⚠️This chapter contains mature elements, involving the death of a child. Proceed with caution. ⚠️

Every story has a beginning.

Aidan's goes way back.

Usually, these stories involve a doting or absent family, a pleasant or rocky childhood, usually somewhere steps are taken in the direction of adulthood, where you can rule your own life and not focus so much on what brought you up to there.

In my own story, that moment was when I knew my father was never coming back. My mother was on her own, and if she didn't realize it as well, she'd always be. In that fateful moment, where fireworks split open the back of my brain, forcing me to see all the useless time I'd spent longing for something unreachable, and something I probably wouldn't even want if it were offered—another claimant of my existence to know and care for me—it all became so clear.

I was a girl no longer, and I set out to take charge of my own fate, ensuring the one that happened to me would never repeat. I'd never be helpless.

I went to school, procured a great job and rose high with accomplishments for my hard work. My life became as normal as I wanted it to be. Now, I have learned from my past, and grown from it. 

And my story is truly like so many others. I'm not the first girl whose father didn't want her. I'm not the first girl who spent her teenage years trying to understand the fact. I'm also not the first girl to rise above the faults of a parent.

I'm just like everyone else.

The man...the man in front of me is not. And as I watch him, watch him prepare to give me his own story, one that he hasn't grown from—but is one that has hindered him—it dawns on me that Aidan Hughes is about to tell me something that he is digging out of the deepest part of his body, and that surfacing this information may potentially harm him.

By the distant uncertainty fleeting across his features, his eyes so lost scouring my apartment for some sort of connection, something to latch onto because my face has clearly become impossible to focus on, I'm positive he's thought of that too.

My hands are clasped in my lap, my spine stiff in anticipation. He asked me to sit, so I did.

All I can think of is the fact that he's told me he may not be able to stay, that he's entrusting me with this knowledge purely to prove that he is capable of putting his worst secrets, his worst memories into my hands, to prove he can trust me.

And as much as I wish I could tell him he doesn't have to do this, that I will stay without it, my desire to know his soul is too great. Aidan is in constant pain. Whatever lies behind his words now are the cause of it. As far as I know, he hasn't seen a therapist, hasn't spoken of this to a soul other than Victoria and some person named Mel. Releasing it onto someone on the outside of his usual spectrum may actually help him.

He ticks his mouth with his fingers, and gazes up to the ceiling, a gust leaving his chest.

"I'll have to go back...because," he says, his voice weakened by lack of breath. His eyes squint with remembrance as he takes himself elsewhere, leaving me in this room, "because Nora has been apart of my life since the start."

Towering by my fireplace, which he lit before I'd even walked through the door, he leans into it, nodding to himself. I'd imagine what his brain seems like in this moment, but I'm sure it would be dizzily frightening.

This story ends with the death of his wife and child.

There is no happy ending.

"Nora was my best friend," he says, telling me a great deal just by how soft and sweet his voice lowers, how his mouth curves upward for a fleeting second before it disappears for good. "Our fathers were close. His father at the time worked for mine as a campaign manager. I never knew life without his daughter. We-we went everywhere together, spent every summer, every break from school with each other."

He glances at me, swallowing deeply. "I never had any intention of pursuing anything more than what we had. She was content with friendship, and so was I. We went through high school seeing other people, you know, getting advice from a member of the opposite sex without reservations had its plus's. There was no awkward first kiss, no unnecessary chat to need to discover that we didn't care for each other that way."

"I think that's why she was so special to me. If there was a choice to hang out with the guys on the swim team or her, I'd choose her. That's just the way that went, and it worked. It worked for so long. Our friendship only drove our parents closer. And when my father became senator, her father was always at his side."

"We graduated and set off to different colleges. While I was going in at the time for political science, planning to join my father's team, she went to school for painting. Nothing changed despite being in different cities, despite a new crowd of friends." He places his hands on his hips, grounding himself to remain still. "I quit school when I realized I had no desire to join the political world. I took up photography then, and made a name for myself when I traveled to Thailand to photograph the aftermath of a tsunami that had struck and devastated them."

It's only now I realize how closely Aidan's profession and mine coincide.

"It was endlessly hard to get there, but with my father's connections and with my desire to volunteer and donate funds for repair, I was able to get there. The shots I took from that day were bought worldwide by media outlets, and within a day of releasing them, oddly enough, I was recognized in the photography industry."

