Forgiveness, Trust & Forever

Hero

Emily let me hold her waist.
That should not have mattered.
Not with police downstairs.
Not with Ava somewhere outside the building.
Not with a hidden camera bagged as evidence and my daughter sleeping in a travel cot because her nursery had become a crime scene.
But it mattered.
My hand rested at Emily's waist, over the soft fabric of her jumper, just above the place where her body had been cut open to bring our daughter into the world.
She did not move away.
She did not flinch.
She stood beside the travel cot, one hand pressed over her scar, the other held by Eleanora's tiny fingers, and she let me stay.
For a moment, the whole morning narrowed to that.
Her body had brought Eleanora here.
My hand had held Eleanora through plastic.
Brandon had loved her as Boo.
Titan had promised to watch her.
And Emily, broken and furious and trembling, was finally standing in the middle of all of it without disappearing.
Titan was quiet on the phone.
Too quiet.
That was never good.
I looked down at the screen where his name still glowed.
"Tie?"
"I'm here."
His voice sounded rough.
Not tired.
Worse.
Open.
Titan hated open.
He treated vulnerability like an unsecured window.
Emily must have heard it too, because she looked at the phone.
"You okay?"
A pause.
Then, "Absolutely not."
Emily blinked.
So did I.
Titan never admitted that.
Not unless something was bleeding, broken, or both.
Emily's hand tightened on Eleanora's.
"Titan."
"I said I'm not doing a feelings circle."
"You started one."
"I shared a fact."
"You shared a dead boyfriend promise about my daughter."
Silence.
Then Titan said, "Fair."
Emily's mouth twitched.
Mine didn't.
Dead boyfriend.
She said it plainly.
Not cruelly.
Not theatrically.
Just finally, after years of all of us pretending Brandon and Titan had been something easier to explain.
Titan exhaled through the phone.
"I should have told you before."
"About you and Brandon?" Emily asked.
"About the promise."
She looked down at Eleanora.
"No."
"Yes."
"No." Her voice was soft but firm. "You kept it alive. That was enough."
Titan went quiet again.
I knew him well enough to know that hit.
I looked at Emily like I had never seen her before.
Maybe I hadn't.
Maybe I had spent years looking at the worst day of her life and calling it the whole woman because anger was easier than nuance.
She glanced at me.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Hero."
"I'm just..." I swallowed. "You're being kind."
Her face changed.
"I'm not always cruel."
"No." My hand stayed at her waist. "I know."
But I hadn't known properly.
That was the awful part.
I had known Emily was sharp. Brilliant. Defensive. Funny in the sort of way that made people laugh and check if they had been wounded at the same time.
But kind?
I had seen it before, years ago, with Brandon. With dancers who came to Clara-Bellas too shy to stand in the front row. With my mum when she pretended not to need help in the kitchen. With me, even after I had deserved none of it.
Then everything happened, and I let myself forget.
Or maybe I didn't forget.
Maybe I punished her by pretending her kindness had never been real.
Emily looked away first.
"I'm too tired to be properly horrible."
Titan made a sound. "That's ominous."
"You should be scared when I sleep."
"I always have been."
She almost smiled.
Then Eleanora stirred again.
A tiny whimper.
Emily bent immediately, but this time the movement made her stop halfway. Her hand went tighter over her scar, her face pinching before she could hide it.
I saw.
So did she.
"Don't," she said.
"I didn't."
"You breathed."
"I'm allowed breathing."
"Barely."
I looked at her hand over her scar.
"Does it hurt?"
Her jaw tightened.
"Sometimes."
"Now?"
"Not like then."
That wasn't an answer.
It was probably the only one she could give.
Eleanora's face scrunched.
Her fingers released Emily's and opened again.
Searching.
Emily reached down and stroked the back of her hand with one finger.
"Hi," she whispered. "I'm still here."
Still.
The word lodged in my chest.
Eleanora settled.
Emily stayed bent a moment longer, then straightened slowly. My hand hovered near her waist but didn't push, didn't support unless she chose it.
