Chapter 74

Mom eavesdropped the entire time I talked to Declan. That much I fucking knew. A part of me was annoyed to shit by it, but the other part understood her… clinginess? Were we calling it clingy? Was it being clingy if you followed your kid around after they tried to shoot themselves? Was clinginess a part of the intervention?

“You can quit lurking, Mom,” I said with a sigh and dropped cigarette number two to the ground.

“I’m not lurking, baby boy,” Mom replied, coming outside to join us. “I’m just keeping an eye out.”

“You’re being my fucking babysitter,” I muttered.

“No, I’m being your mother,” she retorted. Touché. She had me on that one. “Declan, sweetheart, will you go help Sam out front?”

“Yeah. I have to talk to Brady anyway.” Declan groaned as he got to his feet. He clapped a hand on my shoulder as he passed—another gesture of reassurance that I merely grunted to.

“What’s Sam doing?” I asked.

“Taking off your front bumper and hooking up your Jeep to tow back to Cedar Harbor,” she said. I sat a little taller. What the fuck had I done to my Jeep?

“Why?”

“You drove your Jeep into Brady’s garage.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” I sank back in my chair, running a hand over my face. I couldn’t remember any of that. “How bad is it?”

“The Jeep or the garage?” she replied.

“The garage.” The right thing was to care about Brady’s house, considering everything he’d done for me.

“From the look of it,” Mom blew out a small breath, “you probably just took out the door. But Declan is going to work with Roan to assess the damage and get it all repaired.”

“Fuck. I’ll help.”

“I know you will.”

“And my Jeep?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.

“Driveable from Sam’s once over, but he doesn’t trust it until he’s done a thorough inspection. You’ll need a new bumper at the very least,” she explained. Jesus fuck. I slung an arm over my face. I needed a fucking minute. I didn’t remember any of that—which was bad fucking news. Had I hit someone else on the drive here? Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Your brothers will get your Jeep and your stuff back up north for you. I think it’s best if you come home again.”

“I know,” I whispered. I’d expected as much. And truthfully, with all the shit out there, I almost felt like I could conquer going back home. Almost was the keyword.

“You and me, we’ll stay back and sleep here for a few hours,” Mom told me. “You’re in no state to drive, and it’s been a very long day for me.”

“Are you taking me home?” I asked. “Or are you taking me to Olympia?”

“No, baby boy, I want you home with me,” she said. “At least for now.”

“Oh…”

“I think so much of what you’re going through comes from talking to no one about anything. I think now… I think now you can start relying on us more. I hope you can,” she replied. “I don’t want you to have to go back to the hospital, Killian, but you have to want to get better.”

“I don’t want to fucking feel this way,” I snapped, a growl vibrating in my chest at the accusation. Was it an accusation? It sure as fuck sounded like an accusation. “I’m not trying to. I’d do fucking anything to not feel like shit.”

“I know. I’m not saying that. I’m saying you need to work with David or someone new if you feel more comfortable. You need to go to AA meetings and therapy. You need to let us be the support system we’re trying to be. You need to stop trying to do it all alone.”

“I feel alone,” I admitted, defusing wildly. Fuck, I was all over the place.

“I know, baby boy, but I’m hoping that with us there … maybe you’ll start to feel less alone,” Mom said. “I can’t fix this for you. God knows how badly I wish I could. But I’ll be there for you as much as you’ll let me be. You’ll always have a home with me. Whatever you need.”

“You have a life, Mom.”

“You and your brothers are my life. Right now, you need me most.”

“You should be in Ireland,” I reminded her.

“I’m exactly where I want to be, Killian. Ireland isn’t going anywhere,” she told me.

“I’m not worth it.” I swallowed hard. I didn’t want her to stop living because I couldn’t get my shit together.

“Killian,” Mom brushed her fingers through my hair, “having a mental illness doesn’t make you unloveable. You are no less deserving of love than anyone else. If anything, you need to be loved a little harder to make up for the lies that your mind is telling you.”

Nodding, I bit my lower lip and used the pain to counteract the rising need to cry. I was so fucking tired of crying and breaking down.

“That wild, chaos inside you,” she continued, “that doesn’t come from your dad. You get that from me.”

“I doubt that,” I scoffed.

“I was quite the force of nature when I was young. And all that’s to say, I was a mess of a human being.” I still highly doubted that. “I picked fights, I swore so bad sometimes that it’d make you look tame, I did drugs, I went on drinking binges. I even stole a tractor once.”

“Mom!” I exclaimed, laughing. God, I could only fucking imagine that getaway attempt. I couldn’t imagine Mom stealing anything but a tractor? What a fucking thing to steal. “They don’t go that fast!”

“I know that now!” she said with an exasperated chuckle. “Like I said, I was a mess. Your dad… being around him was like standing in the eye of the storm. Calm and quiet. I craved that so badly. Every time I stepped outside of his orbit, I plummeted right back into the chaos.”

That sounded all too familiar.

“What did you do?”

“It’s just energy, baby boy. As wild and unhinged as it is, it’s just energy. I had to learn to direct it, to channel it,” she explained. “For me, it was teaching and finding my place in Cedar Harbor. I like helping people. I know what it’s like to feel unwanted and unloved in this town. No one should ever feel that way, and if I can make a difference, I want to. It gave me purpose and somewhere to put that energy.”

“I guess that makes sense,” I replied.