"When I returned, I was on a high. I'd found my profession. I'd discovered what my father's wealth, what my own money could do if I devoted it to the right things. That year, around Christmas, my father mentioned how great Nora and I were together, how much we'd grown. He merely implied that a relationship between us would not only make them happy, but it would be political dynamite, because by this time, Nora's father was campaigning for governor."

Aidan, by the window now, shakes his head, the reflection of his silhouette in the glass distorted by the downpour of snow raining down behind it onto the streets. The sight of the white speckles of ice dropping out of the sky remind me of his home, and of the nights where I thought the snow would never stop coming down.

Oh, how I wish we were there right now. Oh, how I wish I could turn back time and freeze us there, back when I was so uncertain but we were strangers enough that I couldn't demand this from him.

"I don't know why the idea became so prominent. Maybe it was because I loved my father. Maybe it was because it was so easy with her...and oddly enough, because she thought the same why I did." He scoffs. "Neither of us were driven by the usual search for love most have. We laughed at the people who did, so it became easy, easy to settle."

"We announced our engagement right before her father's campaign started, and within six months, we were married in front of a judge. The nuptials did exactly as my father predicted. It made our families not just friends, but real family. There was enough talk within political circles to light up her father's campaign and get him the seat."

I sense the darkness coming, looming over his head like a demon, a demon waiting to find a way into him. I sense it's those same demons that make him able to pierce his skin, to yearn for more pain.

"Everything was perfect...for a while. Nora and I carried on like we always had, and the titles we shared of husband and wife became just words. We decided we'd done the right thing, trusting each other in marriage, and to ensure we'd never let anything get between us, we agreed to see other people in private and keep our marriage abstinent."

I'm sure he catches the shock that touches my features. Abstinence by choice is odd enough, but considering I've seen photographs of his deceased wife and can attest to her beauty, the idea that he wouldn't want more is puzzling. In this day and age, people hardly take precautions such as a loveless marriage, an arranged one. Their philosophy seems ancient, one they'd steal from a hardcover in his library, an idea that may have worked a century ago—not the modern day 21st century.

"That way of thinking didn't last long," he voices, reliving me of my inner dialogue, my silent questions. He pulls mindlessly on the cuff of his sweater, like it's choking him to have it on, to have it so close to his skin. His face has gone pale.

"My parents died that year," he confesses, softly. He lets go of the fabric. "They died minutes away from the manor. They hadn't even made it down the mountain...a tow truck slammed into them and they were sent off the main road. I-I remember not even putting shoes on when I got the call. By the time we got through the chaos, the townspeople, the reporters...the police were already there."

I want to hold him.

He blinks, and I can see he's painting the picture so clearly, lost in his own words. "The car was a ball. A ball of metal. I didn't have to ask...ask if they were—I knew. The officer tried to keep me from the wreckage, but I had to...I had to see them, touch them."

I watch a chill run through him, testing his body with the reminder. He seems so alone, so conflicted in the corner of my room.

"I wish you could have met my mother," he whispers, regretfully, proving he's not completely lost in the horrors of his mind. I'm still captured somewhere in there. His eyes are distant though, as if he were telling someone else about me instead of the reality. "She had the greatest smile. I mean, it was...it was an instant gift. She could stop even the most heartbroken person from crying with it."

I don't doubt it...he inherited that smile. I see it every time I'm with him.

"I could only reach her hand," he says, and his lips tremble, but he fights it until it stops. "It was...shattered. Shattered and ice cold. I could feel all the broken bones, but I didn't let go of her...not until they forced me to."

His eyes pierce mine suddenly, a swift flicker and for some reason, he's embarrassed. He sucks in a breath and looks to the ceiling, concealing the water that's gathered in his eyes, water that he should be releasing, but is trying so hard not to.

"Um, yeah, that was hard. Losing them, both, that was hard." His voice is shaking. I'm frightened for him to go on. This is so much worse than I could have imagined. He fidgets, wiping beneath his eyes quickly, bringing back the informative, indifferent mask I'm so used to seeing.

"I was tormented for months. I'd never gone a single day without speaking to them, hearing my mother's voice. I felt...very alone." He inhales. "Nora got the idea that a...child...would heal us both. Neither of us had taken advantage of the pact we'd made to be with other people and we were both so eager for more and figured time was running out, so we decided to give it a go."

