#park!reader

The tears are heavy in your eyes, your limbs heavy with fatigue with the loss of adrenaline, the way it slowly leaches away, emptying you so completely until nothing is left except that heaviness, that immobility. 

            It was adrenaline that got you here, that got you out of that house with the patches on the wall, covered up with filler from the times he drove his fist through the wall, the times that scared you but were better because at least it wasn’t you. 

            It was adrenaline that made you flee, tripping over your own feet to escape, leaving everything behind in hishouse, running to the only place you knew you would be safe just after he’d passed out from the sedative you slipped into his beer, the one he didn’t notice, the one it was all too easy to get, your job the only thing he’d let you hold onto. 

            It was adrenaline that gave you the courage after he hit you again and again and again over the years. It was the kind of adrenaline rush that builds up from that slow release of cortisol, the cycle of trauma and fear, your hippocampus ever shrinking, mind focused on only one thing and one thing only: survive. 

            It was adrenaline that got you here now, standing in front of the light blue door, the one you helped Jesse paint with the clouds, your hand steady back then, not the trembling thing it is now. Not the trembling limb it is now, shaking and quivering as you lift it to the wood, press the knuckles against the grain, the divots digging into your skin. 

            It’s not a knock, not even a sound, just the grounding of a broken person on the only thing that has seemed to right at this moment. The only thing that doesn’t make you run on adrenaline alone. 

            The only thing that makes sense. 

            Because here is a place that feels like home, that feels safe even when you’re not. Here is a place where you have only known happiness, have only seen emotions that never seem to hurt. Have never seen the violence of your home, have never heard the anger or the threats that characterize your waking life. 

            Here is the place where everything seems right. Seems fine. Seems better than fine, seems safe. 

            Something your world hasn’t been in so long. 

            It’s why you lift your trembling, quivering, shaking hand from the door and press it back again with more force, the divots leaving marks upon your knuckles. It’s still not quite a knock, but it’s hard to hit something with force when for so long the thing that has been hit, is you. 

            It’s like you know what you’re supposed to do, like you can remember it, but you have gone from being the person you were, to someone who shrinks in the rooms she occupies. You have become someone who whispers and doesn’t knock or have footsteps. Someone who has learned that being quiet is a way to survive. 

            Someone who has learned that to occupy space with life and noise is to welcome hurt. 

            And so, you try again, trying to hit the door with force, enough to make a sound. You try again and again and again, muscles even stiffer from the cold, lips still quivering but eyes finally running dry, the world clearing, your throat still thick from the tears, still that lump of fear and terror. That ever-clenching feeling that has been your constant companion for these past three years. 

            You land one knock successfully, the sound of knuckles on wood sending that electric spark through your core, the one that causes your heart to clench with terror, that base feeling that is your resting pulse. It’s a noise that is loud, that is skin on wood, bringing back the start, the way he used to hit the walls, the doors and praise himself, expecting praise from you too for not hitting you. 

            Praise you gave him because it was better if he scared you rather than hit you. Being scared was survival at a better level, some dignity still there, but scared with the violence as a result and cause was survival without dignity. It was just pure survival. 

            You can hear noise from behind the door, muffled footsteps and then the sound of a deadbolt being thrown, door cracked open and then you see him, Jesse, standing there face creased in worry, in fright and then understanding. 

            You know what he sees, the swelling of your cheek, the bruise like a handprint round your throat from where he choked you. The turtleneck you wore underneath your scrubs covered it, made your coworkers think you were hiding hickeys when all along you have been hiding marks of hatred not love. 

            Marks of pain not pleasure. 

            Marks of fear. 

            “Oh, sweetheart,” he whispers and then he’s stepping aside, gesturing you into the warmth of his home, the place feeling like a safe haven when you cross that threshold, like strength comes back into your limbs simply because he’snever been here. Because his presence doesn’t suffocate you here, those silent and not so silent threats no longer hang over your head, rather peace. 

            Something you haven’t truly known in years. Not since he came into your life. 

            “He—” you don’t get more than that one word out before you dissolve into tears, the pain overwhelming you, numbness from the adrenaline crash gone, pain now returning, overwhelming and choking you in a way so different than the way he did. Now the pain is everywhere and present and it isn’t stopping. It’s just going and going and going, over and over and over. 

