Page 10 of Steeled

“You should go get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, not at all convinced sleep was in his future.

As he was turning to take his leave, Nora and Evelyn arrived at the door. Just like she had been when they came rushing into the hospital, Evelyn was still wrapped around her mother. Nora hesitated before stepping into the room, smoothing a hand down her daughter’s back as she murmured, “Can we come in? Once Evie understood why we were here, she insisted we couldn’t leave without seein’ him.”

“Of course,” said Mitzi, standing to her feet. Edging closer to Atticus, she ran her fingers through his hair. “Baby?” she whispered.

“Hmm?” he hummed.

“Evie’s here.”

Atticus pried open his eyes, looking at Mitzi before shifting his gaze in search of his little friend. When he found her, a small, tired smile played at the corner of his mouth. Something about that smile made Lawson’s gut wrench.

“Hi.”

Evelyn didn’t respond at first. Clinging to Nora’s neck, she studied Atticus, concern tugging at her brow. It took her a moment to process what she was seeing. Finally, she murmured, “Mommy said you got a big owey and the doctor had to fix you.”

“Yeah. But I’m gonna be okay.”

Still frowning suspiciously, she asked, “Does it hurt?”

“A little,” he lied with a reassuring smile.

“But you’re gonna get better?”

“I am.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay.”

Evelyn appeared unsure as to whether or not she could take Atticus at his word. Mitzi spoke next in an effort to distract the girl, but Lawson couldn’t bother himself to listen to their exchange. The worry he saw in her eyes, the familiarity which existed between the little girl and his brother, it made him angry. Not with either of them, but with himself.

It was his fault he was all but a stranger to Evelyn. In his absence, life in Shelbyville went on as it always had. Both Atticus and Justice remained friendly with his ex in spite of their split. There was no good reason not to. Even Lawson had to admit: one look at Evelyn, and it was hard not to want to know her. She was as sweet as she was beautiful, just like her mother.

He had chosen this life. He had chosen to stay away, to stay a stranger, and to let Nora go. It was too late into the night or too early in the morning. His sleep deprivation tore down the walls he was usually so careful to keep erected around the truth he couldn’t change; the past he couldn’t rewrite. He’d chosen wrong. It was a burden he’d been carrying for years. That night, in that room, it felt a little heavier than it did before.

“Tell everyone to head home and get some sleep,” Atticus instructed Lawson, pulling him back into the conversation.

“Will do,” he agreed with a nod.

He then looked at Nora, who offered him a small smile before turning to exit the room.

Later that morning, after little more than a doze and a shower, Lawson sat behind the wheel of his Silverado in the lot behind Vollucci Security. He freed a sigh, let his head fall against the back of his seat, and replayed the same five minutes he’d been thinking about since they’d happened.

Nora-Jean followed him to his brother’s house, then waited in the driveway with a sleeping Evelyn as he went inside to scoop up Mitzi’s beloved maltipoo. After settling the pup in the backseat, the two stood awkwardly, neither of them sure of what to say—both of them aware of the obligation to exchange some assortment of words.

“Are you doin’ okay?” she mutters. “I mean, Steele in the hospital—are you doin’ okay?”

A fraction of a smile pulls at the corners of my mouth as I drop my gaze down at my feet. Her need for clarification is an obvious attempt to keep the lid on Pandora’s box.

When I lift my gaze, I comb my fingers through my hair, pulling it away from my face as I admit, “Yeah. Like he said—he’s gonna be fine.”

“Right,” she breathes.

In that one word, I can hear everything she’s not saying, and it guts me.

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