"We slept together until she got pregnant, which was almost immediately. And it continued for a while. Our relationship morphed into something else. It-It wasn't love," he says, assuring me with a glance, "but it was nice, and it was new. And it healed a lot of me that was broken."

Now things seem to be getting harder for him. He touches the window sill, staring out into the snow fall.

"She was six months pregnant when I realized something was wrong." He hums, as if it's disturbing him to even speak. "She...she always liked her privacy. She liked being alone. But, she began to retreat, more than usual, enough for me to notice. Nora was always a charmingly odd woman, but her moods were fluctuating, fleetingly at first and then more so. It got so bad I couldn't move something in the house without her losing her mind on me. Victoria noticed as well, told me we needed to see someone, that maybe it was a reaction to the medications she was taking."

"It took countless tests, and checks into her family history to determine it wasn't the meds...she was sick."

He looks down, and I stare at him, afraid to move, afraid to look away from him, not wanting to miss a single twitch to his face, a single word fall from his mouth.

"It's...it's odd how quickly someone can lose their mind," he whispers, glancing to me, his eyes uncomfortably calm. "At first, it was depression in the doctor's eyes, a bi-polar disorder. We had to navigate the medications while she was pregnant, but as soon as she had Lily, they increased the dosage, realizing she wasn't feeling any better, thinking it was post-partum depression after birthing."

He closes his eyes tightly. "She was so doped up that she couldn't speak, couldn't play with Lily...couldn't hold her. She adored Lily. I mean, she was infatuated with her. And to-to see her missing precious moments with our daughter..." He crosses his arms over his body, pressing his lips together. "She would beg me not to make her take them, and it felt like I was taking away her life. I couldn't force it, I couldn't say no."

"We went together and told them she wasn't getting any better. That we needed a different plan, not medications. Therapy was the next option. That lasted for a few weeks before she started to hate that too. I-I didn't know what to do. I was taking care of Lily basically on my own, too nervous to leave them together. Her temper was quick, she was constantly mad at me and everyone around her. She was digressing quickly, and it seemed like no doctor, no therapist could give us an answer. She convinced me shock therapy wasn't an option, and I really didn't want it to be." He scoffs, darkly, as if he can't believe he's saying all of this aloud. "It all felt like...like a goddamn horror movie."

My brain is jumping to conclusions—frightening, unspeakable conclusions—and I'm instantly terrified for his next words, sitting on the edge of the cushions, waiting with dread.

"By the time Lily was six months old, I didn't even know who Nora was. She loathed me, was convinced I was trying to trap her at home, and mind you, I was. Her father was adamant about keeping her condition hushed and out of the spotlight, and it fell on me to ensure that anyone who saw her would keep their mouths shut...and I didn't need to do that for long because at some point, they all just stopped coming. It was just us in that manor, just Nora, Lily, Vic and Buddy and me."

"Somehow we made it work. Nora would have good and bad days, and on the bad ones, I'd try to stay out of her way. Victoria moved in with us at this time, because I couldn't handle it on my own, and I didn't want to get nurses, nervous about who I could trust. On good days, Nora would know something was wrong. She'd apologize. She'd cry. She'd beg me to find a solution. So, I did." He breathes in. "I made her go to the doctors again. We traveled to New York to see a brain specialist, who then diagnosed her with acute schizophrenia, and bipolar psychosis."

Oh god.

Aidan closes his eyes. "Medications for that helped some, but not enough. Lily had just started walking when I first heard Nora talking to herself. After that, it was just...a nightmare. She'd tell Victoria that I was going to kill her, that I wanted her dead, that someone had told her that I was dangerous. From then on, my mere presence was a form of torture for her, but I couldn't let her be near Lily without being around, and I couldn't deny her the chance to be with her daughter either. I kept praying she'd get better, somehow. I mean, she was my best friend. She wasn't a bad person. She could be kind."

"But when she wasn't?" I ask, softly, cautiously.

"As gentle as she was with Lily, she became the opposite with me, with Victoria, which killed her because to Victoria, Nora was a daughter. She'd watched her grow up, both of us grow up, and to see her so helpless to something so frightening, it was..." He stops himself, clearing his throat, trying so hard to go on. I can see it, how much this is scaring him—reliving it all.

