What if she’s changed? it whispered. Or even worse, what if she’s the same? What if she drips little bits of poison in his ear and he comes back and despises you? She’ll tell him it was your fault she left. That she couldn’t deal with you. He was just a little guy, after all. Wasn’t he? A five-year-old with a mouth that a brain couldn’t quite catch up with, but he was just so little. And you were old enough to know the world had teeth, and when it latched on, shaking its head side to side, it would tear and shred. She knew that too and didn’t want to get pulled down with you. So she left, and she’ll tell him as much.

I held my phone and waited.

THEY CAME back, Dom and him, the Kid looking no worse for wear.

Except.

Except—

“So, you guys are fucking now?” I asked, leaning against the counter.

And everything pretty much exploded after that.

HE SAID, “I met Izzie.”

And goddamn, did that make me take a step back. “Isabelle?”

“Bear, she’s… amazing. She’s like me. Smarter, even. I don’t know if I have words to even describe her.” He shook his head. “No, I take that back. She’s like us. She’s you and me.”

“We can’t….”

“I know. There’s nothing… bad happening. I don’t think. She wasn’t bruised. But Julie was never like that.”

“There’s more than one type of abuse,” I muttered, thinking of those days when she’d be on the couch, the cigarette smoke thick and blue around her in that shitty fucking apartment with the splintered stairs. Get me some ice, she’d say. Get me some ice for my Jack. I don’t like it when it’s warm.

AND HERE it was. This moment. The one I’d been anticipating and dreading all at the same time.

He was going back.

We were staying here.

I’m proud of you. More than I could ever say. No matter what happens, I want you to know that.

I know.

Just remember your promise. Okay? Whatever you’ve decided to do. Please. That’s… that’s all I ask.

You and me. That’ll never change, Papa Bear.

“YOU CALL me,” I told him the morning he left. “Every day. No, two times a day. You know what? Don’t even worry about it. I’ll call you. Just make sure you answer.”

He laughed wetly, and I had to look away. I needed to hold on until he left.

It was just the three of us, just me, Otter, and the Kid. He’d already said goodbye to Dom earlier before he’d had to go on shift.