Forgiveness, Trust & Forever

Emily

Hero pressed record.
And every sensible part of me wanted to scream at him to stop.
Not because I thought he was wrong.
Because I knew him.
I knew the look on his face. I had seen it in hospital corridors, outside courtrooms, in the doorway of the flat when we were too young and too hurt and too proud to say the things that might have saved us.
Hero calm was worse than Hero angry.
Hero angry shouted.
Hero calm destroyed things.
"Hero," Anna warned again, stepping closer. "Do not do this live."
"It's not live."
"That is not comforting."
Eleanora shifted against my chest.
My whole body locked.
Her cheek was warm against the borrowed jumper. Her tiny fingers were twisted in the fabric near my collarbone, not tight enough to hurt, but enough to remind me with every breath that she was there.
In my arms.
Mine.
No.
Not mine.
I didn't know how to use that word yet without it feeling like a lie I wanted badly enough to make true.
Hero's eyes flicked to Eleanora.
Then to me.
The camera was still pointed at himself, but he had not started speaking.
He was waiting.
For what, I didn't know.
Permission?
Forgiveness?
A reason not to set fire to his life?
I had none of those to give him.
"Don't drag her into it," I said quietly.
His face softened.
For one awful second, I thought he might misunderstand and think I meant Eleanora.
Then his eyes moved over my face, and I knew he understood.
Me.
Don't drag me into it.
Not as the broken ex.
Not as the mother who couldn't mother.
Not as the girl who tried to give away his baby.
Not as the reason everyone should pity him.
"I won't," he said.
His voice was gentle enough to hurt.
Jo's voice still echoed in my head.
Emily always runs when she remembers what she is.
What she is.
I looked down at Eleanora.
She was calmer now, one hand opening and closing against me as if she was testing whether I was real.
Maybe I was doing the same.
I had picked her up because she cried and Hero was downstairs and something in me had panicked at the sound. Not the old panic. Not the terrible, suffocating one that used to make me feel like the walls were closing in whenever someone placed her in my arms.
This was different.
Sharper.
Angrier.
She cried, and I wanted it to stop because she was scared.
Not because I was.
That had to mean something.
Didn't it?
Hero's thumb hovered over the screen.
Anna muttered, "At least sit down before you ruin your career."
He gave her a look.
"What?" she snapped. "You're dramatic when you stand."
Jen, despite everything, made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh.
Hero didn't.
But he did lower himself into the chair behind my studio office desk.
My desk.
Something about seeing him there, surrounded by my invoices and class schedules and half-dead pens, made my chest ache.
He looked out of place.
He looked like he belonged.
I hated both.
Anna moved behind Jen's laptop, watching the emails from Jo continue to load. Her face was tight. Every few seconds, another message arrived. More screenshots. More proof. More little pieces of my humiliation neatly packaged as evidence.
I did not want to look.
I could not stop looking.
Ava's name appeared again and again.
Jo's too.
Then the studio assistant.
Then words like strategy and narrative and instability factor.
Instability factor.
That was me.
Not Emily.
Not dancer.
Not daughter.
Not sister.
Not woman.
Instability factor.
I almost laughed.
Eleanora made a soft sound against me.
I looked down immediately.
Her eyes were half open, heavy and dark and unfocused with tiredness. She stared at my chin like she was trying to work out where she was.
Who I was.
I swallowed.
"Hi," I whispered before I could stop myself.
Hero went very still.
I felt it even though I wasn't looking at him.
Eleanora blinked.
Then her little hand patted clumsily against my jumper.
Once.
Twice.
My breath caught.
She didn't smile.
She didn't recognise me in some magical, life-altering way.
She simply existed there, warm and heavy, not rejecting me.
And I realised with sudden, horrible clarity that maybe I had been waiting for her to reject me because then I could say I deserved it and stay away.
But she was one.
She didn't know how to punish me.
She only knew arms.
Warmth.
A heartbeat.
Someone staying still enough not to frighten her.
I could do still.
Maybe.
Hero's voice broke through the room.
"I need to say something."
My head lifted.
He was looking into the phone camera now.
Not smiling.
Not polished.
Not the version of him that existed in interviews with good lighting and better answers.
This was the Hero who had sat across from me in court and looked like grief had turned him to stone.
Except now the stone had cracked.
"I'm aware there's an article circulating this morning about my private life," he said.
Anna closed her eyes like she was already praying to every public relations god she could think of.
Jen kept recording on her own phone from the side, probably for legal reasons.
I stood frozen in the doorway with Eleanora held too carefully against me.
