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evangeline blackwood

Adonis left pretty soon after our last conversation three days ago.

He hasn't texted or called once, Morgan's low key avoiding me too.

I knew it was coming, course I did, but it still hurts.

But it is better this way. He's safe now. I can't risk anyone else getting hurt and with Logan suddenly getting distant, tensions between his friend group and me were building.

It was always going to happen.

So my head is running at 100 miles per hour and I can't focus on one thing before my phone ringtone fills the silence. The caller ID makes my entire body freeze.

"Dee?" I answer my phone, eyebrows furrowing as I hear heavy breathing on the other end.

"I need to see you, Princess." His voice is gruff and sharp, but it almost sounds as if he is breathless.

"I'm on my way." I replied without hesitating, hanging up the call and rushing to grab my stuff and leave.

It doesn't take long to arrive at his house. He's already outside, waiting for me.

"Adoni-" He wraps his arms around me and curls into my embrace. I hold the back of his head as he places his head in between my neck and my shoulder. "Woah, woah, woah. What's wrong?"

He shakes his head as the door opens. Rory and Phoenix are stood there, staring at us emotionlessly.

"Mum's showed up."

My eyes widen as Rory turns back around and walks into the house, Phoenix following after her.

Orion's words settle in and my stomach twists painfully as I feel Dee's tears hit my shoulder.

"Hey, listen to me." I tug his head up and lean our foreheads together. "Listen to me, Dee. We're gonna have to go in there. You ain't alone, you hear me? I'm going to be right by your side."

"I'm sorry, I-"

"Don't you dare apologise. I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be." I kiss his forehead. I grab his hand, "C'mon."

We walk through the open door into the living room. All Adonis' family are there: Oscar, his father, Apollo, Morgan, Phoenix and Rory.

And there's this woman.

Dark, raven hair. She's quite tall, almost as tall as Apollo. But not quite. She's still small, almost fragile looking. Confidence radiated off her, despite the situation. That's not what caught my attention though. No. My attention was captured by her brazen, blue eyes.

Adonis' eyes.

"And you are?" Her stare levels with mine, the slight narrow only confirming her unwarranted suspicions.

"Family." Oscar responds simply, not offering her any further explanation.

She sounds strong, tough. It doesn't match her appearance at all. "This is nothing to do with strangers."

"The only stranger in this house is you." Rory doesn't look up at her mother, she doesn't need to.

"I'm your mother." She doesn't look directly at me but I'm well aware of who her look of disgust is supposed to be aimed at. "You can't be family with..with one of them."

What did she just say?

"What?" It's the first thing Adonis says and his entire tone is laced with fury and promised wrath. "One of them?!"

"You know I mean." Her eyes meet her sons, but all she's met with is hostility.

I keep my mouth shut, biting my tongue.

My Mum used to tell me about people like her. People who don't know how to escape their own prejudices.

"You bitch." Morgan grabs Rory before she gets any closer to her Mum. "Apologise to her, now."

But all her mother does is look me up and down, "Amelia Martina Hernández, you?"

I don't reply.

She shrugs before turning back to her other kids.

Apollo still hasn't said anything.

But everyone's attention appears to be on Adonis.

"You have two minutes to explain why you're here before I forget the fact that you're my mother and a woman." I can tell it isn't an empty threat from the distant look in his eyes.

"Adonis..." She stares at him in something that I can only describe as shock. "What's wrong with you?"

"You." He chuckles with a tight jaw, shaking his head. "You're the only thing that's wrong with me."

"You was nothing like this when I was here." Her open palm gestures up and down her son's body. "This is all your dad. He's turned you against me."

"Take that back." He takes a step forward. "First, you insult my girl and now you're going to start on my dad?"

I grab his hand, clutching it tightly in my own. "Dee, don't. Please."

He doesn't acknowledge me but he grips my hand like it's the only thing keeping him calm.

"Nah, you don't have any right to say shit about my dad. He did everything for us, all of us. And where were you? Living a new life with your rich boyfriend. You weren't there. It was him that put a roof over our heads, him who fed us, cared for us. He was our father...and our mother. He shouldn't have had to do that. After Scarlett died and you left, I actually blamed him, thought it was his fault. I always hated him for driving you away, not looking after you enough that you'd have to leave your four kids. I mean, Phoe was only 10. Rory was 11."

"She ain't worth it, Don. Save your breath." Apollo says through gritted teeth. Morgan stands on guard beside him, probably in case he started smashing shit up. He looked just as pissed off as Adonis.

I take the time to look at everyone else. Phoenix is staring at the floor but I can see the tears dripping down his cheeks. Rory is showing no emotion at all. Instead, her arm is around her dad's shoulders.

And her dad isn't looking away from Adonis.

"I blamed him for not doing enough to save my baby sister. I blamed him because you left." He turns to his dad, their eyes meeting. "I'm sorry, Pops. I'm sorry for ever believing that you were anything but an amazing dad."

"You're still my son, Adonis. All of you are. Apollo, Phoenix, Orion..." Amelia trails off.

"All of us except Scarlett?" He squeezes my hand, "I'm glad you weren't here because you're a selfish bitch who has never cared about anybody other than herself."

Her eyes water, "I'm your mother and I know I've made mistakes but I will not allow you to disrespect me like this. I couldn't deal with losing her, you should understand that. I needed time."

