They Broke Me, I Hid His Son novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Three Years Later

On the day her lab wins a prize, Sabina leaves her son Jamie at daycare and finds her stepbrother Rocco in the foyer, who tells her Quentin is in the second row.

Three years later, my son was sitting on the daycare floor in a brown cardigan, building a tower out of shiny things.

"Mama," Jamie said without looking up. "Spoon."

"Spoon is not a block, my love."

"Spoon is shiny."

He was two and a third, and he collected anything that caught the light.

Bottle caps. Foil. The spoon he had stolen from the canteen on Tuesday.

I knelt and straightened his collar.

He looked up at me with his father's grey eyes.

He had his father's chin too, with the small cleft in it.

I put my thumb on it the way I did every morning, and then I took my thumb away.

"Big day," said the daycare worker, coming over with a paper heart. "The prize."

"It's only a prize," I said.

"It's your prize. He made this for you at breakfast."

The heart was green crayon and glue. It said MAMA in a crooked line.

I tucked it into my jacket, over my own heart, where my badge usually sat.

"Be good," I told Jamie. "I'll see you at lunch."

"Spoon comes."

"Spoon can stay and watch the tower."

He thought about it. Then he waved.

The institute foyer was two floors up and full of men in suits holding programs.

I had stopped flinching at suits a year ago. Mostly.

My lab's paper on how misfolded proteins gather had been in the journals for a year, and tonight, for the first time, the institute was giving it a prize.

The director had said I could wear anything I liked.

I had picked a green dress in my own size, a twenty, and bought it myself.

Nobody had picked it for me.

I crossed the marble floor and stopped.

A man stood beside the coat check holding white flowers wrapped in paper.

He wore a black coat with the collar up. His hair was black, and he was thinner than I remembered.

He turned and looked at me.

It was Rocco.

"Hello, Sabina," he said.

He had never said my name before without a nickname in front of it.

"Get out of this building," I said.

"I will. After I say one thing."

"You've said enough things."

"I haven't," he said, and his hand went to his left cuff and stopped halfway.

He put the hand into his pocket.

The flowers shook a little in his other hand, and I noticed that, and I did not want to notice it.

"How did you find me?"

"The institute printed your name in a journal. Brunner, M., Zurich. It took us a week to be sure it was you."

"Us."

"Quentin found the paper first."

I stood very still.

"I'm not here for him," Rocco said quickly. "I'm here for me. I wanted to say it before he got to you."

"Say what?"

He took a breath, and his dark eyes went to the flowers and then to me.

"That I was wrong about the recording. That I handed it over without checking one line."

"You handed it over because you wanted to see him do it."

"Yes," Rocco said.

I had expected him to deny it.

"I had a drive with your voice on it and a bank page. I thought, here it is, here is what she is. And I walked it to him in front of everyone."

"And you smiled."

"I smiled," he said. "I have thought about it every day for three years."

"Good," I said.

I held out my hand for the flowers.

He gave them to me.

I dropped them in the bin beside the coat check, paper and all.

He watched them go in and didn't say a word.

"The Sack," I said. "Hippo. Dinner plate. Do you want me to go on?"

"No."

"You're going to hear all of them, someday. Out loud."

"Yes," he said. "I know."

The foyer doors opened behind him, and the director put her head out.

"Miss Brunner. We are starting."

"One minute."

Rocco stepped back to let me pass.

When I was level with his shoulder, he spoke so quietly that I almost didn't hear.

"Quentin is inside, in the second row."

I stopped.

"He hasn't taken his eyes off the stage door since eight o'clock."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend