...And He's Back (Book One, Breaking Open Series)

Hey Firecracker

"Vice Versa Chicken Butt."

He laughs as he shuts the door and pulls away. Exhaustion gnaws at me and a little itty bit of fear slithers in my blood as I watch his car drive down the road away from me. Now I can understand what he was saying about his career being hard for whoever he married. It isn't the being alone or possibly having to take care of our future kids by myself... it's not knowing if he's going to come back home to me.

I push the fear down and decide not to marinade in it. Worrying solves nothing. The best thing to do is have faith that he'll be safe and to go about my day. I send up a little prayer as I walk in my childhood home.

Am comes around the corner as if she had been waiting for me. "Fun date?"

"The best." I give my cocky grin and she beams.

Matt comes walking in and kisses my head. "You look exhausted, maybe you should take a nap before dinner."

My whole body feels heavy. "Yeah learning how to shoot really takes the energy out of you."

"Yeah, go rest up." He says absently and as I walk up the stairs with my sore leg I hear him yell, "He taught you what?!"

Laughter slides through my throat as I reach the top and head to my old room to nap. Once I'm comfortably in bed I hold my hand up lazily looking at my ring. I'm surprised nobody saw it. I didn't try hiding my hand or anything because I was too distracted by the need to sleep.

My eyes slowly close and the vision of taillights haunt me for the rest of my sleep. I dream of chasing after a car and thinking it's my dad, but it's not... it's Owen. He's not looking back at me. Instead of being on two strong legs, I only have one. My body feels broken but I fight it in an effort to get the car to stop. My heavy arm reaches out but no amount of stretching will get it to stop. The car disappears and I'm left ripped open and bleeding on the street as I cry. The earth rumbles and the street cracks underneath me and swallows me up.

My eyes snap open and I'm facing the window that has full view of the dark street. I take a deep breath and roll over from my side to my back and shakily push some hair out of my face. I had thought I had healed from the past, but it always tries to come back and haunt me.

A hand comes out of nowhere stroking my hair. I turn and see my mom. She smiles down at me and points her head down to the bed. I move over and she snuggles in the bed with me as her perfect smooth hair touches my gnarly locks. Our color is the same but everything else is different.

"I'm sorry." She whispers out. "I know it will take time for you to forgive me, but I want you to know how horrible I feel for hurting you so badly all these years."

My fingers lac with hers and I reminded of all the times she would come to my bed to snuggle with me the nights I cried myself to sleep after dad. I had always thought she had been so strong but what I'm realizing now is that she had just ignored her pain to take care of us. She never fully dealt with it.

She doesn't stop stroking my hair as I ask, "Why did dad leave us?"

Her majestic blue eyes fall away from my face and a deep sorrow I had never really seen before clouds her vision. "After I had you, life became complicated for me. I had two children to take care of, a career that was just beginning and a husband who was becoming increasingly demanding. Believe it or not sweetie that personality of yours doesn't come from your dad, but me. So much so, that we argued a lot and I wasn't always respectful." She pauses smiling a little and gives herself a minute before continuing, "I was so much like you. I wore sweats around the house and never really put a ton of effort into how I looked because I thought I didn't need to. He hated it and started saying things to me. When my career was beginning to take shape he ordered me to stop and focus on you kids. I did what he said and wanted to fix myself and our marriage so I took all the criticism and stored them, fixed them. Over the years though he became increasingly happy. No matter what I did or how I changed nothing ever pleased him. One day he said he couldn't take it anymore and that he wasn't meant for it... then left."