She chose it.
Her side leaned into my palm for one second.
Just one.
Then she stood on her own.
"Your ribs?" she asked, like nothing had happened.
"Your scar?"
Her eyes narrowed.
"Don't barter injuries."
"You started it."
"You were beaten up by my ex-boyfriend."
"You had major abdominal surgery."
"A year ago."
"Trauma doesn't check calendars."
She went very still.
I regretted the words immediately.
Not because they were untrue.
Because they were too true for the small quiet room we were standing in.
Emily looked at me for a long time.
Then, quietly, "Who taught you that?"
I thought of Mum.
Dad.
Therapy I had denied needing.
A newborn in NICU.
A court order in my hand.
Brandon's funeral.
Emily's empty chair.
"Everyone," I said. "Eventually."
Her face softened.
Then the flat door knocked again.
Three controlled taps.
Emily's body changed instantly.
Not panic this time.
Readiness.
She reached for Eleanora before our daughter even cried.
I moved to the door, slower than I wanted because my ribs were making their opinions legal.
Officer Grant stood outside with the female officer from before.
No one else.
Good.
I left the chain on.
"Mr Tiffin," Officer Grant said. "We have an update. May we come in?"
I looked back at Emily.
Her arms were already around Eleanora, who had woken with a startled whine and was now blinking sleepily against her shoulder.
Emily nodded once.
I unlatched the chain.
They stepped inside.
The female officer looked at Emily first. "Ms Dean, we've completed the initial sweep of the nursery and the flat access points. The device is removed. We've found no other cameras in the flat at this stage."
At this stage.
Emily heard it too.
Her face did not change, but her hand spread wider across Eleanora's back.
"What about downstairs?" she asked.
"Still being checked."
"And the rear door?"
"Tampered with previously. We're treating it as a possible entry point."
"Possible?"
Officer Grant's mouth tightened. "Likely."
Emily nodded.
Like she was taking minutes at a staff meeting.
Like the subject was not someone breaking into her building and planting a camera in the room where she once sat pregnant and terrified.
"What else?" she asked.
The female officer hesitated.
I hated the hesitation before she spoke.
"We also found old adhesive residue near the studio corridor light fixture downstairs."
Emily frowned. "Downstairs?"
"Yes."
"Camera?"
"Possibly. Or a sensor. We don't know yet. No device was present there now."
My stomach turned.
Downstairs too.
Clara-Bellas.
Not just the nursery.
The studio.
Emily's refuge.
The place she built after me.
Her face drained.
"Where in the corridor?"
"Near the stairs to the flat."
Emily's eyes closed.
The stairwell.
The line between the public world and the private one.
The route she took every day.
The route Ava had known.
The route Mimi had talked about.
The route Titan had blocked years ago with his body when Ava tried to climb it.
"Was it active recently?" I asked.
"We can't say yet."
That meant everything and nothing.
Officer Grant looked at me. "We've also received preliminary confirmation from Ms Langford's phone."
Jo.
Emily's shoulders went rigid.
"She sent Ava your location yesterday evening," he said.
My hands curled into fists.
Emily looked at me.
Not surprised.
Still hurt.
Always hurt.
"And Ava sent her the nursery photos weeks ago," Officer Grant continued. "Metadata will need verifying, but the files appear to pre-date yesterday."
Emily's jaw tightened.
"Meaning Jo didn't take them."
"No."
"I told you she hadn't been inside."
The officer nodded. "You did."
There was no satisfaction on Emily's face.
Being right did not make the violation smaller.
"What about Mimi's phone?" she asked.
The officer's expression shifted again.
Careful.
"Mimi provided messages between herself and Ava dating back several months."
Months.
Emily's face turned white.
"She said after court."
"Yes," the officer said.
My pulse roared in my ears.
Ava had been in the walls of this for months.
Not a day.
Not a reaction to the opening night.
Months.
Patient.
Bitter.
Waiting.
"What messages?" Emily asked.
