Forgiveness, Trust & Forever

Emily

"I'm here. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm here."
The words came out before I could think about how pathetic they sounded.
Eleanora cried anyway.
Of course she did.
She was one. She didn't care about confessions or effort or the emotional weight of a woman standing beside a travel cot in a bedroom that had never been meant to hold her. She cared about being tired. Hungry, maybe. Scared, probably. Confused, definitely.
I stood over her with my hands hovering uselessly above the cot, terrified to touch her and more terrified not to.
She was on her back, face red, little fists waving angrily beside her head. Her rabbit had been kicked towards the corner. Her dark curls were damp at the hairline, and one sock had twisted halfway off.
I stared at the sock.
That, somehow, was manageable.
A sock.
I could fix a sock.
Slowly, like she was a bomb I had to disarm with shaking hands, I reached down and straightened it.
Eleanora's crying hitched.
Not stopped.
But changed.
I froze.
Her foot flexed against my palm.
Tiny.
Warm.
Alive.
Mine.
The word whispered through me so quietly I almost missed it.
Then panic rose fast enough to choke me.
No.
Not mine.
Hero's.
The court's.
The responsibility I had refused.
The baby I had wanted to place into someone else's arms because I was sure mine were already too damaged to hold her safely.
Eleanora cried again, harder this time.
"Okay." My voice shook. "Okay, sorry. I'm sorry."
Behind me, the bedroom door creaked.
Hero stood there.
Not inside.
Not interfering.
Just there.
"You called?" he asked softly.
I hadn't.
But maybe my silence had.
Maybe he knew every version of me well enough to hear the scream I kept locked behind my teeth.
"She won't stop," I said.
He stepped in, careful and slow. "She might need changing."
I looked down at Eleanora like she might confirm it herself.
"How do you know?"
"I don't. It's just usually one of the options."
"How many options are there?"
"Too many."
That should not have been comforting.
It was.
I stepped back immediately. "You do it."
He didn't move.
"Emily."
"No. I said I'd check on her. I checked. She's crying. You know what to do."
His eyes moved over my face.
I hated how gentle they were.
"I can do it," he said. "But you can learn."
My jaw locked. "Don't."
"I'm not pushing."
"You are."
"Maybe a little."
"At least you're honest."
He came closer then, but not to take over. He crouched beside the changing bag Mum had packed and pulled out a nappy, wipes, a small tube of cream, a clean vest.
The normality of it made my throat ache.
Hero, kneeling on my bedroom floor, sorting through baby things like this was the life we had always been meant to have.
Like there hadn't been blood on the floor between us for years.
He laid everything on the bed.
"Where do you usually change her?" I asked.
"Changing mat."
"I don't have one."
"It's in the bag."
Of course it was.
His mother had packed a whole life into that bag.
I had built an entire flat and still managed not to have one thing here that belonged to Eleanora.
The shame must have shown on my face because Hero paused.
"You didn't know she'd be here today."
"No," I said. "But there was a time I did know she existed."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"Emily."
"Don't soften it."
"I'm not."
"You are. You keep smoothing the edges off what I did so I don't cut myself on them."
He looked up at me from the floor.
"I'm trying not to use them against you."
That shut me up.
Eleanora cried again.
Hero stood, lifted her carefully from the cot, and laid her on the changing mat on my bed. My bed. The bed I had slept in alone for months, except for the nights Hayden stayed and I pretended not to notice how wrong another man looked in the space that still remembered Hero.
Now Hero stood beside it with our daughter, undoing the tiny poppers on her vest.
He glanced at me.
"Come here."
I shook my head.
"Emily."
"I said no."
"She can't roll off if I'm right here."
"That is not the fear I'm currently having."
His mouth twitched, then vanished when he realised I was serious.
"What is the fear?"
"All of them."
He nodded like that made perfect sense.
Then, with one hand still firmly on Eleanora's tummy, he said, "Start with the wipes."
I stared at him.
He stared back.
I hated him.
I loved him.
I wanted him out of my room.
