Page 25 of Beautiful When He Breaks

I check my phone again, even though I tell myself I’m not going to. The screen lights up against my face with no new messages, no missed calls from him, no nothing. I know he has his own life. I know I’m not owed every second of his attention just because my world exploded and he was the first one to step into the crater with me. I know all of that, and still, there’s this restless, ugly little knot in my gut that keeps tightening every time I hear a car on the road that isn’t his.

I could text him, but I don’t want to be a bother. That sounds pathetic even in my own head, but there it is. I’ve already taken too much from him these last two days. His sleep, his calm, his time, his steady hands on my daughter when mine are shaking. His voice in the middle of every panic, telling me what comes next because I don’t know, and he does. The last thing I’m going to do is become one more thing he has to manage tonight.

Instead, I lie there and think, but that turns out to be worse because the lawyer’s visit this afternoon replays in vicious little loops the longer the house stays quiet. Mara sat in my room while my daughter slept six feet away and explained—in very calm terms—just how messy my life is now.

Paternity first. Confirmation before assumption. Until results come back, I’m not to speak in absolutes to anyone outside the house or the legal team. If she’s biologically mine, then the papers Celeste left matter, but they don’t magically erase due process. Voluntary relinquishment of parental rights is not a casual handwritten note and a disappearing act. There are procedures, courts, and filings that vary by state and timeline.

And underneath all of it, quieter but somehow louder than the rest, Mara had looked at me over clasped hands and said, very carefully, “Mr. Matthews, we also need to preserve the possibility that conception may not have occurred with your informed and voluntary consent.”

That sentence has been lodged under my skin ever since. I still keep circling back to the same dumb, desperate question, thinking if I ask it enough, it’ll somehow change the answer.

Can a man even get raped that way?

Mara answered it before I could ask. Maybe she saw it in my face or had this conversation before. Maybe there’s a whole category of men who sit where I sat today, shoulders tight, shame in their throats, trying to reconcile biology with the fact that your body can do things without permission.

“Yes,” she’d said simply. “A man can be sexually assaulted. A man can be raped. There are substances that can cause sedation, confusion, impaired consent, and fragmented memory. But proving the exact substance, this late, is often difficult if no test was done right away. The legal framing depends on jurisdiction, but from a practical and investigative perspective, yes. Absolutely.”

Absolutely. As if there was no room for confusion in the answer at all. The confusion is still in me, though. It’s all through me, tangled into every memory I have of Celeste and every night I drove home from seeing her, feeling wrung out and weirdly foggy.

I drag a hand over my face and stare at the wall. I’m not crying again. I’ve cried enough in front of Julian for one fucking lifetime, and the lawyer’s words are still true whether I cry or not. The baby is still here whether I cry or not.

A tiny sound comes from the bassinet, and I turn my head fast enough that my neck protests.

I sit up and lean over enough to see her better through the mesh. “Hey, baby girl,” I whisper.

My voice sounds rough in the quiet. If she isn’t mine, I don’t know what the hell happens then, and the fact that particular thought hurts at all tells me everything I need to know about how deep I’m already in.

If she is mine, then everything becomes even more real. My child, my responsibility… and my possible evidence.

I hate that last one. Hate it so much I nearly shove the whole line of thought away on instinct. But it sits there anyway.

I miss Julian. That’s the humiliating, simple truth at the center of everything. I miss my best friend. I miss when being around him felt easy instead of charged, awkward, and full of all the things neither of us says. I miss his voice in my room without wondering if I deserve it. I miss throwing shit at him from across the couch and hearing him swear in Afrikaans under his breath. I miss the version of us that didn’t require so much caution.

I’m still staring at nothing when I hear the front door downstairs. Voices, and one of them is Julian’s. My heartbeat speeds up, and I rub a hand over my face just as there’s a soft knock on my half-open door.

“Yeah,” I call, trying to sound casual and failing.

Julian pushes the door open all the way, steps inside, and something in me goes cold immediately. He looks… off. Tired in a way that has nothing to do with football practice. His curls are a mess, not from shower steam or helmet hair but from hands dragged through them too many times. There’s a tightness around his mouth that wasn’t there this morning, and when his eyes hit mine, there’s a split-second delay before he puts the usual expression back on.

“You’re still awake,” he says.

I sit up. “Yeah, and you’re late.”

He shuts the door behind him and leans back against it for a second, the picture of casual if you don’t know him. I do know him. I know the difference between Julian relaxed and Julian performing relaxed, and right now he’s acting the part so excessively I want to throw something.

“Yeah, something came up,” he says, but it sounds practiced. “How’d the meeting go?”

He does that on purpose. Redirects. Gives me something else to focus on, so I stop looking too closely at him. But still, the question sits there between us, and I’m too worn down to fight two battles at once.

“It was…” I scrub a hand over my jaw and look toward the bassinet because it’s easier than looking straight at him when I say the next part. “A lot. Killian was right about the lawyer. She was good and explained everything. Temporary custody stuff, DNA process, what happens if the results come back and she’s mine, and what happens if she’s not.” My laugh comes out hollow. “Apparently, my life is very paperwork-heavy now.”

He slides his hands into his pockets and walks to my desk, leaning against it. I catch the tiny stiffness in the movement. It vanishes as fast as it appears, but I see it, and my stomach knots harder. Still, he keeps his voice steady when he asks, “What’d she say about Celeste?”

There’s no point pretending I don’t know what he means. “She said if I didn’t consent, or if I was too out of it to consent, then…” I stop and swallow. “Then it matters. Legally.”

Julian doesn’t say anything.

“She asked a lot of questions. About what I remember, and whether Celeste pushed me before, and if I ever told her no. About the nights I couldn’t remember clearly. I’m sure I sounded like such a fucking idiot.”