Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart, #3)(90)

He exhaled a shaky sound and wrapped his arms around my neck.

Devotion pumped.

Intense.

Overpowering.

Blinding.

Could feel it streaking my veins and settling as a firm reality in my soul.

I carried him inside my house and carefully set him on the couch. “I’ll be right back. I want to show you something.”

He nodded, curiosity filling his expression, the kid all bony and angled, the sight of him hitting me so perfectly.

Emotion clawed my throat. Anxiety and hope going on a rampage. I rushed to my room. A couple seconds later, I reemerged at the end of the hall.

Benjamin remained on the couch. The glow of the evening light flooded in around him, and he cast me a timid smile. Unsure of what was going on.

And I was praying silently that I could explain this to him right, that I might be able to make him understand the position I’d been in when I’d made the worst decision of my life—praying harder that he wouldn’t hate me—as I slowly approached.

I was carrying the book with the dragon drawn in stencil on the spine.

The one that I’d found in my mother’s things. The one that had always felt like it meant something. Held a power beyond the pages of a book. Magic in the words. Life in the illustrations.

Carefully, I sank down on my knees in front of him. “I want to give you something.”

He angled his head, eyes scanning the crudely, gorgeously drawn cover. “Whhhat is it?”

Could barely swallow around the massive lump in my throat. “It’s a special book. It’s a special book that my mom made for me, and I found it at a time in my life when I felt like I couldn’t go on. When I felt like it was hopeless and everything in my world hurt too bad. When I didn’t want to go on any longer. When I wanted to give up.”

His brow pinched, and I edged up on my knees a bit and set the book on his lap. “Inside, it’s a story about a boy who felt the same way. Like he didn’t have the strength to become who he was always destined to be. But he found a friend in what he thought was supposed to be his enemy, and through that, he learned who he was. He found power in that. Even though it was hard and seemed impossible.”

I reached up and brushed my fingers through his hair, cupped the side of his face. “This boy reminds me of you, Benjamin. He’s as strong as stone and as fierce as a lion, yet, sometimes he gets scared. He doesn’t yet understand that he is meant for great things.”

My tone dropped close to desperation on the last.

Overcome. Past and present and the future toiling in the middle of me. Spinning through the space.

Regret and faith.

Is that what my mother had seen in me? What she’d hoped for? Her little boy who’d run around claiming he was a dragon. Powerful when he had no will? I fought the crushing thought that she would be ashamed with the direction I’d gone then. Devastated that she would never know who I was trying to become.

Loss curled through me in a way I hadn’t allowed it for so long. Memories of her had been shoved aside. Buried. Too much for me to bear or face or acknowledge.

Now they flooded.

Wave after wave of grief and sorrow.

“You tttthink I’m meant for ggggreat things?” Benjamin’s weary voice hitched in hope. Expanded with courage.

Affection tightened my chest, so overwhelming that I was finding it hard to find air. Knowing what I was coming up on. What I had to give him.

The coward in me wanted to deny what I’d done. And the rest of me? The part that would do anything for Izzy and her boys? He pressed on.

“I think you’re meant for very great things. I think you were sent to show this world what it’s like to really hope.”

Hope.

It struck like a monsoon. A bluster of power and violence.

Terrifying and beautiful.

“Ccccan I read it?” he asked in his sweet voice.

That lump throbbed. “How about you keep it?”

He blinked at me. “But yyyyour mom ggggave it to you.”

I ran my thumb over his cheek, a fucking rock in my spirit when I thought about confessing it.

But it was time.

Long since passed time.

I prodded him to look up at me when I murmured, “And now, I’m giving it to my son.”

Time stopped. The past and the future colliding.

He blinked more, those eyes moving over me like he was looking at me for the first time. Or maybe he was realizing why we’d shared that connection. Why it never had felt like we were standing in front of a stranger. Spirits recognizing the other.

Still, he asked, “Whhhhat dddo yyyou mean?” His words lurched more than normal, his tongue getting tied, agitated and confused and somehow laced with a thread that said he’d known it all along.

“I’m your father, Benjamin. Your dad. Your mom and I—”

Sadness moved through his face. “I know where bbbbabies come frrrom. I’m not sttttupid. Peoppple might think I am, but I’m smmmart.”

“I know you’re smart, Benjamin. So smart.”

He studied me, though for the first time it was done with distrust. “I look just liiikkke you.” He shoved his fists into his eyes like he was angry for not recognizing it immediately. “Youuu . . . youuu left us.”

I watched as the rest of the reality of it came speeding in. The confirmation more than he could handle. Tears leaked out from behind his fists.