My stomach dropped when I saw Brandon’s Jeep in the driveway. Not bothering with the garage, in case I felt the need to make a hasty retreat again, I put my Expedition in park and just stared at the door. He was going to be so pissed. The few times I’d ever seen him truly angry were terrifying, and his anger hadn’t even been directed at me. Glancing down to my knotted hands in my lap, I was surprised when a tear fell onto my arm. Brushing the wetness from my cheeks I took a deep shuddering breath and got Liam and myself out of the car. I’d barely shut the front door when I heard Brandon running down the hallway. He skidded to a stop when he saw us and I inhaled a gasp. He wasn’t pissed, but he looked terrible. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot with dark half circles underneath. One hand was steadying himself against the wall while the other was clutching at his bare chest, rising and falling quickly with labored breaths.
“You – you’re –” He cursed softly and pressed his lips tightly together.
Liam started wiggling against me and asking for his dad, so I set him on the floor, watching as he quickly crawled toward Brandon. Brandon dropped hard to his knees and scooped him up in a tight hug, a sob breaking out of his chest. My chest tightened, I’d seen Brandon cry before, but he was always silent and as controlled as could be during those times. To watch his shoulders shake mercilessly and hear him continue to choke on his tears broke my heart worse than I thought possible. He rolled over until he was propped up against the wall and curled his body around Liam, murmuring things too low for me to hear.
On shaky legs, I walked into the hall and sat down against the wall opposite them, my knees barely brushing Brandon’s feet. At the contact, he abruptly stood up with our son and walked into the nursery. A wave of nausea rolled through me, but with the lack of morning sickness this pregnancy, I figured it had a lot more to do with the fact that I’d screwed up this situation even more, than with the pregnancy itself. The nursery door shut some time later, and Brandon’s hand stopped in front of me in offering. Placing my hand in his, I let him help me up, where he proceeded to lift me into his arms and carry me to our bedroom. Each step was careful as his brown eyes bore into my gray ones, when we reached the bed he laid me down so gently, as if he thought I would break from anything more. Without breaking contact from my eyes, he crawled in next to me, and rolled me onto my side so we were facing each other. I reached up to brush the remaining tears from his face, and traced the shadows under his eyes. Catching my hand, he kissed my palm, then the tattoo on my wrist before releasing my hand so he could cradle my face.
“Brandon, I –”
He brushed his thumb over my lips and slowly shook his head, “I was stupid.” His voice was soft but rougher than usual, “So stupid. I missed fighting, and hated that people thought I stopped because I was scared. When he called –” his eyes briefly left mine as he tried to search for words, “it was like what happened last year was nothing, just another minor injury. I felt like I needed to prove something to myself, to Scarecrow, to Demon…everyone. I knew leaving was about the worst thing I could do, and I knew you would hate me when I got home, but I couldn’t stop. I had to go, I had to fight.
“I felt sick as soon as the fight was over, I knew I’d f**ked up. I should have felt that the minute you stepped away from me when you realized what was happening, but I’d been too wrapped up in it all to even absorb what you were saying to me until it was done. I got here as fast as possible, ready to get on my knees and beg you to forgive me for doing that to you…it never occurred to me you’d be gone.” The pain in his eyes was tearing at me and he had to take a few deep breaths before continuing, “We tried calling you dozens of times, Jeremy went to Mom’s house to look for you, the rest of us went to Robert and Claire’s. Claire lost it when she realized she’d let both of you just leave. No one had any idea where you would have gone. God Harper, I thought I’d never see you or Liam again. You, Liam and the baby are my world. I don’t know how to live without you. I know I messed up, I know I hurt you, but please don’t do that to me again. I love you more than my own life Harper. I’m so sorry for hurting you.”
I studied his face as I spoke, “I felt like you didn’t care about us enough, if you would go and do something like that, without a thought as to how it could hurt our family.”
Brandon’s eyes shut tight and he dropped his head into the crook of my neck, breathing in deep. “That couldn’t be fur–”
“Brandon? Harper?!”
We sat up at Bree’s shrill voice and were off the bed before she got to the room. Taking four long steps toward us, her palm connected with my face before I even registered her hand swinging back.
“Breanna!” Konrad yelled and reached for her.
Brandon cupped my cheeks gently, his eyes wide with shock, fear and anger. Before he could say or do anything, Bree was pulling me into her arms for a too-tight embrace.
“You can’t do that.” She cried and clutched me even tighter, “You can’t leave. We thought – we thought you were gone for good. You made me go so you could leave! Why wouldn’t you tell me? You’re my sister, you can’t just leave. I’ve been going crazy looking for you, Mom and Dad are so upset –” She continued to ramble until her body was shaking.
“Shh.” I ran my hand through her short hair, “It’s okay Bree. I’m not going anywhere.” After sitting both of us on the bed, I rubbed small circles on her back and let her cry. Looking at Konrad and Brandon, I realized how much every one of us in our ever-growing, mismatched family needed each other. There was so much loss for everyone that we all clung to each other for one reason or another. Anything we did immediately affected the rest of us, something I should have taken into consideration before trying to avoid my husband for a little over a day.