Where she Learned to be Small

Piper had never been good at pretending she wasn’t afraid. She only had learned how to keep moving while fear walked beside her.

Two days had passed since she stumbled through the Anderson doors, dragging paint-splattered chaos behind her. Thomas’s loathing hadn’t softened. If anything, it had hardened. Settling into something deliberate and resolved. The arrival incident had sealed it. What little patience he might have offered was gone.

Every word she spoke, every movement she made, seemed to highlight her inadequacy in his world.

In his eyes, she was a gold-digger wrapped in germs. A walking contamination. She wasn’t meant to laugh too freely, walk too quickly, touch anything, or exist without permission. Thomas wanted her erased—while still performing the duties of a wife and mother.

Piper noticed everything.

The way he angled his body away from hers.

How he paused before entering a room she was already in.

How his gaze swept over her like something unpleasant that needed removal.

His voice, cold, and tormenting, had become like a song in her head.

“Stop. Don’t come any closer.”

“Hey! Don’t touch that. You’ll contaminate it.”

“Piper don’t touch my kids without sanitizing first.”

The words looped endlessly, like lyrical beats she couldn’t turn off. Warnings. Corrections. Invisible lines she kept crossing without knowing where they were drawn.

Still, she had somehow managed to soften the house, breathe life and sound into it by being herself.

Not Thomas.

But the house.

She had coaxed sound into rooms that had only known silence.

Sketches lined the small outlet room she’d claimed as a makeshift studio. Her colors poured quietly into moments that pulled her from drowning in sadness, kept her busy.

And the boys, mostly Leo.

She loved the boys.

Toby still hadn’t said much since she arrived.

She was in the nursery now, pacing gently with Leo resting against her chest. The toddler resisted sleep, his small body restless, hiccups catching between breaths.

Piper shifted him instinctively, tucking his head under her chin. The movement came naturally to her, even though she hadn't done much of babysitting prior to that moment. Leo melted into her, his limbs loosening, hiccups fading into soft coos.

She smiled without realizing it.

“Hey, little man,” she whispered. “You’re supposed to be napping.”

She kissed his head. He responded by kicking his feet, tears forgotten, fingers curling into her shirt.

That was when she felt it.

The weight of another presence.

Toby.

He sat in the corner, his small body folded inward, arms wrapped tight around a teddy bear. His shoulders sadly hunched for a four year old, chin pressed down. He hadn’t moved around much since she arrived.

Piper placed a sleeping Leo in his crib and crossed the room slowly. Kneeling next to the toddler without reaching for him, she smiled.

“Hi, Toby,” she said softly. “Can I touch your bear today?”

The child retreated, clutching tighter to his teddy bear.

"It's okay. You don't have to share, it's okay."

She waited.

Then placed both her hands to her chin. "Do you want something to eat buddy?"

A small shake of his head.

The boy barely touched his meal yesterday, and was already declining today's. She remained smiling anyway. "Alright. I'll be here whenever you want something to eat. Okay?" She assured him. "I'm not going anywhere."

The child looked up.

His anxious face scanning piper's own with concern, his little eyes were guarded, wounded with a painful mix of doubt and distrust.

He didn't believe her.

"Liar." Toby whispered, barely audibly, and bent over his bear again.

The word struck hard, a shock.

“What?” Her voice cracked despite her effort.

She didn’t hear Thomas enter. He didn’t announce himself. Just stood by the door, eyes sharp, taking in every tiny motion like she was a mistake he had yet to correct.

Piper kept her gaze on Toby.

She edged closer, still not touching the boy, her heart aching.

"Hey sweetie, can you look at me?" She whispered

Toby didn't bother.

“I promise,” she said quietly, holding up her little finger. “I’m here. For real.”

Too fast.

Thomas felt it immediately. The danger in that word.

Promise.

She was building something fragile. Laying emotions too quickly. Connections she had no right to deepen.

Making promises she wasn't certain of keeping

But it worked.

Toby looked up.

He studied her face like someone searching for treasure in unfamiliar land.

Thomas turned away, he swallowed.

The boy rarely spoke to him now.

And yet—

“Why are you making promises to my children?”

His voice sliced through the room, the disapproving tone disrupting the moment.

Piper flinched. Her shoulders drew in instinctively.

“I’m just—” she swallowed. Her tongue felt thick. “I’m trying to help him feel safe.”

“Stop trying,” Thomas snapped. “And start doing what you were hired to do.”

Piper’s hands trembled slightly as she adjusted her blouse, she already knew this was coming.

"Thomas, your son needs all the love he can get, I'm just trying to be here for him." She said quietly.

“Just do your job Piper, quite the bonding,” he stepped into the room.“You are not his mother!”

The words fell like arrows against Piper's chest, piercing painfully.

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Words crowded her throat, useless.

She swallowed forcefully. “Thomas Please—”

“How do you know I won’t end this contract?” He cut in. “Your incompetence is exhausting.”

Every word from his mouth was a direct strike to her dignity.

In her mind, she wanted to fight for herself.

To lift lift her head and not wither Beneath his looks

She straightened her shoulders.

Pushed her head up.

Ready to stare him in the eyes