Rebirth (RAW Family 3)

My shove barely moved him.

How infuriating.

“Go back inside,” he uttered passively, and my anger went supernova.

I spoke. I spoke even though my voice shook. “You don’t get to do this.” When he turned his face away, I lifted my trembling hand and brought it to his cheek, forcing him to look at me. “You don’t get to do this to us again.”

He licked his lips, blinking down at me unemotionally. “Go back inside, Lexi.”

“No.” I stood my ground, but my bravado slipped. “Not without you.”

Twitch took in a deep breath. “I gotta get outta here a while, okay?”

“No.” My veins lit with pure scorching lava. I shook my head and ground out excruciatingly, “Not okay.”

I hated that I cried when I got angry because he thought I was genuinely sad, when in reality I was trying my hardest not to fucking kill him myself.

My eyes blurred with unshed tears. “Is this what you do now? You just pack up and leave when shit gets hard?” My breathing turned heavy as I let my anger be known. “I’m so glad you feel you have the choice, you fuckhead,” I panted then wept. “I don’t have that luxury, to escape when I feel like I’m fucking sinking inside, which is a lot, by the way. Because I’m a mother.” I pointed toward the house as my tears left a burning trail on my cheeks. “And there’s a little boy in that house who depends on me.”

When he lowered his face, the sadness crept in, outweighing the anger. My grief was real, and while I had already gone and experienced the first three stages, the forth step came hard and fast. And then I was bargaining.

“Please don’t do this.” My shoulders shook as I cried openly. He opened his mouth to speak, but I lifted a hand, cutting him off. “I don’t care what you do to me, but don’t do this to him.” It was hard to breathe and my voice turned weak. “I barely survived it, Tony.” My lips quavered, as I whispered agonizingly, “This will kill him.”

As we stared at each other a long while, Twitch unzipped his hoodie and stepped forward, cloaking me in his warmth and his smell, pulling the hood up over my head while looking completely calm, and I hated him then.

How could he appear so tranquil as I felt my world was falling apart?

So when he stepped forward and cupped my cheeks, I fought him. “No.” I lifted my hands and slapped at his chest. He leaned in again, and a pained grunt escaped me as my hand connected with his chin. “Don’t touch me!” A strong arm circled my waist and held me fast, and I lifted my arms, hitting him again and again as I wept openly. “Don’t touch me, you piece of shit!”

“Baby, stop,” he cooed, avoiding as much of my assault as he could.

Balling my hands into fists, I punched his shoulders, but my blows were abating as my heart weakened, as my soul desperately tried to understand why this was happening all over again.

The answer was a hard pill to swallow.

It was happening, because I let it.

“Let go of me.” I struggled in his hold, and when he didn’t release me, I screamed, “Let go of me!”

And just like that, Twitch had turned me into another angry housewife yelling in the street.

He let go then, and as much as I begged for it, I wanted to rush back into his arms if it meant keeping him with me a while longer.

Yes. I was truly pathetic.

And when I shook my head and turned my back on him, heading back toward the house, wondering how in the hell I would explain this to my son, he caught my wrist. I yanked it free with little to no effort and turned my deathly glare on him. “You want to go?” I swept my arm out. “Go.” My expression severe, I warned, “But I swear to you, Antonio Falco, if you leave today, you leave for good. Do you hear me?”

Yeah, I said it. But I didn’t mean it.

I spun on my heel because I didn’t want him to see me cry again. He stopped me with, “I left a note.” My feet failed me and I stalled. “It’s just a couple days.” My throat constricted painfully. With my back to him and my feet chilled, he spoke quietly. “I’m coming back.”

My breath left me with a whoosh and my shoulders slumped. I didn’t dare face him.

He went on, “Just a few days. That’s all.” And when I heard him approach, my entire body turned rigid. “I’m coming back, angel.”

Why should I believe him?

Last time I believed him, I ended up burying him.

“I’m not leavin’ you. Not the way you think.” I loathed that I heard sincerity in his voice. “I told you, baby.” What he said next had a fresh stream of tears falling. “Always find my way back to you.”