"Most of what has been written involves people who did not consent to having painful parts of their lives turned into public entertainment," Hero continued. "I won't be confirming details. I won't be naming my daughter. And I will not allow anyone else to use her, her mother, or a difficult chapter in our family's life as a marketing strategy."
His eyes flicked to the laptop.
Then back to the camera.
Family.
Our family.
My throat closed.
"There has been speculation about my relationship with Josephine Langford," he said.
Something moved in my stomach.
Not jealousy.
Not exactly.
Something sharp and familiar.
"The truth is simple. Jo is my co-star. She is not my girlfriend. There has never been a romantic relationship between us."
Anna whispered, "Oh, fuck."
Hero ignored her.
"Any suggestion otherwise was encouraged for professional reasons that I should have pushed back on sooner. That is on me."
I stared at him.
He did not sound angry.
He sounded honest.
That was worse for everyone who had built a lie around him.
"My daughter is not a secret because I am ashamed of her," he said.
His voice caught slightly.
Only slightly.
Enough to make my eyes burn.
"She is private because she is a child. She is loved. She is protected. And she will remain unnamed and unseen by the public for as long as I can possibly manage."
Eleanora's little hand slid from my jumper to my skin.
I stopped breathing.
Hero's gaze moved to us again.
Just for half a second.
The camera would not catch it.
But I did.
"The mother of my child does not deserve abuse," he said, voice lower now. "She does not deserve to have strangers decide who she is based on a story sold by people who were not there. We were young. We were hurt. We made decisions under circumstances I will not explain for your entertainment."
My eyes blurred.
I wanted to hate him for saying it.
For making it sound so simple.
For giving me grace I hadn't earned.
But I couldn't.
God help me, I couldn't.
"I have made mistakes," he said. "Public ones. Private ones. But letting anyone believe my career matters more than my daughter is not one I'll keep making."
A beat.
Then his jaw tightened.
"To the people outside my family's home, outside the home we are currently in, and to anyone threatening to identify or photograph my child: stop. You are frightening a one-year-old baby. There is no headline worth that."
My knees almost gave.
Hero leaned closer to the camera.
"And to whoever sent the threats this morning, legal and police already have them. If you come near my daughter again, I will not handle it privately."
Silence.
Then he ended the recording.
For three seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Anna exploded.
"You gorgeous, reckless idiot."
Hero looked up. "That felt mixed."
"It was." She snatched the phone from his hand. "You should have let legal vet it."
"Would legal have said yes?"
"No."
"Then we saved time."
Jen was already transferring the video. "I actually think it's good."
Anna glared at her.
Jen lifted one shoulder. "Terrifying, but good."
Hero looked at me.
I hated that everyone else disappeared when he did that.
"What?" I asked defensively.
"I didn't drag you."
No.
He hadn't.
Somehow, that made me feel more exposed.
"I know."
"Are you angry?"
"Yes."
His mouth tilted faintly.
"At what part?"
"The part where you were decent."
The faint smile vanished.
Eleanora shifted again, and this time her face scrunched.
A warning.
Tiny.
Deadly.
"Oh," I breathed.
Hero stood automatically.
I stepped back automatically.
We both noticed.
A flash of hurt crossed his face before he buried it.
"I can take her."
The words were gentle.
No judgement.
Still, shame rose.
Hot and immediate.
Of course he could take her.
Of course that was the answer.
Give her back to the parent who wanted her. The one who knew what each sound meant. The one who didn't stand there like holding a tired baby was a test with no right answers.
Eleanora whimpered.
My arms tightened, wrong and too stiff.
Her face crumpled further.
Panic bloomed in my chest.
Hero moved closer.
"She's okay," he said.
"I know."
"She's just tired."
"I know."
But I didn't.
Not really.
My breathing started to go strange.
In.
Out.
Too fast.
Eleanora made a frustrated, sleepy cry.
Hero stopped a few feet away.
Not taking her.
Not yet.
"Emily, look at me."
"No."
"Breathe."
"I am breathing."
"You're panicking."
"I know I'm panicking!" I snapped.
Eleanora cried harder.
I flinched.
Hero's face tightened, but he stayed where he was.
Anna and Jen had gone completely quiet.
Perfect.
An audience.
Exactly what I needed for my grand performance as the worst mother alive.
"I can't do this," I whispered.
Hero's voice was steady.
"Then give her to me."
Simple.
No blame.
No anger.
Just an option.
That almost made it worse.
Because part of me wanted to.
A huge part.
A relieved, cowardly part.
But another part of me remembered Jo's voice.
Once she rejects the baby again, he'll finally hate her properly.
