as it is || harry styles au

bonus epilogue

     Ivy nodded.

     "Breathe, Mama. Collect yourself. I'll come back up, and we'll talk to James."

     Another nod. "Okay."

     "Okay?" I checked.

     "Okay."

     I touched her chin with my thumb."Good girl."

     Her eyes flared as she looked up at me. I knew that phrase would bring her back to life. I gave her a quick kiss, then went back downstairs.

     "Dada, I'm almost done!" Camden announced the moment I stepped into the kitchen.

"That's great, CamCam. Let me see what you've completed."

     I may or may not have given him the answers to the last page of his multiplication problems, so he could go outside five minutes earlier than usual. He was a smart kid. I'd review it all with him tomorrow. And it's in the name of his brother's mental health.

...

We were outside Jamie's closed bedroom door, waiting for him to answer our knock.

"Please, bub. Talk to us."

The door was locked, and while I respected our teenager's privacy, I wasn't above picking the damn thing.

With every second that passed, the more I felt Ivy's anxiety grow.

     I would never understand what it was like in her shoes. The vastly misplaced guilt that rose from the grave of her mind from time to time.

It didn't dawn on me until I felt her trembling beside me that this might be too much for her. Fifteen years dreading this very moment. Having to tell her son what a monster his biological father was, and that it had nothing to do with who he was today.

What if I could take that off her shoulders?

The last fucking thing I wanted was for my wife to re-experience one of the most traumatic nights of her life. While Jamie wouldn't be hearing a single second of that story, this certainly dug up old traumas for her.

I pulled Ivy into Camden's room a couple steps away.

"Let me talk to him first," I told her. "Let me do this for you."

She shook her head. "He has to hear it from me."

"I know, baby. But let me at least see where his head's at first, okay? It might be too much for him to have us both in there."

She contemplated this. Tears flooded her eyes, and my heart lurched in my chest at seeing her pain. I'd do anything to take it away.

"You and him have always had a special bond," she choked out. "You read him so well."

Fuck. Now, she had a lump forming at the base of my throat.

She was right. Ivy was the one person Jamie loved most in the world. Nothing was more important to him than his mum. And while I hadn't been with Jamie all his life, I'd been in his life far longer than I'd been out of it. Over the past decade, our bond had gone through trials and tribulations. The few rough spots we hit were after Camden was born. He'd been eight-years-old. I noticed he was always quiet around me. He stopped making eye contact with me. He distanced himself from me. I tried time and time again to talk to him. I told him that he was just as much my son as Camden was. Jamie was my first child. My first son. He was mine before I even knew he existed. I fell in love with him instantly.