"Some are personal. Some discuss you, Mr Tiffin, and the child. Some mention the nursery."
Emily's hold on Eleanora tightened.
Our daughter made a soft protest.
Emily loosened immediately.
"I'm sorry," she whispered into her hair.
The officer looked down, then away.
Professional again.
Thank God.
"Ms Dean," she said gently, "we'll need your consent to search building CCTV archives, door logs if available, and any private cameras installed around Clara-Bellas."
"Yes."
"No hesitation?"
Emily looked at her.
"This is my daughter's home."
The officer nodded.
"I'll prepare the paperwork."
My chest hurt again.
Not ribs.
Emily's words.
My daughter's home.
Not crime scene.
Not studio.
Not mistake.
Home.
Officer Grant turned to me. "Mr Tiffin, we'll also need any information you have about Ava's prior visit to this property after your accident."
My head pulsed.
The old TBI memory came in fragments.
Not clean.
Never clean.
The fall.
The hospital lights.
Emily's voice sounding underwater.
Titan shouting at someone.
Ava crying downstairs.
Me asking for Emily and then not remembering I had asked.
"I don't remember it properly," I admitted.
Emily's head turned towards me.
Not pity.
Recognition.
She had been there.
She remembered enough for both of us.
"I do," she said.
Everyone looked at her.
Eleanora rested against her chest, thumb near her mouth, eyes half-closed again.
Emily kept her voice level.
"Hero was upstairs in the flat. He had concussion, dizziness, confusion. Titan was with him at first, then downstairs when Ava arrived. Ava came to the studio claiming she had a right to see him. She tried to get upstairs. Titan stopped her before she reached the flat door."
The officer wrote quickly.
"Was she violent?"
"No," Emily said. "But she wouldn't leave."
Titan's voice came suddenly through my phone, still on speaker on the sofa.
"She put her hand on the stair rail."
Everyone turned to the phone.
Titan continued, voice cold.
"I remember that. She kept saying he needed someone who loved him properly. She put her hand on the stair rail and looked up like she was picturing herself there. In the flat. In their life. I told her to take her hand off the rail."
Emily's eyes flickered.
She remembered too.
I didn't.
That hurt in a strange way.
My life had happened around me and parts of it were missing.
Ava had tried to climb towards me, and my brother had become a wall.
Brandon had been alive then.
Had he known?
Had Titan told him?
Probably.
Titan told Brandon things he told no one else.
Officer Grant moved closer to the phone.
"Sir, could you provide a formal statement?"
"Yes."
"Today?"
"Yes."
I closed my eyes briefly.
Of course he would.
Lockdown could try its best.
Titan would give a statement through a burning building if someone told him it protected Brandon's promise.
The female officer turned back to Emily.
"There's something else."
I hated those words now.
Emily didn't react.
"Go on."
"The camera in the nursery was positioned towards the cot and the chair. It does not appear positioned towards the whole room."
I heard the words before I understood why they mattered.
The cot.
The chair.
The place Emily used to sit.
Pregnant.
Alone.
Whispering Boo.
The cot she couldn't face after.
The chair where my jacket hung.
Emily understood faster than I did.
Her face changed completely.
Not fear.
Violation so deep it silenced the room.
"It watched the chair," she said.
"Yes."
Her hand went to her mouth.
Eleanora shifted, confused by the movement.
I stepped forward.
Emily stepped back.
Not from me.
From the knowledge.
"No," she whispered.
The female officer's face softened. "Ms Dean-"
"No."
Her voice was barely there.
I looked at the officer.
"What does that mean?"
The officer hesitated.
Emily answered.
"It means whoever put it there knew I sat there."
My stomach dropped.
Not just a random camera.
Not just a surveillance angle.
Intentional.
Personal.
Ava had not just wanted the nursery.
She had wanted Emily inside it.
The private contradiction.
The proof she mourned what she claimed not to want.
The evidence that Emily Dean was not empty, just terrified.
Emily's breathing turned shallow.
Eleanora began to fuss.
I moved closer again, slower.