I hugged myself then, trying in vain to talk through my tears. “Where are you going?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Spent six years without you, angel. Spent those years alone and miserable. Now I got you, got my boy, and I’m fuckin’ happy. I’m not takin’ any risks.” My back warmed as I felt him stand right behind me. “Gonna find someone who makes sure we get at least six more together.” When his hands came down on my shoulders, he uttered, “I’m tired of waiting. I can’t live like this, knowing she’s out there planning whatever the fuck she’s planning. Livin’ with this dread in the pit of my stomach.” He inhaled deeply, followed by an exhale. “It’s messin’ with me, baby.”

Ling.

This was about Ling.

At my silence, he went on, “You know me, Lex. You think I’mma wait for the bitch to attack first? Fuck that shit.” The hands at my shoulders squeezed as he made a negative sound in his throat. “It ain’t my style.”

My feet were freezing, and when I turned, I did it slowly. My damp eyes met his, and I asked quietly, “Why do you think she’s planning something?”

Brutal honesty. “Because I would be.” And the certainty in his voice made my heart stutter.

My eyes turned as desolate as my tone. “You’re not leaving?”

He shook his head slowly and his eyes spoke to mine, holding a certainty in them. And at that moment, confidence surged through me. One I had no right to feel, not with our history. It filled me with hope.

I held my breath.

Past experience told me to fear this man and what he could do to me, but my heart objected so profoundly that it wouldn’t be silenced. I took the objection and kissed it soundly, holding it close, nurturing it to grow.

When he glanced down at his watch, he uttered the words I feared hearing. “I gotta go.” At my unsure expression, he stepped closer, taking his hands and placing them gently on my waist. “I’m coming back,” he uttered earnestly. The hands at my waist squeezed. “And when I do, we’re getting married.” His soft brown eyes searched my strained face, before he ordered gently, “Kiss me before I go.”

Soft promises made with a forked tongue.

No. I shouldn’t have believed him.

Then why did I?

Because it was better than the alternative.

My heart cracked, fissures appearing all over the fragile glass it was made of, and when he looked me deep in the eye and commanded, “Kiss me,” my feet moved without permission.

He lowered his face at the very same moment I stood on my tiptoes, and when our lips touched, so much was said without ever being spoken. My arms wrapped around his neck and I was not letting go. Not yet.

His tender kiss said, “I won’t let you down,” while my desperate lips begged, “Come back to me.”

And when he backed away, carefully pulling m

y arms off of him, I watched him approach the car and I panicked. “Don’t get lost, okay?”

He snuffled out a soft laugh before looking at me. Really looking at me. “Don’t you know, angel?” The intensity of that look gave me chills. “No matter which map I take, they all lead back to you.”

Jesus Christ.

I was in love with a silver-tongued snake.

My breath hitched as I delayed his departure. “Love me forever?”

He opened the car door and paused. And then he smiled, the beautifully crooked smile that haunted my dreams to this very day. “Till the end of time.” Before he slid into the drivers seat, he muttered, “Wait for me, baby.”

But I didn’t respond because it didn’t need to be said.

And as I watched the car reverse out of my driveway, I came to the sickening realization that I would wait.

I would wait a million years.

My eyes fluttered open sometime before dawn. I reached out, knowing he wouldn’t be there.

Fingers blindly searching the empty side of the bed, I closed my eyes and curled in on myself as my heart ached tenderly, hugging his hoodie to me in the early hours of a lonely morning. I breathed in his heady scent and, eventually, slow as the sun rose, I fell back asleep.

“Where’s Daddy?”

I don’t know and it’s killing me.

Smiling down at the little monster with a light that didn’t reach my eyes, I uttered, “He had to go away for work.”

Molly glanced at me from the table, frowning, and we exchanged a solemn look.

My son peered between us, before asking carefully, “When is he coming back?”

His hesitance slayed me.

I sat beside him and ran a gentle hand through his hair. “I’m not sure, baby.”

A couple days, he said. The note he left said a week. For all I knew, it would be months. Years, even.

Who knew?

My attitude grew more pessimistic by the second, and before I did something really dumb, like burst into tears for the fourth time this morning, I peered down at my little man, and said, “How about we put on a nice dinner tonight? I can call Ana and Julius.”