            The tears burn, but you can barely process it, so focused on the way it hurts, the way the nausea creeps up your throat, stomach heaving and twisting, rearranging. You can feel Jesse’s arms wrap around you, the way he pulls you against him, your face finding the crook between his neck and shoulder, sobs muffled by his body, but his touch is only basic, only simple, only known on the factual part of your brain. 

            It’s not something you’re feeling. 

            Because all you can feel is pain, all you can see as he guides you to the living room and sits down on the couch, pulling you upon him is him and the rage on his face. The way he looked when he hit you. 

            “It’s okay,” Jesse whispers, his voice pulling you back, pulling you away, to the here and now. To the present. To the fleeing and the freedom. “I’ve got you.” It’s what he always says. Always has. It’s his refrain in these moments, the refrain that always waits for when you flee and go to him. 

            It’s the refrain that hurts because you always end up going back. You always end up believing his excuses, his apologies, returning back even when Jesse’s always been there, steady and constant and present without anger or violence or aggression or dominance. He’s a presence steady and kind and calm. 

            The hand that wipes the blood from the cuts, the hand which applies the bandages and salve and stitches you up. The hand that applies the ice and the ointments. The one who brings you back to full health just to watch it disintegrate again with a single hit, a single slap or punch or slam of you into a wall. 

            But he never wavers, always opens the door and patches you up, holding you against the tears or simply holding you because you can’t stand on your own, not really. And every time he whispers it’s okay, I’ve got you. 

            “He…” you pause and swallow, looking down at the ground of the living room, your vision not just blurry from the tears but from the swelling of your cheek, of your eye. “He slammed…me into—into the wall! And then h-he chokedme, Jesse! He said…” you break off, the tears, the sobs overwhelming you and threatening to drag you back there, back to him instead of here where it’s safe in the circle of Jesse’s arms. 

            “He said what?” Jesse asks you, his voice sending that calming feeling through you, the one that only he can bring forth. That only he has ever been able to bring forth. 

            “He said—I should thank him—for not…” you pause, breath hiccupping as the tears pour faster, eliciting a sob, one that has you lifting your hand to your mouth, trying to muffle it, teeth finding skin, biting down, still trying to be the same silent girl who understands that silence is protection, but Jesse removes your hand with a tender, warm and steady grip, holding it tight in his hand, but tight as in safe not pain. 

            “For not…?” he prompts, always the one able to pull you forwards, pull you from yourself and back to him. The one who can let you work through everything. 

            “Killing me!” you cry and then you bury your head into his chest, his one arm holding you safely upon his lap while the other holds your hand, your other hand curling into the collar of his shirt, cold fingers warming against his chest. 

            “He needs to go to jail, sweetheart,” Jesse says, his normal response, constant response, the begging of a man in pain. 

            “Yeah,” you whisper, the sobs calming down, slowing into slight hiccups while the tears still fall. “Yeah, he does.”

            And Jesse says nothing more, just holds you as the hiccups stop and the tears slow, until your breathing is even and you feel more stable than you ever have before. 

            “Are you going back to him?” he whispers and you lift your head from where it rests, pressed against his chest, your eyes meeting his, the light shade of blue like that of the sky as the clouds drift across in a tinted movie. In those eyes that you hold onto in your worst moments, you can see fear and hurt and hope. 

            And it confuses you because you love him and you have for so long. It’s the image of him that you superimpose over him when he would take you that has kept you sane. It’s the image of him and the kindness in his eyes, the way he’s helped you around the Pitt since you showed up wide-eyed and scared on your first shift as a MS3. It’s the image of him and the way he cares for everyone that has kept the line between the two of you from blurring in your mind. 

            You know the delicate state of yourself, the way sometimes it’s easier to mistake kindness for affection, the way you can convince yourself that he was only hitting you out of love. That you deserved it. You thought it was just your delicate state that made you think there was something there between you and Jesse but something in his eyes make you want to believe that you’re right. 

            “No,” you whisper, watching as the shift in his eyes occurs, that shift to happiness and hope, the gleam its own kind of beast. “Can I borrow your phone?” you ask him and his brows knit together in confusion, in worry. 

            “You can’t call him,” he says and you shake your head, your hands untwining from him, his collar and his hand, instead drifting to your cheeks, wiping away your tears roughly because you can’t stand the feeling of them against your skin. 

            “I need to call Brendon. He said when I was…ready to leave, to call him.” Your brother is your other rock. The one who sets your broken bones off the record, who covers your medical records because he wasn’t going to push you. 