My eyes closed.
No.
No, I would not let Jo narrate this moment.
Not her.
Not Ava.
Not the press.
Not the courtroom.
Not even Hero.
Eleanora cried against me, tiny body squirming.
I forced myself to lower my chin, my lips close to her hair.
"I don't know what you need," I whispered, voice shaking.
She cried.
Hero said nothing.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to her. "I don't know."
Her little fist bumped clumsily against my collarbone.
I looked at Hero then.
Helpless.
He came closer slowly.
Not reaching for her.
Teaching me.
"Support her head a bit more," he said softly. "She likes pressure when she's overtired. Not tight. Just secure."
My arms adjusted awkwardly.
Eleanora cried, but a little less sharply.
"Like this?"
"Yeah."
Hero's voice warmed. "Yeah, that's good."
My throat burned.
"Don't praise me like I'm a child."
"Then don't look so pleased."
I glared at him through tears.
He smiled.
Bastard.
"Now rock a little," he said. "Not big. Just side to side."
I did.
It felt unnatural.
Then less unnatural.
Eleanora's cry broke into little hiccups.
My whole body froze.
Hero shook his head quickly.
"Don't stop."
I started again.
Side to side.
Small.
Gentle.
Terrified.
Eleanora's cheek found my shoulder.
Her cries softened.
Not gone.
But softer.
Hero's eyes were on us.
Not hungry.
Not demanding.
Not like he expected me to suddenly become someone else.
Just watching.
Like the sight hurt him and healed him at the same time.
Anna turned away first, wiping under one eye like she was suddenly very interested in the studio wall.
Jen pretended to work on the laptop.
I looked down at Eleanora.
Her tiny lashes were wet.
Her mouth trembled.
Her hand was still twisted in my jumper.
I kept rocking.
Side to side.
Side to side.
The world did not change.
I did not become whole.
I did not suddenly understand the shape of motherhood.
But she stopped crying.
In my arms.
A sob tried to climb out of me.
I swallowed it down so hard it hurt.
Hero's voice came quietly.
"There you go."
I shook my head.
"Don't."
"Okay."
But his eyes were shining.
Mine were worse.
Eleanora grew heavier against me.
I kept moving until my arms ached.
I would have kept going forever if it meant she didn't cry again.
Hero's phone buzzed on the desk.
Anna picked it up, read the screen, and winced.
"What?" Hero asked.
She looked at me before answering.
"Jo sent the journalist's name. And Ava's number. Also screenshots proving the assistant knew before the article went live."
Hero's face hardened.
"Send everything to legal."
Jen nodded. "Already doing it."
Anna looked at the phone again.
"There's something else."
Hero's jaw tightened. "What?"
"Government announcement expected tonight. Full lockdown is likely."
The room shifted.
Not dramatically.
Not with shouting or gasps.
Just a quiet, invisible closing of doors.
Full lockdown.
The words settled over us.
Over the studio.
Over the flat upstairs.
Over Eleanora asleep against my shoulder.
Over me and Hero standing too close in the ruins of a life we had never properly buried.
I swallowed.
"How long?"
Anna shook her head. "No one knows."
Hero looked at me.
I already knew what he was thinking.
If lockdown happened, he couldn't take Eleanora back and forth through photographers. He couldn't keep her at his parents' house with press outside. He couldn't drag her between hotels while the virus spread and the world shut down.
The safest place was here.
My flat.
My studio.
My gated driveway.
My bedroom.
My life.
Our life, some stupid, dangerous part of me whispered.
No.
I looked down at Eleanora.
She slept.
Warm.
Trusting.
Completely unaware that the idea of being trapped with her frightened me almost as much as losing her to the world outside.
Hero spoke first.
"We don't have to decide everything right now."
I laughed quietly.
"When have we ever decided anything before it exploded?"
His mouth twitched.
"Fair."
Anna's phone rang.
She answered and stepped out of the office, voice low but tense.
Jen kept working.
Hero and I stood in the middle of my studio, with the mirrors reflecting us from every angle.
I hated the reflection.
Hero, rumpled and exhausted and still beautiful in a way that made me want to be cruel just to protect myself.
Me, barefoot in last night's dress and his mother's jumper, holding the baby I had once tried to place in someone else's future.
Eleanora, asleep between us like a fragile bridge neither of us knew how to cross without falling.
Hero looked at our reflection too.
"What?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"Nothing."
"Don't lie."
His eyes met mine in the mirror.
"I was thinking we look like a family."
My heart stopped.
"No, we don't."
His gaze stayed on mine.
"Okay."
