It’s bleedin’ Baltic. My runners are soaked through from the puddles outside the feckin’ rehab centre gates, and me toes feel like they’re gonna drop off. Five months locked in that kip, surrounded by twitching lads and fellas trying to pretend they weren’t addicts. I didn’t pretend. I knew what I was. A proper user. Dealer too. Same poison in my veins as my da.

But I’m out now. Out, and shaking. Not from the cold—though Christ, it’s feckin’ freezing—but from the not knowing.

She said she’d be here.

Said she’d wait.

And I don’t deserve that. Not a girl like her. Not after all the shite I dragged her through. She should’ve legged it. Ran for the hills. Found some fella with a good heart and clean hands. But she didn’t. Or maybe she changed her mind and I’m just standing here like a feckin’ eejit.

I chew at the skin on me thumb till I taste blood. Heart thumping like mad under my jumper. One bag at me feet. That’s all I’ve got to me name now. Just that and a pile of regrets.

Then I hear it. That little rattle of a car struggling over the gravel. A silver yolk that looks ready for the scrapheap. The brakes scream as it jerks to a stop across the road.

Door flings open—

And there she is.

Sweet suffering Jaysus.

She’s still the most beautiful feckin’ thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. But there’s a bump now. Big. Proper full-grown baby-sized bump, stretching the life out of me old hoodie—still wearing it like it’s hers. And it is. Everything I have is hers.

She looks wrecked. Not the kind of glow they talk about in magazines. It’s the kind that comes from crying at 2AM and throwing up your guts and holdin’ onto hope when you’ve no right to. That kind of glow. Earned in pain and bleedin’ heartbreak.

She doesn’t walk—she waddles. But Christ, she’s legging it best she can. Her hair’s a mess. Eyes swollen. Shoes undone. But she’s running for me.

And I break.

I drop my bag. Stand there like a gobshite as the tears come faster than I can blink ‘em back.

She hits me like a hurricane. Arms wrapped round me neck. Belly between us. Breath hitching in sobs as she clings on like she’s afraid I’ll vanish.

“You came back,” she whispers, voice all choked and breaking. “You absolute gobshite. You’re really here.”

I bury my face in her shoulder, hands holding her like she’s made of glass. She waited. After all of it. After every lie, every time I pushed her away, after I left her to carry our baby alone—she still feckin’ waited.

“I’m sorry,” I rasp, voice like gravel. “I missed you every second. I swear to God. You’ve no idea.”

Her hands tremble against my back. “I wanted to hate you,” she says into my neck. “I tried. But you’re the only feckin’ person I ever loved, Kian Holland.”

That nearly knocks me.

I press my forehead to hers, closing my eyes, breathing her in. She smells like vanilla and baby powder and hope.

“You kept it safe,” I murmur, hand resting gentle on her bump. “You kept our baby safe. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known.”