“In your case, it’s a little more complicated than just finding direction,” Mom stated. “You have to take care of yourself more than others because you’re bipolar, but the concept is still there. You have no focus right now. A job, a hobby, a passion. Any of those will do. I know you’ve been floating in Cedar Harbor, trying to figure out where you belong. I know it hasn’t been easy. I want you to know, Killian, that you don’t have to stay. Once you feel better, you don’t have to stay.”

“Mom…”

“You can go wherever you feel happiest, baby boy.” She squeezed my arm. “It’s okay to need more than what Cedar Harbor has to offer. But if you go, do it honestly. You’ll always have a home with us, and no matter where you go, you’ll always have a place in our family. Don’t cut us all out. Please.”

Yeah, I lost the fight against crying. Stupid emotions. I scrubbed my hands over my face and pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes. Mom’s hand rubbed a gentle circle between my shoulder blades for comfort.

“You aren’t a burden, Killian,” Mom whispered. Damn it. I leaned into her as she pulled me close.

It sure as fuck didn’t feel like that, but I didn’t say the words aloud.

When Mom and David switched spots, one thing became very clear: everyone was trading off babysitting me. Not that I could blame them, but that meant the fucking puppy squad had been activated. It meant I was in for my brothers following me around for weeks to months on end until everyone deemed me okay again.

I respected the puppy squad. I understood the puppy squad. It was a concept we’d all started as kids when one of us was having a shit day. We’d stick together until they were feeling better. In theory, I liked the puppy squad until it was turned on me. Then I found it fucking annoying.

“Is this the part where you say I told you so?” I asked him gruffly.

“Despite contrary belief,” David began as he crossed his arms, “I get no enjoyment out of being right in this instance because it comes at your expense. I would’ve much rather had you proved me wrong.”

I grunted. Me too.

“Did you know that Brady and I share the lot of you as your godfathers?” I frowned as I watched him sit down next to me.

“What?”

“Yeah. I was Declan’s and Brady was yours. When Lucas came along, they asked Kieran to be his godfather,” David said. “But Seamus was Sam’s, and Kieran and Tara never decided on a godfather for Finn. After your father died, Brady and I knew you boys would need more, especially with your mother being left to take care of you and the pack. Brady decided to step up and help more with you six while I decided to help your mom as much as I could with the pack, but we both decided to tackle the godfather position together. We wanted to make sure you never felt alone.”

I nodded slowly. I believed it. After Dad died, most of my childhood memories had either David or Brady in them.

“And all that is to say, I care about you boys because you are my family. I’ve watched you struggle for a long time, Killian,” he continued. “Even as a kid, it was obvious you were having a hard time. Seamus used to ask me for advice on how to help you.”

“He did?” That was news to me.

“Your dad worried about you. He worried about all of you of course, but he could see how hard things were for you. He didn’t know how to help you.”

“Do you?”

“If you let me, yes, I can,” David said. “But you have to want it. You have to do the work. I can’t do that for you, and I won’t try. But I can promise you that if I think you’re a danger to yourself, I won’t hesitate to have you hospitalized.”

“Not surprised,” I muttered.

“And I’ll be honest, I’m not entirely comfortable with Maeve bringing you home instead of taking you to a hospital.”

“Also, not surprised.” But I also had a feeling no one and nothing could talk Mom out of it.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. “You’ve been through a lot, and I don’t just mean today. What you’ve been through… that’s a lot for any one person to go through.”

“I can’t talk about it,” I told him. The heavy sigh he let out had me fucking backpedaling. “I can’t talk about it right now, David. I’m… I can’t handle much more right now.”

“Understandable,” he replied. “I’d like you to come see me in the next few days. I’d like to talk about changing your medication.”

“Why?”

“Because the intense ups and downs aren’t supposed to happen,” David explained. “I think there’s a better combination out there that could help you feel more stable. I think coupled with intensive therapy, you can make real progress.”

I tried not to groan. Intensive therapy. I hated the fucking sound of that. Honestly, I’d do it, but right now, I didn’t want to fucking think about it.

“Can I ask you something else?” I said instead to divert the conversation. “You probably can’t fucking answer this. Why would she do it? Genevieve, I mean. Why would she keep going back to her fucking father after everything?”

And throw me under the bus in the process. But I kept that thought out of my mouth.

“Stockholm Syndrome.”

“Isn’t that a prisoner-captive thing?” I asked. “Beauty and the Beast? That was Stockholm Syndrome, wasn’t it?”

“When you’re a child, your survival relies on your parents,” David replied. “A bond forms as a way to survive. And when abuse of any kind is introduced to that bond, it becomes a trauma bond. Not everyone fights for survival. Genevieve uses love and obedience as a survival technique without realizing it. If she loves him hard enough, if she does what he says, maybe he won’t hurt her. Trauma bonds… you can’t break that for her, Killian. It has to come from her, and it takes years of work. She has to be ready for it.”

“I thought she was.”

“I don’t think she was. I think you scared her into thinking she’d lose you.”

“I didn’t—”

“You did the right thing for you,” he interrupted quickly. “You needed to do it for your own mental and emotional well-being. There’s nothing wrong with that, and you aren’t responsible for her response. But fear motivating more fear… it doesn’t end well. Genevieve has to want to save herself. That’s the only way it works.”

I hated that. I fucking hated that so goddamn much because deep down, I knew Genevieve wouldn’t. If she hadn’t by now, there was no way in hell she ever would.