"Emily."
"She watched me."
"We don't know that."
"She watched me sit there."
"We don't know if it was active then."
"She knew." Emily's eyes snapped to mine, wild now. "She knew about Boo. She knew about the mobile. She knew where the chair was."
I swallowed.
I could not lie.
"Yes."
Emily looked like the word hit her.
But she had asked for truth too many times for me to offer less now.
Then she looked down at Eleanora.
Our daughter's face was scrunched, ready to cry.
Something in Emily changed.
Again.
She pulled Eleanora higher against her, pressed her cheek to her hair, and breathed.
One.
Two.
Three.
"I'm here," she whispered. "I'm here."
Whether she meant it for Eleanora or herself, I didn't know.
Maybe both.
The officer waited.
Respectfully.
Emily lifted her head.
"I want the chair removed."
I blinked.
"What?"
"The chair," she said. "From the nursery. I don't want it there."
"Okay."
"And your jacket."
Her eyes met mine, sharp with apology before she even said the rest.
"I know it was yours. I know it matters. But she used your things. She turned them into something. I can't have them in there."
My throat tightened.
The jacket had been nothing.
Old leather.
Dust.
A ghost of the boy I used to be.
Still, it hurt.
Not because I needed the jacket.
Because Emily was right.
Ava had turned every object into a witness.
"Then it goes," I said.
Emily's eyes searched mine.
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"No noble martyr face."
"I hate that jacket."
"You loved that jacket."
"I love my daughter more."
Her face broke for half a second.
Then steadied.
"And the chair," she said.
"Gone."
"The books too. Anything Ava photographed."
"We'll box it."
"No." Her voice sharpened. "Not box it like evidence. Not hide it because she touched it. Just... move it. Decide later. I don't want to throw my whole life away because she looked at it."
My chest tightened.
There she was again.
The woman building new locks without shutting herself out.
"Okay."
The officer said, "We can document the current arrangement first, then release non-evidence items to you when cleared."
Emily nodded.
"Fine."
Fine was not empty this time.
It had a plan underneath.
The officers left to continue the sweep.
The flat door shut.
For a few seconds, none of us spoke.
Then Titan said from the phone, "Burn the chair."
Emily stared at the phone.
I sighed.
"Titan."
"What? I'm being practical."
"You are not setting fire to furniture during lockdown," Emily said.
"Not with that attitude."
A laugh burst out of her before she could stop it.
Eleanora startled.
Emily immediately softened.
"Sorry, Boo. Uncle Titan is a bad influence."
The silence after that was enormous.
Uncle Titan.
She had said it.
Titan heard it.
I heard him stop breathing through the phone.
Emily realised.
Her eyes widened slightly.
I waited for her to take it back.
She didn't.
Titan's voice, when it came, was rougher than before.
"Correct."
One word.
But it carried the whole room.
Emily looked down at Eleanora.
"She has a lot of uncles," she whispered.
"She does."
"Brandon would have been the worst."
I smiled, and for once the cut in my lip didn't ruin it.
"He would have bought her noisy toys."
"He would have taught her to lie badly."
"He lied terribly."
"The worst."
Titan's voice was quieter. "He thought he was subtle."
Emily looked at the phone.
"He was never subtle a day in his life."
"No," Titan said. "He wasn't."
For a second, grief sat with us without asking to be solved.
Then my phone buzzed again.
This time, not Anna.
Not Jen.
Unknown.
I froze.
Emily saw.
Her face hardened.
"Don't answer."
"I won't."
The message preview lit up.
A single photo.
My blood went cold before I opened it.
Emily stepped closer.
"Hero."
"I won't open it."
But the preview was enough.
A photograph of the nursery chair.
The old one.
With my jacket on it.
And Emily.
Pregnant.
Curled sideways in the chair, one hand over her stomach, face turned down, eyes closed.
Not posed.
Not aware.
Private.
So private I felt sick.
Emily saw it.
The sound that left her was not human.
Eleanora began crying immediately.
I locked the phone.