I wanted him to never leave.
Slowly, I picked up the packet of wipes.
My fingers fumbled with the plastic seal.
Hero watched but didn't help.
Bastard.
Eventually, I got one out and held it like evidence.
"Now what?"
"Give it to me."
Relief loosened my chest.
Too soon.
He cleaned her quickly, talking to her in that low voice that made something inside me ache. Eleanora's cries softened into hiccups as he worked, her little feet kicking against his wrist.
"She hates being cold," he said.
"Understandable."
His mouth lifted slightly.
"She also hates being tired."
"Relatable."
"And being hungry."
"Same."
This time, he did smile.
I hated how good it looked on him in my room.
He held the fresh nappy in place, then looked at me.
"Tabs."
"What?"
"Fasten the tabs."
My stomach dropped. "Hero."
"Just the tabs."
"It seems like something that could go wrong."
"It's a nappy, Em. Not a mortgage."
The nickname slipped out.
We both froze.
Eleanora chose that exact moment to kick one foot against Hero's forearm and let out an offended little squeak.
The tension cracked.
Just enough.
I leaned forward and fastened one tab, then the other. Unevenly. Badly, probably. But it held.
Hero inspected it with exaggerated seriousness.
"Passable."
I glared. "Careful."
"Promising."
"I will throw you out."
"No, you won't."
My breath caught.
His eyes met mine.
For a second, the room forgot there was a baby between us.
Then Eleanora shoved her fist into her mouth and made a furious grunting noise.
Hero looked down and laughed softly.
"She's hungry."
"How can you tell?"
"She's trying to eat herself."
I looked at Eleanora.
Sure enough, she was aggressively chewing her own hand.
"Oh."
Hero scooped her up.
"I'll make her bottle."
"I thought she was one?"
"She still has one before naps sometimes. Today she can have whatever makes her feel safe."
Safe.
That word again.
I looked towards the curtained window.
Below us, the press had gone quiet enough that I could almost pretend they were gone. The gates were locked. The garage was shut. Anna and Jen had left. The television in the living room was still talking about staying indoors, households, restrictions, lives shrinking overnight.
Hero moved towards the door.
I followed him.
Then stopped.
The hallway had three doors.
My bedroom.
The bathroom.
And the spare room.
Hero's eyes went to it at the same time mine did.
The door was closed.
It was always closed.
I hadn't opened it in months.
Not properly.
Not since the last time I stood inside and felt the walls press in so hard I had to sit on the floor with my head between my knees.
Hero noticed my stillness.
Of course he did.
"What's in there?" he asked.
My mouth went dry.
"Nothing."
His eyes stayed on the door.
"Emily."
I hated the way he said my name when he knew I was lying.
I stepped past him towards the kitchen. "Make the bottle."
He didn't move.
I could feel him behind me.
Eleanora fussed softly in his arms.
The sound forced him to follow.
Good.
Coward, my brain whispered.
Not today, I whispered back.
In the kitchen, Hero moved like he had done this a thousand times. Kettle. Bottle. Formula from the bag. Testing temperature on his wrist.
I stood in the doorway, watching.
"You make that look easy."
"It wasn't at first."
"Did your mum teach you?"
"Some."
"And the rest?"
"Panic. Google. Trial and error."
I blinked. "You Googled?"
He gave me a look. "I was twenty-one with a newborn. I Googled everything."
That image cracked something in me.
Hero alone at three in the morning, phone in one hand, Eleanora screaming in the other, searching things like why won't my baby stop crying and how much milk should a newborn drink and am I doing this wrong.
I had never imagined him that way.
Not really.
In my head, he had swept into fatherhood the way he swept into everything else that mattered to him. Determined. Capable. Certain. Hero by name, Hero by nature, everyone clapping because he chose the baby I couldn't.
I hadn't let myself imagine him scared.
If he was scared, then maybe I had left him alone too.
The thought was ugly.
I pushed it away.
Hero shook the bottle and turned.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Your nothing face is loud."
"Your existence is loud."