"She was having an episode one day, and I had taken her into a room to calm her down while Victoria took Lily from the house, to get her out and about. And she..." his face tightens with anger, with confusion, "Nora told me Lily wasn't...mine. That she wasn't my daughter."

My eyes widen in horror, my mouth falling open. No.

"She said she had been with a man while I was reveling in the grief of losing my parents, and I hadn't known it. She told me he was a mistake, a real lowlife who made it clear a baby wasn't in the cards for him, and she knew I'd be destroyed that she'd gotten pregnant by another man. And told me she lied and proposed having a child to cover it up...so I would think Lily was mine."

I could be sick. I feel sick. I can't imagine what he's feeling.

"I was so angry. I had to leave the room, but I was trapped. I-I couldn't leave Lily with her, and god damn it, I was raising her practically on my own. That was my damn child." He squeezes his temples, exhaling. "She showed no remorse, and I couldn't even look at her anymore. I stopped working. Her parents ceased contact. And I accepted that I'd learn to live with the truth, and with the reality."

"On my own, I visited hospitals...wards. I considered the possibility, knowing at some point, Lily would get older and need a stable environment. But, I was weak, and I could only see the girl I had grown up with, the girl who I'd spent my entire life with. Seeing the despair, the utter despair in those places destroyed me, and I couldn't do it to her. I couldn't do that."

He moves, trying to breathe. I hear how hard it's becoming. He takes a seat on a chair at my table, staying a clear distance away from me, and I have front row view to the moment he reaches the darkest place, and I wonder how in the hell he's managed a single smile with me.

I don't know how he's so sane, not after something like this.

"Right after Lily turned two...I won the Pulitzer Prize for my photographic coverage of the San Fran quake. Victoria pleaded with me to go, to accept it, knowing it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Nora did too, which felt odd, but it was a brief moment of sunshine in my life, a reminder of a life I once had and god, I wanted so badly to escape."

He perches his elbow on his thigh, and covers his mouth, so far away from here. "I decided I'd go. Victoria was sure she could handle everything with Buddy. It...it made me nervous to leave Lily, but I didn't think two days would make any difference, that it could do any harm."

"I flew to New York to accept the award, and found after so much time in my own private world, up on that mountain, I'd forgotten how to...be. I was on edge the entire time, constantly looking over my shoulder, expecting something bad to happen. My mind wasn't there, so much so that I said two words in my speech and climbed off the stage, instantly booking a flight back, not wishing to spend another day away from them."

We're facing each other, but he won't look at me. He's staring at the ground, his eyes glazed over. They're moving so frantically.

"I-I called when I got off the plane. I had to speak to Lily. She couldn't say much, not more than sweet ramblings but I just needed to know that she...that she was okay. I told Victoria I was back early and would be home soon. And after I'd gotten to my car, I called again, having forgotten that I needed a form faxed to Nora's physician, and since Victoria didn't know how to work the fax machine, I told her I'd walk her through it. I told her..."

He bites on his lip, and his eyes meet the ceiling again, and the look on his face...the look on his face, it scares the living hell out of me. I shake my head, unable to help myself. I've heard frightening stories in my time, but never from someone I feel so much for. Never someone I can't bear to see cry.

"You-You don't have to—" I gasp, just as fearful as him. I don't want to hurt him.

"No, I have to. I have to do this," he says, sternly, forcefully. But he can't stop his trembling lips anymore.

He can't get calm anymore.

"I heard the alarm go off through the phone...the house alarm. A-And it was like a fucking omen. It was an omen because we were on the top of a mountain on heavily gated grounds. I had never set that alarm before." He gasps, eyes moving about the floor. "It-It was chaos. Victoria searching the house, her panicking when she couldn't find them in any of the rooms. I was driving, and listening to her scream their names, and then scream Buddy's and I got up that damn mountain faster than I imagined possible."

"By the time I reached the front, I left the car running and Buddy was pulling up the security footage from the cameras. I was screaming their names. I couldn't stay still to wait." He wipes the tears that have begun falling, trying to hold himself together. "Buddy screamed that they'd gone outside, toward the path. And I...and I knew," he says, his voice dropping with pain, with heart-stopping pain.

Tears are blinding him from me. I keep blinking so they'll fall. My nails are digging into my flesh.

"I ran, Jo," he says, imploringly. "I ran as fucking fast as I could. I tried...I tried to get to them. There were those damn snowdrop flowers everywhere I looked. The sky was sunny. The birds were singing..." His shoulders hunch, his head dropping low, his hand shooting to his hair. He holds it, and I hear his tears.