Too late.
Too late.
Too fucking late.
Emily stared at the dark screen as if the image had burned itself into the glass.
"That's me," she whispered.
I stepped in front of the phone instinctively.
Stupid.
Pointless.
She had already seen it.
"That's me in the chair."
"Emily."
"That's Boo."
Her voice cracked on the name.
Our daughter cried against her chest, confused and frightened and alive.
Emily's face went blank.
No.
No, not blank.
Gone.
I knew that look.
I had seen it in court.
The moment she disconnected enough to survive what was happening.
I put my phone face down on the table and reached for her.
"Em."
She didn't move.
I touched her arm.
"Emily."
Nothing.
Eleanora cried harder.
Titan's voice cracked through the phone.
"Hero?"
"I need a minute," I said.
My voice sounded wrong.
I took Eleanora from Emily before she could drop her.
Not because she would.
Because Emily's arms had gone loose enough to scare me.
The baby came to me screaming, face red, fists flailing.
Emily didn't react.
That scared me more than anything.
"Emily," I said again.
Her eyes stayed on the phone.
"She saw me."
I wanted to kill Ava.
Not hurt.
Not confront.
Kill.
The thought came clean and bright and immediate.
I swallowed it down because my daughter was in my arms and Emily was standing in front of me shattered by an image stolen from inside her own body.
"She doesn't get to keep it," I said.
Emily blinked.
Once.
"She has it."
"We send it to police and Jen."
"She has it."
"She doesn't get to keep what it means."
Her eyes moved to mine.
Barely.
"What?"
I stepped closer, Eleanora crying between us.
"That photo is not proof against you."
Her face twisted.
"She watched me."
"Yes."
"She saw me in that room."
"Yes."
"She saw Boo."
My throat burned.
"Yes."
Emily's eyes filled, but her voice stayed eerily calm.
"Then she knows I loved her before I hated myself for it."
The room stopped.
I stared at her.
Eleanora's cries softened into hiccups against my shoulder.
Emily looked at our daughter.
Not at the phone.
Not at me.
At Eleanora.
"She knows," Emily whispered.
The blankness cracked.
A tear fell.
Then another.
"She knows I sat there with her."
My chest broke open.
"Emily."
"She wanted it to shame me."
I nodded slowly.
"Yes."
Emily breathed in.
Shaking.
Broken.
Still here.
"But it means I was there."
Her voice changed on the last word.
Not stronger exactly.
Clearer.
"I was there with her before."
The stolen image still sat on my phone, poisoned by the person who sent it.
But Emily was doing something impossible.
She was taking it back.
Not cleanly.
Not easily.
But she was.
Her eyes lifted to mine.
"I don't want her to have the photo."
"She won't."
"She already does."
"Then we make it evidence of her crime. Not your shame."
Emily swallowed.
Her hands trembled.
Then she reached for Eleanora.
Not automatically.
Deliberately.
"Give her back."
I did.
Our daughter went to her still crying, but Emily held firm this time. She pressed Eleanora against her chest, cheek to hair, one hand wide across her back.
"I was there," she whispered to her. "I was scared. But I was there."
Eleanora hiccuped.
Emily rocked her.
Side to side.
Side to side.
Titan said nothing.
Maybe even he knew there was no room for a joke.
I picked up my phone, careful not to open the image fully, and forwarded the message to Jen and Officer Grant.
My hands shook so badly I almost dropped it.
Jen called immediately.
I answered on speaker.
"I got it," she said.
Her voice was different now.
No dry edge.
No performance.
Just fury.
"Do not delete. Do not respond. Police need the originating number. Emily, did you see it?"
Emily closed her eyes.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
Emily opened them.
Her voice was quiet.
"She sent proof I sat in the nursery while I was pregnant."
Jen went silent.
Then, softly, "Yes."
"She thinks that hurts me."
"It does."
Emily looked down at Eleanora.
"Yes," she said. "But not the way she wanted."
Jen breathed out.
"Good."