"That doesn't even make sense."
"It does to me."
Eleanora made a hungry little whimper, reaching clumsily for the bottle when she saw it.
Hero softened instantly.
"Okay, okay. I know."
He sat on the sofa and settled her against him. She latched onto the bottle immediately, both hands trying and failing to help hold it.
I stayed by the kitchen door.
A spectator.
Again.
Hero looked up.
"Do you want to sit?"
"No."
"Okay."
"I don't like when you do that."
"Do what?"
"Accept my no so quickly."
His brows lifted. "Would you prefer I argue?"
"No."
"What do you want me to do?"
I had no answer.
That was the problem.
I wanted him to know when no meant no and when no meant I'm scared and when no meant please don't make me ask.
Which was unfair.
Unreasonable.
Entirely his fault for knowing me too well once and making me expect it forever.
The television murmured in the background.
Stay at home.
Protect the NHS.
Save lives.
My phone lit up on the coffee table.
Hayden.
I ignored it.
Hero saw.
He said nothing.
That was worse than jealousy.
"Ask," I said.
His eyes lifted.
"Ask what you're clearly dying to ask."
He glanced at Eleanora, then back at me.
"Did you mean it?"
"About Hayden?"
"Yes."
I folded my arms. "Yes."
"You ended it."
"Yes."
"Why?"
I laughed quietly. "You want me to say because of you."
"I want you to tell me the truth."
"That is the truth."
His face didn't change, but something in his eyes did.
Hope was such a dangerous thing on him.
I looked away.
"It wasn't only because of you."
"But partly."
I said nothing.
He looked down at Eleanora, who was drinking sleepily now, eyelids heavy.
"I don't want to be the reason you blow up your life."
A bitter laugh escaped me.
"Hero, you have been the reason my life blows up since I was sixteen."
His mouth tightened.
"I deserved that."
"Yes."
"Did he love you?"
The question landed strangely.
Soft, but not painless.
I looked at Hayden's name still glowing on my phone.
"I think he loved the version of me that didn't ask too much from him."
Hero's jaw shifted.
"And you?"
"I liked that he didn't know enough to hurt me properly."
There it was.
The sad, ugly truth of it.
Hayden had been safe because he had come after the worst.
He had not really seen the truth. He had not watched me sign forms about adoption. He had not sat across from me in court.
He knew the edited version.
The one who danced and worked and came home tired enough to fall asleep before conversations got dangerous.
Hero knew the ruins.
That made him terrifying.
It also made him home.
I hated that thought.
Hero looked like he wanted to say something, but Eleanora pushed the bottle away and turned her face into his chest.
He smiled faintly.
"All done?"
She gave a sleepy little grunt.
He set the bottle on the table and brought her up against his shoulder, rubbing her back.
A tiny burp escaped her.
I startled.
Hero grinned.
"Very ladylike."
Despite myself, I laughed.
Eleanora's head lifted at the sound.
Her eyes found me.
I stopped laughing instantly.
She stared.
Not smiling.
Not crying.
Just watching.
Hero went still beneath her.
I could feel the entire room waiting for me to do something.
Anything.
My hand lifted in the smallest, most awkward wave ever performed by a grown woman.
"Hi," I said again, like an idiot.
Eleanora blinked.
Then she turned her face back into Hero's shoulder.
Dismissed.
I should have felt relief.
I did.
Then grief.
Then guilt for the relief and shame for the grief.
Hero looked at me gently.
"Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to hate yourself."
I looked down.
"I'm very good at it."
"I know."
The flat went quiet again.
Too quiet.
Except for the television.
Except for the faint hum of the fridge.
Except for Eleanora's sleepy breathing.
Except for my heart beating too loudly every time Hero's eyes touched me.
Then a tiny sound came from the spare room.
I froze.
Hero heard it too.
His head turned towards the hallway.
"What was that?"
"Nothing."
"That wasn't nothing."
"Old pipes."
"It sounded like a phone."
My blood went cold.
Because it had.
A faint buzz.
Muffled.
