wlw first and foremost

cassie officially loses custody of her son when he’s three-years-old.

he’s old enough to know who she is, old enough to love her unconditionally, but not old enough to notice his mother’s issues and not old enough to understand. when she comes to his birthday party half-asleep, he figures she just needs a nap. he needs them plenty himself, sometimes.

but it gets weirder than that.

mama starts acting strange, always sleepy or grumpy. she never sits still, always smells a little funny, and she never has any money to pay for things. sometimes, when they’re playing, she pulls faces that he sees in his nightmares when he goes to bed.

one time, harrison played on the living room floor while his mama slept on the couch all afternoon. when she didn’t wake up until dad got home, he didn’t get to see much of her for a while.

he stops calling her mama when he’s five.

he doesn’t understand why she’s hardly around anymore, why she can’t come home, why she and dad are always arguing, why she doesn’t come to his first day of school.

when he does see her, it’s weird and awkward. she always looks so sad. she hugs too tightly and her eyes always look wet and shaky. he usually hides behind his father’s leg when they start arguing.

it gets better when he’s eight.

she takes him out for fries and a pirates game for his birthday, buys him a hotdog and one of those giant foam fingers. she’s different these days; lighter, funnier, less weird. the mom he remembers.

while they’re in the diner, she gives him a weird looking coin and says it’s for him. it’s not like a dime or a nickel, it’s got a triangle and a massive ‘5’ on the front. though the coin isn’t worth anything, it means she gets to see him more often now so for that, it’s priceless.

one night, he actually gets to have a sleep over at her place. all weekend.

they get to have pizza and watch a movie and she even plays spiderman with him in her new apartment.

mom’s still sleepy and a little grumpy too, but it’s different. this time, she’s genuinely just tired and harrison can’t blame her; he’d be tired too if he was being forced to read a book that’s over 700 pages long. still, she smiles and tells him what it’s about when he asks.

all the functions of the human heart, apparently.

it’s much better than nights at dad’s.

when he turns thirteen, harrison realises, not for the first time, that his mom is different from other moms.

she’s kind like other moms, yes. she’s got a lame sense of humor like other moms, yes. she wets her thumb and wipes dirt off his face with her spit like other moms, yes.

but she’s still different.

his mom doesn’t gush about men or pta meetings or wear dresses or drive a mini-van or anything like that. his mom likes spiderman just as much as he does. his mom has tattoos and can draw. his mom wears scrubs and saves people’s lives.

his mom also doesn’t date people like chloe.

she dates people like victoria, who’s nice and cool and saves people’s lives too. victoria doesn’t make him do things he doesn’t want to do.

he runs away from his dad when he’s thirteen and a half.

they’d had an argument, something something about chloe having a baby, and he’d just stormed out, found his way across town to his mom’s.

she’d told him off, told him he wasn’t allowed to frighten her or his dad like that, but they’d still gotten pizza and read spiderman comics until he felt better. victoria had even shown him what a compound fracture looks like on an x-ray, just to make him smile.

cassie officially gets full custody back when he’s fourteen.

he likes being here, at mom and vic’s. it’s fun and safe and even when his mom is pissed, it’s nice to just feel looked out for. they don’t argue like dad and chloe do. they don’t watch stupid romance movies like dad and chloe do. they curl up on the sofa and fall asleep together. they even let him join.

he gets his own bedroom here now and he actually gets to spend time in it.

he’s taller than vic now, almost so tall that his mom can’t rest her elbow on his shoulder anymore. it’s nearly the other way around these days.

still, he’s still small enough that his mom still comes upstairs and kisses his head goodnight, smiling at him with a love that looks as easy as breathing.