Page 99 of Reverie

Am I prepared to be alone with her?

What do you want your relationship with your mother to look like?Winter asked me all those days ago.

She told me to think about it, and I haven’t allowed myself to.

But as she stands in front of me, just the two of us, I admit the truth of what I want.

I want my mom.

I want the woman back who was my soft place, my safe place. I want to know that the first person to care about me, the only person to love me as a child, is still there.

I want to be a man that she would be proud of.

I look at my palms before rubbing them on my thighs.

But maybe I’ve done too much damage for that to ever be possible.

“I don’t have to stay,” she says, her voice a whisper.

She tries to smile, but it falls.

I don’t recognize my voice when I say, “You can stay.”

I drop to the step.

Her shoulders lower as if she’d tensed every muscle in her body as she waited for my answer.

I slide over to the side a few inches, giving her space to sit.

When she’s next to me, I realize that she still smells the same. Lavender and vanilla.

It’s a soft scent and fitting for Amelia Brigham as I knew her. I’m unsure if it fits with who she is now.

Do I have any clue who she is now?

“I’m really sorry about BwP,” she says.

I quirk my mouth to the side. I’m not sorry about BwP. I had one foot out of the company for the longest time anyway.

But I’m devastated by the lives lost. I’ll carry the weight of their deaths for the rest of my life.

Four hundred and thirty-five lives and counting.

“It’s…” I don’t want to say it’s okay because it’s not. “It is what it is.”

“Yeah,” she says. She puts her hands next to her hips and rocks forward a fraction.

I say, “Sorry I’ve been a dick?—”

She says, “I don’t know how I’ll ever apologize?—”

We start talking at the same time, and we both release a chuckle. When we look at each other, her functional eye crinkles with amusement.

As I register her words, though, my jaw ticks.

“You haven’t been a dick, Hunter.” She grins a bit. “Sorry, I’m always getting used to the fact that you’re a man now.”

The words are like ice water to the face.