Coming from behind the closed spare-room door.
Hero stood slowly, careful not to jostle Eleanora.
"Emily."
I shook my head.
"No."
His eyes sharpened. "Why no?"
"Because I don't go in there."
The words came out small.
Too small.
His face changed.
"What's in there?"
I could have lied again.
Should have, maybe.
But the country had just locked down, a woman who hated me had threatened my child, Hero had posted a video burning down the fake life his director built around him, and my daughter had just slept in my bedroom because I put a rabbit next to her.
I was tired.
Too tired to keep lying about every locked door.
"It was supposed to be her room," I whispered.
Hero went completely still.
The colour drained from his face so quickly it frightened me.
"What?"
I looked at the hallway.
At the closed door.
At the room I had built in secret before fear swallowed me whole.
"The spare room," I said. "I decorated it when I was pregnant."
He stared at me.
"But you said-"
"I know what I said."
His expression shifted.
Hurt.
Confusion.
Something more painful.
"You told the court you had made no preparations."
"I hadn't by then."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I took most of it down before the assessments." My voice cracked. "I couldn't stand looking at it."
Eleanora stirred at the tension in his body.
Hero softened instantly, kissing her hair, but his eyes stayed on me.
"What's still in there?"
I swallowed.
"Some nursery things."
"And?"
I closed my eyes.
The second truth was worse.
"Your things."
Silence.
His voice dropped.
"My things?"
"You didn't take everything when you left."
"You told me you threw it all out."
"I lied."
The faint buzzing sounded again.
From inside the room.
Hero looked towards the door.
I did too.
A phone.
Definitely a phone.
My stomach twisted.
"No one goes in there," I whispered.
"Someone has."
The words went through me like ice.
Eleanora was asleep against him now, completely unaware of the way the air had changed.
Hero stepped towards me.
"Take her."
My eyes snapped to his.
"What?"
"I need both hands if someone's in there."
"No."
"Emily."
"No. Absolutely not."
His jaw clenched.
Then he seemed to remember himself.
He softened his voice, but his urgency stayed.
"I'm not leaving her alone while I check the room."
"Call the police."
"We will. But if there's a phone in there, I need to know what it is before whoever planted it wipes it."
"Planted it?" My voice thinned. "You think someone planted a phone in my nursery?"
The word slipped out.
Nursery.
Hero heard it.
So did I.
His face broke for a second.
Then hardened.
"I think whoever was inside knew exactly which room would hurt you most."
My hand flew to my mouth.
Ava.
Hayden.
Jo.
The journalist.
Someone.
Anyone.
The room buzzed again.
Eleanora shifted in Hero's arms, her tiny face pressing deeper into his neck.
He looked torn in half.
Father.
Protector.
Man who wanted to storm through a door.
Man holding a sleeping baby he would never risk.
I hated that I knew what I had to do.
I hated that my arms were already aching with fear before I even reached for her.
"Give her to me," I whispered.
Hero's eyes searched mine.
"You sure?"
"No."
The corner of his mouth moved sadly.
"Honest."
"Always a risk with us," I repeated.
He stepped closer.
My heart pounded.
He shifted Eleanora carefully, supporting her head, murmuring nonsense into her curls as he transferred her into my arms.
She was heavier than I expected.
Warm.
Soft.
Terrifying.
Her little body melted against me, still asleep, one hand trapped between us.
I froze.
Every muscle locked.
Hero kept one hand beneath mine for a second, steadying me.
"Breathe," he whispered.
"I hate when you say that."
"I know."
His hand slipped away.
Eleanora stayed asleep.
In my arms.
My throat closed.
Hero stared at us for one second too long.
Then he turned towards the spare room.
"Stay behind me."
This time, I didn't argue.
He moved down the hallway slowly, bare feet silent against the floorboards.
I followed at a distance, Eleanora held against my chest like something sacred I had no right to carry.
Hero stopped outside the door.
The buzzing had stopped.
The silence was worse.
His hand closed around the handle.
For a second, he paused.