            In fact, his older brother protective routine the first time only drove you deeper into his arms. And Bren swore he’d never do that again, never drive you away with his love, the way he feels. He promised himself and you that he would only help, never push. That you would live your life and he would just be the one to put you back on the path when you needed him too. 

            “Can you put it on speaker?” Jesse asks you, his voice gentle and sweet. Kind in a way that you’re not truly ready for yet need all the same, something inside of you cracking and shattering at the simple request made for your benefit not his own. 

            “Yeah,” you whisper and then his hand is leaving you, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing his phone, holding the device out to you, already unlocked from the glimpse of his face. You take it, clutching it like a lifeline, the back of your mind whispering that you can still call him, can still make things work, but the larger part of you denies it, shuts it down and instead you dial Brendon. 

            It rings once, then twice and then it’s answered, Brendon’s voice spilling out of the speakers. 

            “Jesse?!” his voice is scared, worried and just a bit angry. “Jesse, why the hell are you calling me?! Is something wrong with my sister?! Did that bastard do something even worse?!” In his voice you heard it, the worry, the fear, the anger and the helplessness, what the novels you read call impotence. The inability to take effective action. To do anything at all. 

            “Bren,” you call out, your voice wavering, sounding for all the world like you’re still terrified, still breaking and still crying. And you are. And you wonder when, if ever, it will stop. When, if ever, you’ll feel whole or if he took that away from you completely. 

            “Oh, thank god,” you hear Brendon breathe out, relief heavy in his tone and you can imagine him slumping down, his head pressing against something, body going slack. The way he always does when he’s relieved. “It’s you, Dolphin.”

            “Yeah,” you whisper, a small smile creeping across your face at the nickname, the one you got as a child when Bren became known as the Shark and you were the calm, ever guiding presence that balanced him out, the Dolphin. “It’s me.”

            “Are you okay?” The word okay has so many meanings and none of them seem to truly fit right now, truly fit for you. 

            “I left him. I left everything and I’m here with Jesse. You’re on speakerphone, by the way, Jess wanted to make sure I was calling you and not…not him,” you answer and you hear that sigh of Brendon’s, the one he’s always had, the one that is heavy and calm at the same time. 

            “You’re safe” is all he says, but in those two words are a multitude of emotions, ones that hurt and ones that heal and ones that burn. 

            “I’m safe,” you whisper, sounding for all the word like his echo, the person that you’ve always been, his shadow as children, the one making sure that he stayed out of trouble while he made sure that you were safe. 

            “Hey, Jess?” Bren says and you can feel Jesse shift underneath you, his hands holding tight to you still, his head moving forwards just slightly, attention focusing on the device in your hand, on the voice sounding tinny as it spills from the phone speakers. 

            “What’s up?” You have never quite understood their dynamic, the way they interact, only that it has always centred on you, on the pain and the bruises and the fraying of your mind, of your boundaries. Of yourself. 

            “Can you take care of her tonight? I have an emergency plan that I’ll initiate but I can’t get her out of Pittsburgh tonight. Tomorrow, yes. Tonight, no.”

            “I have to leave?” you ask, voice shattering all over again as something inside of you collapses, crumbles, folds in on itself at the idea of having to leave your home. At having to leave because you refused to give up on a man you thought needed you. A man who thought pain was love and control was everything. 

            “You can’t stay here in the same city as…him,” Brendon spits out the pronoun as if it’s making him sick, his words harsh but the harshness not directed at you, never you. 

            “Will I…will I get to come back?” you ask and Jesse’s arms tighten around you, his grip steadier, something that holds you, anchors you in the here and now where you’re alive, you’re safe. You’re still here.

            “When he’s behind bars,” Bren says and the pause that falls between the three of you is one where they wait for you to speak, to argue, to do what you always do. To fight for yourself but you’re too tired to do that, like every bit of strength has been removed from you, leached away slowly every time he did something. 

            “Fine,” you whisper and your hand twitches on its own, the grip on the phone so tight, nerves acting on their own, reacting to the death grip in a displeased way. “I’m hanging up now, Brenny,” you call out, voice louder than before as if you feel the need to tell him. To remind him. 

            “See you tomorrow,” he says and then the phone beeps, call ended, a heavier kind of exhaustion falling upon your shoulders, the kind of loss and realization and inevitability. The guilt that this is your fault not his. That you were the problem not him. That this is all because of you not him. 

            You hate the guilt, always have. It’s what convinced you to stay, to put aside the instinct for preservation, instead choosing to return to someone who rather hurt you than love you because you were guilty. Because you didn’t want to yet another person who gave up on him.

