Becca Ritchie

My dad, with amber eyes that can cut the soul into jagged pieces, stared right...right into me. Where most would fear him, I bathed in warmth - those sharp-edged eyes, with their bitter history and raw truths, comforted me.
And he said "Before I had you and your siblings, your mom was the one good thing in my life. And I know I'm supposed to tell you how love conquers all. How we could move mountains together. But the love we had almost destroyed us both. Love is like having a mortal wound and you're bleeding out and no matter how hard you look, you can never find the goddamn cut." He never broke eye contact.
I kept looking. Listening, feeling his words.
"It's its own special brand of pain," he told me. "Because no matter how much you love, you're still a passenger to their life. You have to watch all their bad decisions. You can't think for them or change them. Just be there for them. And sometimes, it's not going to be good enough. Sometimes things happen out of your control." He paused. "Love is pain, and you know what...I feel sorry for anyone who hasn't met it yet."

Those aren't the Cobalt brothers. I open one eye to see pajamaclad Jane and Sulli. Standing at the foot of my bed, they cradle pastel beanbags, pillows, and fuzzy blankets. Charlie and Beckett flank the girls. All four staring at me. Sympathetically. Charlie, more pityingly.
I've had every teenager, every kid in the family, make me promise that I wouldn't die on them. These four are the ones that see me less like Captain America and more like an imperfect human.
I need them in my world.
I can admit that.
"I'm alive," I say with a sharp breath.
"Sadly", Charlie quips.
"Charlie," they all chastise.

Connor Cobalt, Ryke Meadows, and Loren Hale have already claimed the other side of the wooden table. Three larger-than-life men. Each one had a profound impact on Maximoff, and it's always clear to me when I speak to them just how great their influence was and still is to this day.
Hell, I see them as different sides of my boyfriend:
Connor is mental. He taugh Maximoff intelligence, emotional restraint and confidence.
Lo is emotionnal, the sarcastic, loving and empathetic piece of him.
And the Ryke is physical, all determination and stubbornness and unshakeable strenght.

I can't vacillate between maybe and I don't know. I have to fucking know. Or else my father will try to convince me to stay, and I need to confidently shut that shit down.
He's the fateway to my freedom from medicine. From a generationnal legacy that has consumed me for an entire lifetime.
Once I open that gate, I need to walk though and never turn back around back.

I don't love him because he's a coveted piece of art to the thousands here and the millions outside. I love him because he's so pure it hurts, so moral it aches, and so strong-willed it kills me not to speak to him, not to be near him, not to look at him or to protect him.

Alcoholism runs in the Hale and Meadows families. You know that.
Everyone know that.
My dad has lectured me about addiction my entire goddamn life, and I'm terrified to awaken that monster inside of me. It's been dormant for twenty-two years.

Our waitress returns to take our orders, and after she leaves, Connor tells the table, "In other news, I was offered a condom sponsorship this morning."
Ryke almost spits out his water. "You have seven fuckings kids."
"Royal sperm," Lo quips.

"You mean does Redford always choose the boyfriend over the friend?"
I nod, confident in this question. "Yeah."
"Depends on the boyfriend," he says, "but Hale, you've been chosen first 100% of the time, wich is record-breaking."

But if you know my dad at all, he's a hard sell. Saving my life is like half-a-brownie point. For my mom, Farrow earned every brownie that ever existed in every universe.

"I'm just some guy," I remind him.
"No," Maximoff says, firm and final. "You're the guy."