I knew why.
That room had been a ghost for both of us before he even knew it existed.
Then he opened the door.
The smell hit first.
Stale air.
Dust.
Old paint.
Memories.
Hero stood in the doorway.
I could not see his face.
Only the way his shoulders dropped.
Like someone had punched all the breath out of him.
I stepped closer despite myself.
The room was dim, curtains half closed, a thin line of grey light cutting across the floor.
And there it was.
The nursery that had never been used.
Not fully.
Not properly.
The walls were still painted soft green, because we had once said we hated pink and blue before we even knew if we would ever have a baby. A cot stood against one wall, half covered by a dust sheet. The mobile above it hung still, tiny clouds and stars frozen in midair.
There were boxes in the corner.
Baby clothes I had never returned.
Books.
A blanket from Mimi.
A tiny pair of shoes that had made me cry so hard I threw them into a drawer and didn't open it again.
And everywhere else-
Hero.
His old leather jacket on the chair.
A stack of scripts on the shelf.
Trainers by the wardrobe.
A box of books he had never collected.
A photograph frame turned face down on the windowsill.
A life we had both abandoned but neither of us had cleared out.
Hero stepped inside like he was entering a crime scene.
"Emily," he whispered.
I couldn't answer.
Eleanora slept on my chest, her little breaths warm through the jumper.
Hero reached for the jacket first.
His fingers brushed the leather.
"I thought this was gone."
"So did I," I said.
He turned slightly.
"You kept it."
"I kept everything I couldn't look at."
That hurt him.
I saw it.
Good.
No.
Not good.
True.
The phone buzzed again.
Both of us snapped towards the sound.
It came from beneath the cot.
Hero crouched slowly and reached under.
His hand came back holding a cheap black phone.
Not mine.
Not his.
A burner.
The screen lit up with a new message as he held it.
She kept a nursery. How sweet. Maybe the papers would like to see what she pretended to want.
My vision blurred.
Hero's face went flat.
Deadly.
Another message appeared.
Check the cot.
"No," I whispered.
Hero moved before I could.
He pulled the dust sheet away.
At first, I didn't understand what I was seeing.
Then I did.
Photographs.
Tucked inside the cot.
Printed.
Scattered across the tiny mattress like offerings.
Me, pregnant.
Me outside the hospital.
Hero leaving court with Eleanora.
Eleanora in his arms at his parents' house.
And one photo of me standing in this nursery over a year ago, one hand on the empty cot, the other pressed against my swollen stomach.
I had never seen that photo.
I hadn't known anyone took it.
The room tilted.
Eleanora stirred against me as my arms tightened too much.
"Emily," Hero said sharply. "Loosen your hold."
I did immediately, horrified.
Eleanora settled.
I stared at the photo.
At the girl I had been.
Pregnant.
Terrified.
Alone in a nursery I had made and then destroyed in every story I told afterward.
Hero picked up the photo carefully.
His hand shook.
"You wanted her," he said.
The words broke something.
I shook my head, tears spilling before I could stop them.
"No."
His eyes lifted to mine.
"Emily."
"No." My voice cracked. "Not enough."
He stepped towards me, photo still in his hand.
"You made her a room."
"And then I closed the door."
"You kept it."
"Because I was a coward!"
Eleanora jolted at my raised voice.
I froze.
Hero's expression softened instantly.
I lowered my voice to a whisper, tears sliding down my face.
"I wanted her in moments," I said. "Tiny moments. Buying that mobile. Painting that wall. Folding those stupid tiny vests. And then the fear would come back and swallow it. So don't look at this room like it proves I'm better than I am."
Hero looked at the cot.
At the photos.
At his jacket.
At the pieces of us scattered through a room made for a baby we had both failed in different ways.
"It proves you tried," he said.
I closed my eyes.
"I stopped."
"You're here now."
"With her in my arms because someone broke into my flat and planted a phone in the room I'm most ashamed of."
He stepped closer.
"Still here."
The phone buzzed in his hand.
Another message.