            You don’t really know how long you and Jesse stay like that, him holding you as you hold onto him, his phone long since dropped onto the couch cushions, your mind blank and body in pain, wires uncrossing, the urge to escape diminishing. You only know that it’s long enough for the sky to shift and change, light shifting to dark, streetlamps flicking on and shining through the living room curtains. 

            You only know that it’s long enough for your breathing to even, breath to return to normal and mind to focus on something other than the pain, on him, Jesse. On the man who you have loved, sometimes you think the only man that you have ever loved. You think of Jesse and you think of him, noticing the line drawn between them, the line separating them that of love and caring. Because you don’t think you ever really loved him—you just didn’t want to be someone who gave up on him. 

            You think he was someone to feel for, to care for but you don’t think love was ever part of the equation, that it never got to form, the way he is that separating factor, lines simply blurring as his hand clenched tighter, control stronger. 

            You wish that younger you had had the fortitude to resist, to push back. 

            But you know it only would have been worse if you had. 

            “Hey,” Jesse whispers, his voice soft and clear and steady, always so steady. “Why don’t we get you cleaned up, okay?” You know what he means: he’ll help you shower, dress and fall asleep, telling you he’s there, always. That you’re safe. 

            And it’s something, it’s enough. Even if you’ve always wanted more. Even if you’ve wondered almost constantly if he would care, if he would touch you and look at you not with disgust but with desire. He hasn’t even touched you in a year except to harm. 

            No sex, no touching. No rape. 

            Blissful, really, but damaging in yet another way. It’s like you’ll never quite escape from the damage and the pain. Like you’ll always be broken, made of jagged edges, not quite glued on right. You wonder if you’re jagged enough to draw blood. 

            “Okay,” you whisper in response to Jesse’s question, the one you’ve let go unanswered as your thoughts swarmed. He helps you stand, the two of you walking in tandem, his arms resting on your waist, a steady hand, someone to catch you if you fall. 

            “Pick your poison,” he says as the two of you cross the threshold into his bedroom, his steady hands leaving you just long enough to do what he always does—reach into his closet and pull two shirts, a Guns & Roses shirt and a Taylor Swift one you bought him. 

            “Taylor,” you answer and he tosses the shirt at you with a small smile, the kind that is bashful and humorous and funny and beautiful and you want to see it forever, but you don’t really deserve that. He turns back, holding a pair of sweats in one hand and a pair of plaid boxers. 

            “Boxers,” you reply, catching them as he tosses them out to you, his hands on you again as he guides you from the room into his ensuite, his hands gentle but barely there, steady yet as present on your skin as the kiss of a butterfly’s wings. 

            It’s a dream you had when you were still in his bed, still his girl, one of Jesse’s hands being present in a way that is stronger than now. In a way that you would always feel. 

            He helps you undress, quiet and gentle, guiding you through his bathtub’s door, adjusting the water settings, the stream starting at exactly the right temperature. Just like always. 

            Except tonight is not just like always because you have left him. For the first time in your life, you are free. You are you for the first time in a long time. No more of him and the hitting and the beating and the blood and the pain. 

            And even though you could do all of this on your own, sometimes it’s just nice to be the one being cared for, not the caregiver. 

            “I’m glad you left him,” Jesse says as he sinks down upon the stool he has, the one he stays on ever since he found out you had tried to kill yourself once, just to escape the pain. He doesn’t want you to do that even though in his house there really was no risk. You’d never want to stain his tiles red. Just your own. 

            “I am too,” you whisper as you turn under the stream, the curtain drawn between the two of you, the world outside of the shower opaque and sort of crystalized. 

            “Then why’d you stay?” he asks and it’s a question that has haunted you for years, since the first time he hit you and apologized. Since he started hitting walls and even earlier than that when he began to break you down in your mind, destroy the walls you had in place for safety. 

            “Because…” you sigh, turning again to face the stream, the water hitting your face in a pleasant way, as if washinghis touch away. “Because everyone gave up on him and I didn’t want to be another. It wasn’t…it wasn’t an I can fix himkind of thing but rather a I can support him, an I can be the one who stays. And…I don’t know…he made me…” you trail off as you reach for the bottle of shampoo, squirting some into your hand, massaging it into your scalp, body relaxing at the feeling. 