I hated him for not arguing.
I hated myself for wanting him to.
Anna came back in before either of us could say something dangerous.
"Police are at the gates now. They've moved most of the press back from the driveway, but there are still a few hanging around across the road."
"Can they stay?" Hero asked.
"For a while. Not forever."
Jen looked up. "Legal says do not post the video until they call."
Hero gave her a flat look.
Jen sighed. "I told them that was unlikely."
My arms were starting to ache.
Hero noticed immediately.
"Do you want me to take her?"
Yes.
No.
I didn't know.
Eleanora was asleep now. Giving her back felt like admitting the moment was over. Keeping her felt like I might do something wrong and ruin it.
"I don't want to wake her," I said.
Hero nodded. "Come upstairs. We can lay her down."
We.
The word slipped into the room so easily.
I didn't correct it.
I followed him up the stairs because I did not trust myself to carry her without someone close enough to catch the whole world if I dropped it.
In my bedroom, Hero folded back the thin blanket in the travel cot.
"Slowly," he murmured.
"I know."
"Sorry."
"No, I don't know. I just don't want to feel stupid."
"You're not stupid."
I glared at him.
He shut up.
Together, we lowered her.
My hands trembled so badly that Hero's brushed beneath mine, not taking over, just steadying.
The contact shot straight through me.
I almost pulled away.
I didn't.
Eleanora stirred when her back touched the mattress.
Both of us froze.
Her face scrunched.
I held my breath.
Hero rubbed her tummy in slow circles.
I found myself copying the rhythm against the blanket near her feet, not touching her skin, just there.
She settled.
Slept.
Hero exhaled.
I did too.
Then we were standing bent over the cot, our shoulders nearly touching, both staring at the same impossible little girl.
A siren wailed somewhere in the distance.
The city outside felt changed already.
Smaller.
Afraid.
Hero straightened first.
I stepped back.
The room became too quiet.
Too intimate.
Too much like last night and not enough like it.
His eyes dropped to my mouth.
Only for half a second.
Still enough to ruin me.
"Don't," I whispered.
He looked back at my eyes.
"I wasn't."
"You were thinking it."
"I'm always thinking it."
My pulse leapt.
"Hero."
"I know."
But he did not step away.
Neither did I.
The cot was between us.
Our sleeping daughter was between us.
The past was between us.
The fact that I had ended things with Hayden downstairs and Hero had just told the world Jo was not his girlfriend sat between us too, bright and dangerous.
He lifted a hand slowly.
Not touching me.
Asking.
I should have said no.
I should have stepped away.
I should have remembered every reason this would end badly.
Instead, I let his fingers brush the damp hair away from my cheek.
The touch was so gentle I nearly cried.
"Emily," he whispered.
From the other room, his phone started ringing again.
The sound cut through us.
We both stepped back.
Reality returned with teeth.
Hero dragged a hand over his face and moved to the doorway.
I stayed beside the cot.
Because Eleanora was sleeping.
Because someone needed to.
Because for once, staying still felt less like being trapped and more like choosing not to run.
Hero returned a moment later, phone in hand, face unreadable.
"What?" I asked.
"That was legal."
"And?"
His eyes flicked to the cot.
Then to me.
"They said not to post the video."
I almost laughed.
"And you're going to listen?"
"No."
Of course not.
"Hero-"
"They also said Jo's evidence is enough to go after Ava and the journalist. But the studio involvement is trickier unless we have something directly tying my director to it."
I wrapped my arms around myself.
"And do we?"
His phone buzzed before he could answer.
He looked down.
His face changed.
"What?" I whispered.
He turned the screen towards me.
A message from Ava.
You should thank me. Now you know which woman will stand beside you and which one will always need saving.
Underneath it was a second message.
Tell Emily lockdown is going to be fun. She never did like being trapped with things she doesn't want.
My blood went cold.
Hero's hand tightened around the phone.
I felt something shift in me.
Fear, yes.
But beneath it, anger.
Old.
Sharp.
Mine.
Ava wanted me to run.
She wanted me to read that message and remember every panic attack, every sleepless night, every moment I looked at Eleanora and thought I was too broken to stay.
She wanted to be right.
I looked at the cot.
Eleanora slept with her rabbit tucked against her face.
Then I looked at Hero.
"Post the video."
His eyes searched mine.
"Emily."
"Post it," I said again, my voice steadier this time. "And then send Ava one back."
"What do you want me to say?"
I looked at the message once more.
Then at my daughter.
My daughter.
The words still frightened me.
But not enough to make me run.
"Tell her she picked the wrong thing to threaten."