Lockdown begins. No running now.
Hero looked at the screen.
Then at me.
Then at Eleanora.
Something changed in his face.
A decision.
He slipped the burner phone into his pocket.
"We're calling the police."
I nodded numbly.
"And legal."
I nodded again.
"And then I'm moving her cot in here."
My eyes snapped open.
"What?"
Hero's gaze held mine.
"This is her room."
"No."
"It was meant to be."
"No, Hero."
"Yes."
Panic surged. "You don't get to decide that."
"You're right."
That stopped me.
He looked around the room.
His voice softened.
"We decide."
My breath caught.
We.
Again.
Always dangerous.
Always too much.
I looked down at Eleanora.
She slept in my arms, unaware she was finally inside the room I had built for her when fear and love had been so tangled I couldn't tell which one was winning.
The mobile above the cot shifted slightly in a draught.
Clouds and stars.
Waiting.
My throat tightened.
"I don't know if I can sleep with her across the hall," I whispered.
Hero's eyes softened.
"Then I'll sleep in here."
My heart turned over painfully.
"With her?"
"Yes."
"Surrounded by your old things?"
"And hers."
"And mine," I whispered.
His gaze moved over my face.
"And yours."
The room closed around us.
Not like a trap.
Not like Ava's message.
Like something held.
Outside, the country was locking down.
The press were at the gates.
Ava was watching.
Jo had broken his trust.
Hayden was gone.
Anna and Jen were gone.
And I was standing in the nursery I had denied existed, holding the daughter I had denied wanting, beside the man I had denied loving for so long the lie had started to feel like skin.
Eleanora sighed against me.
Tiny.
Warm.
Here.
Hero reached out slowly and touched the turned-down photograph frame on the windowsill.
He lifted it.
I already knew what it was.
Us.
Me and Hero.
Younger.
Laughing.
His hand around my waist.
My face turned up towards his like I believed every good thing in the world had his name.
Hero stared at it.
Then looked at me.
"You kept this too."
I swallowed.
"I told you. I kept everything I couldn't look at."
His eyes shone.
I looked away before it undid me.
The burner phone buzzed once more from his pocket.
Neither of us moved.
For once, I didn't want to run from the room.
I wanted the messages gone.
The photos gone.
The strangers gone.
The fear gone.
But not the room.
Not him.
Not her.
Hero stepped closer until he was near enough to touch us both, but didn't.
"Emily."
I lifted my eyes.
He looked at Eleanora, then at me.
"Tell me what you want."
The question nearly broke me.
Because for years, everyone had asked what I intended to do. What I was capable of. What was best. What was appropriate. What was legally advisable. What was stable.
No one had asked that.
What I wanted.
I looked at the cot.
The nursery.
His jacket.
The photo in his hand.
The baby asleep against my chest.
"I don't know how to want things without being afraid of losing them," I whispered.
Hero's face broke.
"Then start small."
My laugh came out as a sob.
"How small?"
He looked at Eleanora.
Then gently, carefully, he rested his hand over hers where it lay against my jumper.
"Do you want me to stay in this room with her tonight?"
I closed my eyes.
The answer was immediate.
Terrifying.
"Yes."
His thumb brushed the back of Eleanora's tiny hand.
"Do you want me to move the travel cot in here?"
I opened my eyes and looked at the unused cot under the mobile.
"No," I whispered.
Hero stilled.
"I want to clean this cot."
His lips parted.
I swallowed hard.
"And I want the photos gone."
"Okay."
"And I want your jacket moved because it smells like you and that is not helpful."
A tear slipped down his cheek before he could stop it.
I pretended not to see.
He smiled anyway.
"Okay."
The burner phone buzzed again.
This time, Hero took it out, powered it off, and placed it face down on the shelf.
Then he looked at me.
"No more today."
The world outside disagreed.
I knew it did.
But for one impossible second, I let myself believe him.
No more today.
Just this.
A nursery.
A sleeping baby.
A man I had never stopped loving.
And a locked door that, for the first time in a year, was open.