            “He made you what?” You glance through the curtain, noting Jesse’s form is closer than it was before, standing and just outside the curtain. But it doesn’t scare you because you know Jesse, you know that he’s upset but not at you. 

            That was the hardest thing to learn. That people get upset at things other than you, that you do not have to apologize for just existing. 

            “That no one else would ever love me,” you answer, your tone deadpan and flat, emotion long devoid. That sentiment was something he always told you, especially when he found out about Jesse, about your friendship. 

            He taunted you about Jesse, things like “you think he’ll ever love you? Grow up. You’re nothing, I’m the only one whose ever gonna touch you. The only one who slums it.” Things like, “I’m the best you’re ever gonna have so just stop thinking of him. It’ll never happen; I’m the only thing you can get. And that’s only cause I don’t mind you being ugly.”

            You’re numb to those now. You’re numb to a lot of it and that’s what scares you more. That what he did no longer hurts, it just seems normal. 

            “He’s wrong,” Jesse whispers and you can hear pain in his words, pain in the way he speaks, as if something inside of him is breaking. 

            “I know,” you reply, watching as he slumps, tall, lean body relaxing. “He didn’t even love me. Hasn’t wanted me in over a year.” You can’t help the shrug that escapes as you turn around, the spray of the water washing the shampoo from your hair. 

            “Wanted you?” Jesse asks and you sigh, tilting your head back to normal, soap suds swirling around your feet, spinning to the drain as you reach for the curtain, pulling it back just a ways. 

            “Sexually,” you tell him, tone blunt, your eyes meeting his. Those perfect blue ones like a cloudless sky. Like calm. “He hasn’t touched me. We haven’t had sex and he hasn’t…raped me in over a year. Which is a blessing, but you know…not even he wants me.”

            “I do,” Jesse whispers, his face open for a moment before he closes it, neutrality slipping past as he turns, his back to you, gaze drifting to the ground as he turns. 

            “You do what?” you ask, water washing onto and over your back. 

            “Want you,” he whispers and it’s like the world has stopped, gone cold, like the blood in your veins has run dry because this has been the thing that’s haunted you most. How you love someone who can never love you back, has been part of the reason you returned to him because how can you give up on something that exists for a fantasy. 

            But all this time, he’s been here. 

            And it’s like you’ve come alive again because there are moments in life that you can’t come back from and this is one of them. You can never go back like you haven’t heard him want you. 

            And you don’t. 

            You pull the curtain back, your hands covering nothing as he turns back, hands clenched in fists, eyes looking up and away, jaw clenching as if in pain. 

            “You can look,” you whisper. “It’s not anything you haven’t seen before.” The water is still falling, still searing your skin, but it’s like nothing because then he’s looking at you with haunted eyes. 

            “I can’t hurt you,” he whispers. 

            “Then don’t.” And then he’s there, lips against yours in a kiss that is fevered and desperate as his tongue slides into your mouth, stroking along yours, hands falling on your waist, slipping against the skin, water slick in-between. 

            The kiss is one that tastes of forever and impossibility and luck and tenderness. Oh so much tenderness. His hands move from your waist to your ass, gentle as he squeezes it, a gasp leaving your mouth at the sensation and Jesse pulls back, blue eyes looking at yours for reassurance that he didn’t hurt you and then he’s guiding you out of the shower, shutting off the stream and pulling you to his bed. 

            “Do you want to have sex with me?” he asks you, tone clear, words blunt. 

            “Yes,” you tell him, your voice equally clear, for the first time all night it doesn’t shake. And then he lays you on the bed, spreading your legs, pressing kisses against your inner thighs before moving to your centre, to where water mixes with arousal, his tongue flattening against you, stroking from entrance to clit, again and again and again. 

            The feelings he elicits are too much, yet not enough, having never felt this way before, his tongue circling your clit as his one hand joins his mouth, fingers stretching your folds, stimulating every part before carefully, ever so carefully inching in, stretching you, the feeling delicious and strange and beautiful. 

            He flicks his tongue against your clit, a strange feeling spreading through your limbs as your back arches, strange small whimpers leaving your lips as his blue eyes watch you from between your legs, a slight smug glimmer in them as if he knows exactly what you’re feeling. Exactly what he’s doing to you. 

            His facial hair leaves strange scratch feelings that you thought would hurt, but don’t, instead they elicit their own kind of pleasure as he pumps his fingers in and out, a coil inside of you tightening and feeling like it’s wound so tight that it’s soon to snap. Especially when he curls his fingers inside of you, hitting some spot that has you coming apart, the coil snapping, a strange, sticky feeling overwhelming you as his fingers pull out and he rises, popping three fingers into his mouth, sucking your release off his fingers with a small, pleased smile. 

