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Zak’s P.O.V

“How childish are we?” Lily asked, crawling into our blanket fort with more pillows. She had this amazing smile. It did a lot of things to me when she looked at me like that.

“Just the right amount,” I answered. “Now, give me those pillows. We need reinforcement on the right flank.”

“Jesus, Zak,” she chuckled, tossing the pillows at my face. “I brought snacks, too.” She dragged in a box of Oreos and Triscuits for a healthier alternative. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself when she dragged in a box of Frosted Flakes, too. What a quirky girl.

“Oh good, we wouldn’t want to take this fort building business too seriously,” I smirked.

“I think you’re already too far in,” she joked. She carefully tore open the Oreo box and munched on a cookie.

I snagged her cookie out of her hands and popped it in my mouth. She gawked at me.

“Zak!” she exclaimed. “Not only did you just steal my cookie, but it had my germs and stuff on it!”

“What?” I scoffed. “We had sex, Lily. At this point I don’t think it matters if I eat your cookie.”

“You are so weird,” she sighed. “What have I gotten myself into?”

“Maybe I ask myself the same question!”

She munched on a new cookie pensively for a moment. I finished stacking the pillows up and shuffled over closer to her, grabbing another cookie for myself.

“On that topic, I guess I should explain what you’ve gotten yourself into,” she said softly.

I chuckled. “I already know, Lily. You’re a mom, I get it. I can handle it.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” she shook her head. “I mean…what I went through, with Matt.”

My chewing paused. I focused all my attention on her. I didn’t touch her, in case that’d throw her off course. I just sat and watched her patiently.

“Okay,” I whispered.

She didn’t speak for awhile. I didn’t really expect her to dive into the story right away. Just judging by the way she acted anytime it was even hinted at I knew it had to be hard for her to speak about. Did she relive it every time she had to talk about it? It had to have been pretty traumatic if that was the case. It kind of set me on edge and made me very nervous.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, picking apart her Oreo. “I’ve only really talked about this with my family…I’ve been too scared to talk about it to anyone else.”

“It’s okay, sweetie,” I said softly. “I can wait until you’re ready.”

“I’m ready, I’m just…it’s not a good story,” She wouldn’t look at me.

“I’m prepared for it.”

She took a deep breath and let it escape slowly. “Matt didn’t want kids with me. We were going to break up anyway, so we obviously didn’t plan it. When I started feeling sick and found out I was pregnant, I was terrified. I must’ve taken ten pregnancy tests. When I told Matt he wasn’t too happy about it. He…um, he…”

I moved a tiny bit closer. “What did he do to you?” I asked.

She gave a defeated sigh. “He beat the shit out of me.”

I could taste poison. My muscles tensed in my arms and I white-knuckled it for a second. The thought of any man laying a hand on a woman in that way, especially Lily, made me livid. It was so wrong and it went against all my morals. I’d had a nagging thought that this had been the problem with Lily and Matt, but I hadn’t wanted to believe it. Now that I knew there were marks on her body that he’d left, I wanted to kill him.

“He beat you…while you were pregnant?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“Yes,” she whispered. “I protected my stomach as best as I could. It was mostly my face, legs, arms and back.”

“What the fu—how did he…” I couldn’t even think straight I was so angered.

“Um, he did it in different ways,” she mumbled. “Mostly fists…sometimes he’d use heavy spoons, or he’d throw things at me, threaten me with s-stuff…”

She’d been flicking her wrist with a hair tie, most likely to ease the pain of reliving her turbulent past. I didn’t like seeing her cause more pain to herself. I took her hand in mine and brought it to my lips so I could kiss her knuckles. She faded away from her story and blinked at me in awe.

“I don’t want to hear anymore,” I whispered with a head shake. “I don’t need to. If you go into detail I might run to his house and kill him right now.”

She bit her lip delicately.

“What he did to you…it won’t ever happen again, understand? I’ll never do that to you. I don’t want to put you in that position. I want to keep you and Avaya safe, especially now that I’m a bigger part of your life. But I stand behind my court argument even more now that I know what happened. You cannot let this slide for another year, Lily.” I said firmly.

“I figured you’d say that,” she muttered.

“And I mean it, believe me. This is serious. It’s plagued you for years, Lily. I’ve told you I want to help and I’m going to.”

She leaned her head against my arm, defeated. I held her close. I’d give her the closure she desperately needed. I’d give her everything she needed and more, because she deserved that much.

“Hey, Zak?” she said after a small pause.

I looked down to those vulnerable brown eyes. “Yes, baby?”

“I don’t know what it is about you, but…when you tell me you want to keep me and my daughter safe, I-I believe you. It’s not easy for me to just believe people when they say things like that. But you…you’re a different kind of person. I’m really glad you crashed my apartment that night and I got to know you. I’m really glad you’re my…my boyfriend.”

I grinned broadly. I loved those words coming from her lips. “I’m happy you’re my girlfriend.” I bent down to kiss her.

She chuckled softly against my lips. “Well that was cheesy,” she commented.

“You’re right,” I smirked. Something popped into my head and I gasped. “Hey, you never told me you had a tattoo on your hip!”

She blushed and bit off a chunk of her cookie. “I didn’t think you’d see it in the dark.”

“Oh, I’m very observant,” I winked. “I like it. Is it flowers?”

“Yeah, they’re bluebells with Avaya’s name in between them.”

“Why’d you pick bluebells?” I thought she would’ve picked lilies, you know, for obvious reasons.

“Well, when Avaya was maybe seven months old we went all the way out to Idaho where my grandparents have a farm. There was this huge patch of bluebells out behind the farmhouse and I was sitting there with Avaya picking some flowers. I told her they were bluebells and held some out to her. She grasped them in her tiny hands and she said ‘blue, blue!’ It was her first word.” Lily ran a hand over her hip with a smile at the memory.

A warm feeling filled my chest. I could only imagine what that must have been like for Lily, hearing her daughter speak her first word. I’d never really pictured having that experience for myself before, but at that moment I found myself wondering what it would be like.

“Look at you, getting all nostalgic,” I lightly bumped her with my shoulder.

“She’s important to me,” Lily shrugged bashfully. “For the longest time she was my entire world. She needs me, y’know? And I need her.”

If I wasn’t careful, I think the L word might have slipped out of my mouth at that moment. There was just something in the way Lily talked about Avaya that made me appreciate and respect her so much more. I just felt like I was falling for her more and more when I saw that endearment cross her face and I watched her embarrassed but proud fingers fumble for something to fidget with. She was adorable. She was beautiful. She was mine.

I looked up at the blanket ceiling of our makeshift fort. “Y’know, this fort is pretty hot,” I muttered.

She gave me a cheeky look out of the corner of her eye. “With you in it, yeah,” she muttered.

I smirked devilishly as my ego lifted. I stretched out and ran my fingers up and down my abdominal muscles. “Oh, I know,” I said. “I’ve been hitting the gym more often.”

“Mm, I can tell,” She nodded slowly.

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that lust I see in your expression?”

She blinked. “Hm? No, not a chance! Pfft, as if I’d be lusting after the kid who stalked me home from the library.”

I leaned over and cupped her cheek with one hand, tilting her face up towards me. “One thing about you, Lily Manning,” I murmured huskily, “you’re a terrible liar.”

She giggled against my lips, completely at my mercy. The snacks went ignored for a little while longer. We didn’t even care when we accidentally ripped the blanket ceiling down on top of us. We ended up napping in our destroyed fort after, and when we woke up we started dinner together. I relished in the feeling of family love for the rest of the night. I’d found my centre. Lily was finally all mine, and I think I needed her just as bad as she needed me.