Free My Everything - Seth & Amber by Melanie Shawn Page A

childhood. They didn’t seem damaged or traumatized. They
were all in healthy, happy relationships.
    It made him wonder if he was the only one
with lingering effects from what they had gone through with their
mom; both when she was alive, and then the abandonment of
ultimately losing her. Was he the only one incapable of that kind
of happiness? Logically, he supposed it would make sense – after
all, he was the oldest.
    Seth remembered his mom before she had gotten
really sick. He had taken it personally when she had left when he
was ten. Then, when she had overdosed four years later, he had been
devastated.
    His dad had been a wreck. Seth's dad had
loved his mom fiercely, completely. Seeing his brothers with their
wives and fiancé reminded Seth of how his dad had been with his
mom. She was his everything. His whole world had revolved around
her.
    Seth knew he could never love someone like
that. He had seen what the aftereffects were when things went
wrong. He had seen it almost destroy his indestructible father.
    Right after Jason, his middle brother, was
born his mom had gotten ‘sick.’ She wouldn’t get out of bed for
days at a time. She cried a lot. At the time he had blamed his dad
for not taking good enough care of her. For not making her better.
Making her happy. At four, he really didn’t understand what was
going on.
    He remembered that his Aunt Sandy (who hadn’t
had his cousins Haley, Becca, Krista or Jessie yet) would come over
and take care of him, two-year-old Riley, and baby Jason. Aunt
Sandy would try to keep them quiet so his mom could rest.
    It had taken a year for his mom to get better
that time. He remembered that she was just getting back to herself
when Seth had started kindergarten at age five. But then she had
gotten pregnant with Alex and the cycle had started all over again.
This time it was even worse than the first. Alex was only a year
old, and their mother not yet fully recovered, when she had gotten
pregnant with Bobby. That was the beginning of the end. Once she
had had Bobby, her ‘good’ days were few and far between.
    His mom left when Bobby was two, Alex was
four, Jason was six, Riley was eight and Seth was ten. In her
absence, their dad had done his best to raise his five sons. Seth
shook his head. He and Riley sure hadn’t made it easy on him. Jason
was always a good kid, mature for his age and didn’t get into too
much trouble. He helped out a lot with Alex and Bobby when Riley
and Seth were running the streets, up to no good.
    During the four years his mom was gone, in
and out of treatment centers and hospitals, but before her
overdose, Seth had always held out hope that she would come home.
That she would be how she had been before Jason was born. He was
just a kid and didn’t fully understand how bad her disease truly
was, or the ramifications of the fact that she didn’t like to take
her medication.
    To this day he still missed her. Every day he
missed her.
    “Just got a text from Amber, she should be by
any minute,” Katie announced, instantly drawing Seth out of his
melancholy thoughts. “I thought coming and seeing the baby would be
a nice distraction from the break-in.”
    As he scanned the room, all eyes appeared to
be on him. He wasn’t sure what they were waiting for him to say,
but they were going to be waiting awhile. He didn’t have anything
to say on that subject, and Seth made it a practice not to say
anything at all unless he had something of value to contribute.
    “Has anyone heard if they are any closer to
finding who trashed her shop and knocked her out?” Sophie asked the
room at large.
    Hearing the words ‘knocked her out’ started
Seth’s blood boiling. He hated how helpless he had felt walking in
and seeing Amber grimacing in pain, an ice pack pressed to her
head. He had wanted so badly to pull her in his arms. He had needed
to feel her heart beating against his so that he knew she was
alive, that she was okay.
    “As far as I know, with no