Page 12 of Seizing Control: Part One

The kind of man I never want to be.

I love him, but I don’t truly respect him.

He’s an expert in avoidance.

After all, he’s had almost two decades to perfect his skills.

He spent my entire life apologising for my mother’s cruelty.

Manufactured reasons to abandon me at the farm with the dying woman we both loathed.

Nowadays, he evades Brutus’ aspersions on my character and dodges the guilt he feels at leaving me to deal with my mother’s death alone. It’s a continuation of his ongoing cowardice. Still, I understand his behaviour. He’s always been weak when it comes to my mother and me.

She was his greatest deception.

I’m his biggest failure.

Little does he know, but a world without the woman who birthed me isn’t foreign.

It’s the closest to normal I know.

The battle I wage now is internal, and one he’s ill-equipped to guide me through.

I have one fight to win.

The lifelong war to ensure the only sweet thing in my life remains adored and protected.

My mission is to shield Lilianna Mayberry’s pure heart.

Keep her untouched by the brutality of men.

Save her sweetness from a world that’ll try its hardest to turn it sour.

That’s my sole ambition in life.

The reason I was born.

And that’s why sleep doesn’t come until Cherub rolls away from Carter to face me.

As soon as she’s chosen me as her safe harbour, I relax. Her inimitable presence soaks into my psyche. Steady breathing. The tiny little sounds she makes that prove she’s protected and comfortable as she sleeps next to me. Her lax posture and our linked fingers.

It’s a recipe for the best night’s sleep I’ve had in weeks.

When she snuggles into my side and her grip on my hand tightens, I give in to the temptation. I allow myself to hold her close, determined to avoid reality for another day. As Cherub sleeps, I mentally promise her the world. While the residual tension leaks from m posture, I also set a vow for myself.

Somehow, I’ll prove that I’m worthy of her.

That her faith in me is justified.

Not to her.

Never to her.

She doesn’t doubt me.

I’ll finally prove it to myself.

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