            But even with that coil snapping, you’re still feverish and needy and feel like you need to be filled. Something you’ve never truly felt before and then he’s stripping, his lean, sinewy body on display, cock hard and leaking as he climbs over you, bracketing you in on the bed, his cock just pressing against the outside of your folds as he leans down, pressing a soft kiss against your lips. 

            One sweet and short and tender in a way you’ve never had before. 

            “I love you,” he whispers as he pulls back, pupil-blown blue eyes assessing you, waiting to see you flinch, but instead you reach up, your hands cupping his face as you pull his attention to be solely on you, not the future, not thinking about your reaction, just you.

            “I love you,” you tell him and as you speak, he slips between your folds, never once teasing, just sinking in in one thrust, burying himself up to the hilt, just sitting there for a moment as he presses his lips to yours, his skin fevered as he begins to shift, to move and pull out, entering back in, his lips never once leaving yours. 

            It’s hot and full of desire and sloppy in a way as he thrusts it, lips and tongues and teeth clashing as his hips slam up and into you, tender in its own way, the way the angle changes are designed with your comfort in mind. Only yours. 

            As he thrusts in, the tip of his cock dragging against a particularly sensitive spot, one hand still resting between your legs, toying with your clit, toying with pressure and presence, you let out a small moan, arching up and into him and you can feel his smile against your lips, the kiss still never ending. 

            It doesn’t take long for the two of to become tired, spent and as you come around him and he comes inside of you, in hot and thick ropes, he falls beside you, holding tight to you, pressing a kiss to the top of your forehead as sleep claims you both. 

            And in the morning, when you leave after coffee and breakfast and lazy morning kisses, all you can think is that it’s not hardest to leave Pittsburgh. 

            It’s hardest to leave Jesse. 

            The morning that you left was the hardest one for Jesse because this wasn’t a temporary leave back to someone who hurt you where you’d eventually leave and find him. 

            No, this was a permanent leave, away from him and the abuser. But he’d just had, just held you in his arms and now you were gone. 

            He doesn’t know what’s worse. The fact that he’s loved you all these years since you showed up in the Pitt, arms crossed with a smile, firm but gentle like the dolphin in your nickname or the fact that he knows you’ve loved him all this time too. 

            He doesn’t know what’s worse, watching you leave when he’s never gotten to love you. 

            Or watching you leave when he has. 

            “Shit,” you whisper, the test in your hand glimmering in the light but even distorted by the gleam it’s clear. PREGNANT. It’s not like you don’t know whose it is, only that you’re so far, new phone and contacts placed by Brendan. Which includes him and your parents and no one else. 

            You know he’s right to do that, that you can’t have anything get back to him but it hurts. It hurts because Jesse needs to know and you can’t reach him. 

            May never be able to. 

            “What’s up, Dolphin?” Brendan asks you, the weekly phone call pushed back two weeks by his and your surgical schedules. It’s what people love the most about the Parks—every single one is a surgeon. Your parents both peds surgeons, Brendan an ortho and you, a cardiac surgeon.

            You always joked that it was funny you made a living off of fixing breaking hearts when you’ve never been capable of fixing your own. 

            It’s not funny now. 

            “I need you to tell Jesse something for me,” you say and he sighs.

            “What?”

            “I need you to tell him I’m pregnant and yes, it’s his. The bastard hadn’t sexually touched me in a year,” you say, your sentence clear, a work around for every contrast question he might ask. 

            “I can’t,” he says. “If the bastard found out…I don’t know what he’d do and I’m not ready to find out.”

            “Just you, Dr. Park?” the OB/GYN nurse asks you, voice kind and gentle and you nod, rising unsteadily from the chair, five-month bump hard to handle, yet precious in its own way, this bit of life growing that it’s entirely innocent and loved. 

            Because you do, love this child that is. 

            You love them so much and you haven’t even met them yet. 

            “Yeah,” you answer, sliding your purse up and onto your shoulder. “It’s just me.” That’s the only hard part. 

            Having to do all this alone. 

            Jesse is in pain. 

            It’s not physical, it’s not even something that anyone could see. He just is. It’s like he wakes up every morning with a whole where his heart used to be because you are gone. 