"And 5 years isn't long enough?" Adonis scoffs, "What did you just say? That-that you couldn't cope? I was young, Mum. I was 13. I couldn't cope. None of us could."

"I was a kid and I lost my baby girl!"

"Yeah, so was I. I was a kid, I lost my sister." Adonis' glare makes my entire body tremble, "Don't act as if you care about her. You weren't even at the funeral."

Her entire persona falls within a matter of seconds, "I'm sorry. I never meant for this to happen...I am so sorry Adonis."

"Why are you apologising? It doesn't change anything. You should be saying sorry to Dad. Actually, you should be on your knees thanking him for doing a fucking amazing job with us." He lets go of my hand and moves closer to me so our sides are touching. "You ain't my mother. My mother never spoke like that, never apologised for nothing. You've got soft. You've forgotten who you are and where you came from. That woman was strong, and opinionated, and smart. She loved us, would've given up the world for any of her kids. But if you were either of those things you wouldn't have left and you certainly wouldn't have come back knowing what you did wrong."

"I'm here for Phoenix. I knew you'd moved and when I found out where, I couldn't just stay away anymore. I'm scared of waking up one morning and hearing one of my sons names on the news...I can't lose another one of you."

"What are you saying?" Phoenix pipes up, glaring at his mother with narrowed eyes.

"I want you to come live with me, in Kensington. You'll be safe there."

"No."

"Phoe, plea-"

"My family call me Phoe and you aren't my family." He wipes his eyes but his gaze flicks to me and back to his Mum. "You know her?" He points to me.

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion but I stay silent.

Amelia's glance turns to me then and she studies me slightly, seemingly more than just taking one glance at the colour of my skin. It doesn't escape my notice how her stare fixtates on the physical closeness between me and her son.

"Her brother was one of them boys on the news. She was 14."

"Phoenix." It comes out in a whisper but I can't help but feel a lump starting to form in my throat at his words.

"She's got two Mums and a Dad, any one of them could've folded but they didn't. She has a younger brother, too. Her parents didn't fold, instead they stepped up and did what parents do and look after their kids." His voice breaks and tears began to flow down his face once again. "You're not my Mum, so no I'm not going to live with you. As far as I'm concerned, you're a stranger to me."

"You lost your brother?" She ignores her youngest son as he runs through the door into the landing.

I swallow the lump in my throat and, instead, meet her stare head on. "Yeah I did."

"And your parents didn't break?"

"Oh, they broke." I fight off the memories, the blood on Michael's hands, the pain on Jonah's face. "My Dad was a mess but I still saw him when he came home, as did my younger brother. One of my Mums tried to ignore the fact it happened and attempted to stay strong for her children, who were her ultimate priority. My other Mum relapsed." Adonis doesn't know about her addiction. He just thinks she runs the support group, I realise. It's too late to turn back now. "She had the worst reaction yet the only time I didn't see her was the month in rehab in which she asked to do in order for her to return to us and be the Mum she was before. Now thats not to say that my brothers death is more important nor more severe than Scarletts. But Jonah died on his own, it was unexpected and none of us could've predicted it. Scarlett died surrounded by the love and support off her family and, if I could, I would've chose that end for Jonah any day."

"Everyone's different, whether I had 4 kids or not."

"You have 5 kids." Her blue eyes turn to ice and I watch all the emotion dissipate from her eyes."Whether you lost one or not, you still have children. You can't pick and choose whether you're a Mum or not. It's not a part time job, it's for life."

"I know that, I jus-"

"Stop talking before you just make yourself look worse." Apollo advises, "Don't you get it? You ain't welcome here."

"Apo-"

"How did you even know we were here? Since when did you leave Manchester?" Orion fires out, interrupting Amelia. "We didn't stay in contact with anyone there."

"I know about what happened with Apollo and that boy and I knew that the only person in the world worth moving so far from home for was Morgan. Just because I wasn't there physically didn't mean I didn't know what was happening, I still cared." Her eyes are trained on her oldest child, "I moved to Kensington around a month or two after leaving."

I watch Apollo lower his gaze, jaw locking. Orion's eyes are wide as Phoenix slowly shuffles back into the room.

"What?" It's almost a whisper, the word sends shivers down my spine. "You left a month or two after fucking over your kids?"

Adonis laughs, but it's far from humorous. Disbelief. Shock. Anger. He blinks, trying desperately to remove the water in his eyes so we don't notice.

"You know what happened with that boy? Really?" He scoffs, "Did you know my brother got tormented to a point where he wouldn't even leave the house? Did you know that we both have scars on our knuckles from fighting with everyone who came in our path talking loud? Did you know that they fucked his head up so much that he started to hate himself? Did you know that he needed you when he was 13? Grieving his sister and not knowing how to accept himself?"

"I'm here now." She replies, but I can see the tears in her eyes at Adonis' words.

"That's the thing, Amelia." Adonis smiles at her. "When you left, you taught us that we could live without you. You taught us how to do that."

"I don't need you anymore, Mum." Apollo speaks up, a calm shake in his voice. "None of us need, nor want, you here."

Confession: I hate people who get twisted on the idea that their place in your life is irreplaceable. You can't leave someone in the mud and expect them to be happy when you arrive to save them.