"She was in the river. Nora. I could see her-her hair. It was dead calm, the water. I just remember looking right past her, looking anywhere for Lily. I think I knew it...deep down. I think I knew it but I just couldn't-I couldn't imagine it."

He wipes his face on his sleeve, trying so hard to stay strong. But I'm losing my mind for him, my body ridden with fright. This isn't happening. He isn't saying these things.

"I jumped in and I grabbed onto her. She was heavy...she had pockets in her coat and they were filled...filled with rocks. I-I don't know why. I don't know what made her do it," he whispers, agonizingly. "I didn't care. I just remember looking around, looking around and screaming. I just screamed, because I knew. I could feel it."

He chokes on his next words, a haunting cry of sorrow.

"She had...she was in the water," he sobs, quietly. "She didn't know how to swim. She was somewhere in the water. And I just lost it. I dove under. I did it hundreds of times. I couldn't stop. Buddy came...came into the water eventually to stop me, but I couldn't go. I couldn't leave her down there."

I cry into my hand as his words strike me right in my chest, a knifepoint puncturing my insides.

Oh god, no.

"I wouldn't let him call the police, not until I'd found her. And eventually...I did."

He's hiccupping back his sobs, his traumas, trying to get it all out. He's trying so hard. His face contorts as he looks up at me, in utter agony.

"I felt her arm, her skin and I screamed. I screamed under the water and I grabbed her, choking on it. I convinced myself that she could be okay, that I could bring her back. I swam back to the shoreline, holding her to me." He covers his face, his hands trembling violently. "I tried...I tried. Buddy pulled me away. She was blue. She was blue and her eyes were open and I wanted to die!"

I jump out of my seat, and dive across the room, dropping with a thud at his legs. I grab onto his legs, and then his arms, pulling his hands from his face, gasping. I crush myself to him, surrounding his body with my arms, digging my face into his throat.

His arms surround me just as desperately, as his will tumbles, and he deflates in my grip, and I hear the sound of a man—broken. His gutted sobs only make my grip tighten. I'm nearly ripping his sweater, trying to keep him from falling over.

"She killed my baby. She—" he cries, his body flinching, his hot tears falling onto my skin. I'm nauseous and my heart is racing so fast I'm scared it could stop, but I can't break down. Not now.

"I'm so sorry," I breathe. "Aidan, I'm so sorry. Oh my god."

His devastation is overwhelming. The scars of self-harm on his arms, the seclusion, the fights with me...they all make sense.

He's tried telling me. He's tried telling me multiple times, and it's only right now that I understand what he was trying to say.

Aidan Hughes has been dead for years.

He's been living with this for years. With reminders of a woman I think he truly did love, but didn't know it. A woman who was sick, who couldn't control her circumstances. The reminder of a child, a child with skin painted blue, and eyes frozen wide open.

I imagine him hearing them around the manor when he's alone, as I did when I was there, and it tears my heart open now.

I have no idea how to comfort him, how to make any of this better.

I can only show him I'm here, let him feel my touch.

I kiss his throat as he loses himself completely submerged in the horrors he's spoken and brought back to life, nuzzling to him affectionately, rubbing my own tears into his skin. His sobs are the single-most painful sound I've ever heard in my life, and each choke, each groan from his mouth makes just breathing around him hard.

His grip hurts, but I encourage more, holding him tighter in turn.

"I'm sorry," I say softly, repetitively, horrified. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Jo!" he cries, helplessly.

While I hear my own heart break, it's clearer than ever before:

I'm not falling anymore. There's no question about it.

I am in love.

This man, this broken man in my arms, deserves the world. Not the one that's shunned him without facts. No.

My world. The one I will make for us.

The one where I patch up his heart, and nurse the wounds, and show him that life can go on.

If he'll let me, I will give up the fears I've let rule me for so long, a result of unworthy men from the start. I will trust in him, and in that love I'm realizing, and I will give him a life worth living.

If he'll let me, I'll try to revive him.

Wedged between his legs, molded to his body, I push back the images, the details he's informed me of. I suck the tears back in, and I give him enough love to make up for the years that he's been alone.

I'm not sure if it's enough. It may very well not be.

But as his hands dive into my hair, and he simply holds me that way, needing my touch, I have hope.