            There are no more sunshine smiles or hellos or see you tomorrows. There’s just emptiness and coldness and the memory of exactly how you used to feel. 

            It hurts a lot. 

            The nursery is a labour of love. It’s something you’ve done entirely on your own since Brendan refuses to travel to visit you, refuses to give any trail to the bastard. He’s paranoid but you don’t blame him. 

            The trial is taking forever, keeps being pushed back and pushed back and he posted bail. And everything just seems to be going in his favour back in Pittsburgh, but you are not there. 

            You are here, in New York, in your home, preparing for your baby. 

            Jesse’s baby. 

            And that’s enough.

            “Shh,” you whisper as you reach into the crib, lifting your daughter’s delicate, small body up and out, settling her into your arms, rocking back and forth, soothing her, her cries quieting. “Mommy’s here, Dawson, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere, sweetie.”

            Pittsburgh has changed since you’ve been gone. It’s colder and larger than you remember, meaner too. But that just might be because you have a two year old daughter holding tight to your hand as she makes a game of jumping into all the rain puddles, squealing when the water splashes, crying “look Mommy, look!”

            She’s the reason you’re here at the ED, her fever running high, nose running and lungs coughing in a way that scares you. 

            Because you’re entirely helpless. 

            “Let’s see what’s up with little…Dawson Park,” says Dr. Whittaker, the chart before him, eyes narrowing as he reads it, gaze darting to you, eyes widening in realization, puzzle pieces falling into place before him. “The Shark’s niece?” he asks and you nod, your hands clenching so tightly around your purse straps that you can feel the muscles spasming against your skin. 

            But it’s a new feeling, this helpless feeling of being a mother unable to prevent dangers from reaching your child. 

            “You needed a peds specialist,” you hear a familiar voice call and then the curtain is pulled back and your eyes meet the same blue ones that have haunted you since you were an MS3. 

            “Jesse,” you whisper, voice breaking as his eyes dart between you and your daughter, taking in her bright blue eyes and narrow chin, the dark brown curls. The way she looks just like him. 

            “Dolphin?”

            Jesse knows as soon as he sees her, the little girl on the bed with the runny nose, that she’s his daughter. Maybe it’s the curly hair, maybe it’s the bright blue eyes that are so clear, maybe it’s the narrow chin or maybe it’s the feeling he has when he sees her, the one of pain and love and frustration. 

            The feeling he always thought he’d have as a dad. 

            He knows as you say Jesse in that cracking, breaking way that you wanted to tell him, but Brendan probably said no. 

            And he wants to be angry, but he can’t. Because he knows the danger you’ve been in, the danger your ex has caused. He’s seen the man show up at the hospital. Seen him accost Brendan, been accosted himself. 

            He knows it was for protection, but that doesn’t stop the hurt from spreading through him as he looks between the two of you, noticing the way your eyes are tearing up, both from him and the stress of the child on the bed before you. 

            And he knows the hurt will have to wait. 

            “We need to talk,” you whisper and he nods, waving Princess over, watching as you press a shaky kiss against the top of her head, biting your lip as you walk away, always looking back over your shoulder at her as if she’s everything. 

            The only thing keeping you tethered.

            “She’ll be just fine here with me, Dr. Park,” Whittaker says and his assurance does little so he pulls his phone from his scrub pocket and shows you the lockscreen. Jesse’s already seen the photo, met his son and his wife, heard the entire story, but he watches as you take in the photo of the young boy with the bright red hair, smiling and you relent, leaving the room and following as Jesse walks with you to the on-call room, closing it behind the two of you. 

            “She’s my daughter,” he says, the words not a question yet you nod as you sink down onto the couch, your head falling between your knees. 

            “Yeah, her name’s Dawson,” you tell him and he can feel that pain rip through again, that pain of never knowing, of missing out. Of losing. “Dawson Mia Park.”

            “Why…” he pauses, trailing off, trying not to let his anger take hold, trying not to scare you, knowing that anger and abuse are linked for you. 

            “Jess,” you say, lifting your head, your tired eyes meeting his, worry gleaming in them, the look of a mother. “You can get mad. I know that anger is not abuse. I’ve had a shit ton of therapy these past three years. Get mad. It’s fine. This was a shitty thing to do and a shitty way to find out and I’m sorry.”

            “Just why?!” he cries and he knows when the words hit you that you take them the wrong way, taking them as in why did you have the child, not why didn’t you tell me. “Just why didn’t you tell me?!”

