other pressing me close. “That’s not true.”
I shake my head against his chest. “It is.”
He holds me tighter, his voice low but unwavering. “Parents don’t do that. Not healthy ones. Not ones who are wired right. They were broken, Juno. And that has nothing—nothing—to do with you.”
I sob harder at that, the truth of it cracking me open.
“They failed you,” he continues. “That’s on them. You don’t owe your mother a single thing. Not a call. Not comfort. Not forgiveness.”
His thumb brushes slow circles against my arm. “And if one day you decide you want to talk to her—on your terms—you can. But only if it serves you. Whatever you choose, I’m here.”
His words resonate, so resoundingly, I manage a deep breath. I pull back enough to look at him, my face wet and wrecked, my chest still heaving.