His Chubby Obsession

Chapter Ten: Blood That Doesn't Protect You

I called her back that night, after Charlotte was asleep, sitting on the porch steps with my knees pulled up to my chest, the burner phone heavy in my hand like something I was about to detonate.

She picked up on the first ring, which told me she'd been sitting by whatever phone she'd used to call me, waiting.

"Emma." A sound between a sob and a sigh. "Oh, thank God. Thank God you're okay."

"How did you get this number, Mom?"

Silence, just a beat too long.

"Does it matter? I just needed to hear your voice, sweetheart. You disappeared in the middle of the night, no note, nothing, and I've been sick with worry, and Bruce says — "

"Bruce says." My hand tightened around the phone. "Of course. Of course Bruce says. Mom, how did you get this number?"

"He has people, Emma. People who find things." Her voice had gone brittle, defensive, the same tone she'd used my whole childhood whenever the truth was something she didn't want to hold. "He's not trying to hurt you. He just wants his family back together. He came to the house, he sat right at our kitchen table, and he cried, Emma. I've never seen that man cry in five years and he sat there and cried and told us how scared he is for you and Charlotte, out there God knows where, with God knows who — "

"With God knows who." I almost laughed, except nothing about this was funny. "Did he tell you about Valentina, Mom? Did he mention her, while he was crying at your kitchen table?"

Another silence, longer this time.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I bet you don't." My voice had gone very quiet, very flat, the voice I recognized from every time in my life I'd had to explain something painful to someone who didn't actually want to understand it. "I heard him, Mom. Him and Valentina Martinez, in his office, three nights before I left. Planning their life together once he had what he needed from me. Talking about Charlotte like she was a line item on a spreadsheet he could finally close out."

"Emma, that doesn't sound like — you must have misunderstood — "

"I didn't misunderstand a man saying he can't wait to file for divorce the day after our daughter's birthday party, so he can finally live the life he was supposed to have with someone else." Tears were running down my face now, hot and furious, but my voice stayed steady, which felt like its own small victory. "I didn't misunderstand him calling me a cow, Mom. Or disposable. Or a fat little nobody who gave him exactly what he needed and nothing more."

I heard her breath catch, a small broken sound, and for one terrible, hopeful second I thought — this is it, this is the moment she finally sees him, sees what she handed me over to —

"He's under so much pressure," she said instead. "The company, his grandfather's expectations, all of it. People say things they don't mean when they're stressed, Emma, you know that. Your father says things he doesn't mean all the time and I don't — "

"This isn't the same thing, and you know it isn't." I closed my eyes. Somewhere behind the tree line, an owl called, low and mournful, the only honest sound for miles. "Do you even want to know what he's actually like when there's no audience? Or is it just easier not to?"

"I want you to come home." She said it plainly, desperately, like it was the only sentence she had left. "I want you and Charlotte safe, and I want this family back together, and I don't understand why you're punishing all of us for one conversation you might have half-heard in the dark — "

"Mom." I said it sharp enough that she actually stopped. "Did he ask you to call me?"

The silence this time told me everything.

"He was worried," she finally whispered. "He just wanted to know you were okay."

"You gave him a way to find me."

"I didn't give him anything! I just — he asked if I'd heard from you, and I said no, not yet, and then he — he said if you called, to just — to just try to get you to talk to him. That's all. That's not the same as — "

"It's exactly the same as." My voice cracked, finally, the flatness giving way to something rawer underneath. "Mom, he is using you. He is using Dad's company, and your fear for me, and every soft place you have, to try to find me before I can get away for good. And you're letting him, because it's easier than believing your daughter married a monster."

"Don't call him that."

"Why not? It's true."

"Because your father's company — " She stopped herself, but not fast enough.

"Say it," I said. "Finish that sentence."

"Bruce's family is still the reason we're not bankrupt, Emma. If this marriage falls apart completely, if there's a scandal, if the Spears family decides they're done with us — " Her voice broke entirely now, and underneath the tears I heard something uglier surface, something that had probably always been there, waiting. "Your father could lose everything. We could lose everything. Is that what you want? For all of us to end up with nothing, because of one bad night?"

And there it was. Five years distilled into a single, honest sentence.

"One bad night," I repeated softly. "Is that what you think this is?"

"I didn't mean — "

"You did, though." I stood, brushing off the back of my jeans, my whole body strangely calm now, the way the ocean goes calm right before something enormous moves beneath the surface. "You meant exactly that. My safety, Charlotte's safety, none of it weighs as much to you as Dad's company staying afloat. It never did. That's why you pushed me down the aisle in the first place, isn't it? Not because you thought Bruce would make me happy. Because you needed him to save you."

"That's not fair."

"No," I agreed. "It isn't. None of it has been fair, for a very long time. I just finally noticed."

"Emma, please — "

"Don't give him this number again," I said. "Don't give him anything again. If you love me even a fraction as much as you love not being poor, you'll leave me alone until I decide I'm ready to talk to you. Not him. Me."

I hung up before she could answer, hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped the phone into the grass.

I sat back down on the porch steps, wrapped my arms around my knees, and let myself cry the particular kind of grief that has nothing to do with losing someone and everything to do with finally, clearly, seeing them for who they'd always been.

Behind me, the screen door creaked. I didn't need to turn around to know it was Enzo, come to check on the sound of a woman crying alone in the dark. He didn't say anything. He just sat down on the step beside me, close enough that his shoulder was warm against mine, and let the silence hold whatever I wasn't ready to put into words yet.

For the first time in longer than I could remember, someone's presence didn't cost me anything to accept.