            “Because Brendan said no. Said that…the bastard would do something bad if he found out and he wasn’t risking me and Dawson and…in a way…you.” The words land in his heart and he can’t take it anymore because he has spent three years feeling empty and even longer before that missing you. 

            He’s not doing it anymore. 

            Because every time you left him, wandering back to him, he hurt. Because watching you leave always hurts because you’ve never been his. 

            He’s not letting you go anymore. He can’t. And so, he crosses the room, kneeling down before you, his hands finding your face as he pulls you up to him, pressing his lips against yours, the kiss stained with salt from both of your tears. 

            He pulls back, his forehead resting against yours, his hands on your cheeks, your hands on his wrists, the two of you just resting like that for a moment before he whispers, “you don’t have to go it alone anymore.”

            “You’ll be there?” you ask and he pulls back, still holding onto you, one hand slipping down to your neck, his eyes looking deep into yours. 

            “Always.”

            “The nursery is impressive,” Jesse calls and you step in, Dawson on your hip, a smile spreading as you look around the blue room, taking in the depictions of dolphins and sharks and whales you did, the ones that took so long, were so painstaking. The ones that are worth it every time because of the way Dawson lights up, clapping her hands excitedly. “Okay, little one,” Jesse coos, taking Dawson from you and settling her on his narrow hip, “let’s give Momma a break, alright?”

            “I don’t need one,” you tell him and he looks at you, a soft smile on his face, one sad and happy all at the same time. 

            “Let me give you one anyways.”

            “This little one is unfortunately very good at getting what she wants,” Jesse says as Dawson comes running up to you in only the way that a three-year old can, her hands holding a stuffed whale. 

            “What do you mean? What did she do?” you ask and in answer, Jesse pulls a bag from behind his back, one stuffed to full paper capacity with stuffed animals, the sight enough to bring a laugh from you, the kind that rumbles deep in your belly. 

            The kind that delights him, his blue eyes lighting up. 

            And in his gaze, you find everything you’ve never had before: love. 

            “I’m still pissed at you, Brendan,” Jesse says, his tone sweet for the words, for his expression but Dawson rests on your lap, playing with the dragon stuffy Bren brought for her and so he tempers himself. 

            “I know,” Bren says. “But I’m not apologizing. I’d keep that lie a thousand times over if it meant keeping them safe.” 

            “That’s the only reason I let you in our house.”

            “Hey, babe?” Jesse calls out, his voice just a little too high-pitched for your liking. You can hear him moving around downstairs, sounding like he’s shuffling his feet, like he’s nervous. 

            “Give me a sec, okay, hun?” you ask Dawson and she nods, taking the book from your hands, flipping through the pages as though she’s reading even though she can’t yet. 

            “What’s up, Jess?” you call out as you climb down the stairs, one hand on the railing, the other resting on your stomach where your second child flutters, only a couple months along. When you step down, you see Jesse waiting, his cheeks flushed a shade of pink, Bren standing off to one side, phone out as if he’s recording. 

            “Well…that bastard has been denied parole,” he begins and you feel that caving inside of you, that one of relief, of calm and peace. One that hasn’t been there for you since you heard he had applied for parole. 

            “Yay,” you whisper, your one hand flying up to your mouth, the other to your stomach, anchoring yourself here and now. 

            “So…” Jesse sighs and runs a hand through his close-cropped hair. “I know it’s been bothering you and you haven’t really been thinking of anything else, but…babe, it’s been two years of us and I was…” he pauses and you hear Bren sigh, his frustrated one. 

            “He’s asking if you want to marry him, for Christ’s sake!” he yells and Jesse turns to him, nostrils flaring and eyes narrowing. 

            “I can still kick you out of this house, Shark!” he retorts, but you can feel that bubble of peace and calm and luck rising within you because you never thought you’d have this. Never thought you’d be able to have someone who loves you, all of you. His words still lingering all these years later, but now it’s different. 

            Because now you know he was always lying. 

            “Yes!” you yell over the sound of the two of them arguing. “Yes, Jesse! I will marry you.” And then everything stops as he runs to you, scooping you up in his arms and twirling, holding tight to you, pressing kisses against your cheeks, your lips, chin and neck, anywhere he can reach. 

            And as he does, your baby stirs and Dawson runs to you, holding tight to your leg, investigating the commotion. 

            You know in that moment, he meant what he said all those years ago. You’ll never go it alone again. 

            Because you have people who love you. Truly and completely. Always have.