Hero's mum called again, but I didn't answer. I couldn't. Not yet. Titan was still on the line, silent and dangerous.
Officer Grant knocked again within seconds.
When I opened the door, his face told me Jen had already reached him.
"We received the image," he said.
Emily spoke from behind me.
"It was taken from the camera angle, wasn't it?"
The officer hesitated.
Then nodded.
"It appears consistent."
Emily's arms tightened around Eleanora.
Our daughter had finally quieted, exhausted against her.
"So it was recording then."
"Yes," he said. "It likely was."
Truth.
Ugly.
Necessary.
Emily nodded.
"Then Ava has more."
"Yes."
The officer did not lie.
I respected him for it.
Hated him for it too.
Emily looked at me.
Then at Jen's voice still on the phone.
Then down at Eleanora.
"She'll send more."
Jen answered carefully.
"Possibly."
"No." Emily shook her head. "She will."
I knew she was right.
Ava would not stop at one image if she had a folder full of stolen proof.
Emily looked at Officer Grant.
"Can you find her?"
"We're trying."
"That is not an answer."
"No," he said. "It's the truth."
Emily absorbed that.
Then nodded.
"Fine."
Officer Grant looked at me. "We're increasing presence at the rear access. Security team is coordinating with us. We recommend staying in this room until we finish checking the rest of the flat."
"We will," I said.
He left again.
The door closed.
Locks back on.
Chain.
Silence.
Emily stood in the middle of the living room, holding Eleanora.
Her face was wet.
Her body shaking.
But her eyes were alive.
Not empty.
Not gone.
I walked to her.
Slowly.
"Can I touch you?"
Her eyes flicked up.
The question broke something small in her face.
She nodded.
I put my hand on her shoulder.
Not waist this time.
Not near the scar.
Just shoulder.
Her body leaned into mine.
Barely.
Enough.
Eleanora sighed between us.
Emily whispered, "I want that photo destroyed."
"It will be."
"And I want to remember it before she took it."
I swallowed.
"What do you remember?"
Emily closed her eyes.
A tear slipped down.
"I remember she was kicking."
I looked at Eleanora.
"She?"
"Boo." Her voice trembled. "She kept kicking under my ribs. I sat in that chair because the floor made my hips hurt. The mobile was still in the box. Your jacket was on the chair and it smelled like you, even though I pretended it didn't."
My throat closed.
"I held my stomach and told her..." Emily stopped.
"What?"
She shook her head.
"Emily."
Her eyes opened.
"I told her not to love me too much yet."
The words went through me.
"Oh, Em."
"Because I didn't know if I could love her properly back."
Eleanora slept against her.
Alive.
Soft.
Unaware.
Emily looked down at her.
"But she did anyway, didn't she?"
I could barely speak.
"Yes."
"She came out and knew my voice and loved me anyway, and I wouldn't visit."
Her face crumpled.
"She loved me anyway."
I pulled them both closer, careful, so careful.
This time, Emily let me.
Her forehead pressed to my shoulder.
Eleanora was warm between us.
My ribs screamed.
I didn't care.
"She still does," I whispered.
Emily sobbed once.
Deep.
Ragged.
Then she breathed.
One.
Two.
Three.
She lifted her head.
Looked at me.
Not healed.
Not forgiven.
Not safe.
But here.
"Ava doesn't get that photo," she said.
"No."
"She doesn't get that memory."
"No."
"She doesn't get Boo."
"No."
Emily nodded.
Then Eleanora stirred, mouth opening in a tiny yawn against Emily's jumper.
Emily's face softened instantly.
"There you are," she whispered.
Our daughter blinked sleepily.
Then reached up and patted Emily's chin with an uncoordinated little hand.
Not a word.
Not a miracle.
Just contact.
Emily laughed through tears.
It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.
Titan finally spoke, voice rough.
"Brandon was right."
Emily looked at the phone.
"About what?"
"Our Boo is stubborn."
Emily smiled down at Eleanora, crying and laughing at once.
"Yes," she whispered.
"She is."