“I’ll expect you,” I whispered to him.
I felt my brother rise from the floor, sniffling and grunting.
I turned, not looking back as I walked for the door.
“Safe trip home,” Martin choked out. “You’ll never see me again.”
I threw open the door, not bothering to clean up the blood on my face as I left the room.
I’ll see you again. Will would be coming for both of us.
Will
Present
“We put Rika and Winter through what we did for nothing!” I growled. “We spent years thinking it was about the fucking videos, and it was about you! I did that to my friends. I brought you into their lives.”
I didn’t give a shit about the story she’d just told us. I knew it wasn’t her idea. I knew she had no beef with us.
She just didn’t give a shit about me. How could she let anyone think I did those things to her?
I stepped closer. “Do you have any idea what prison feels like?” I said to her as Alex and I stood in our soaking clothes and Emmy dropped her eyes, her hair in her face. “You could’ve done anything. You could’ve come clean and told me what you did. You could’ve come to me before you signed that damn paper, and I would’ve had your grandmother sent to the best home in the country!” My voice grew harder again as I shouted. “My parents would’ve paid for your education. You never had to do anything alone!”
It had been years. If she felt badly about what she’d done, it would’ve eaten away at her enough by now that she would’ve owned up. But no. I’d found out through my grandfather who, of course, knew it was all bullshit. I couldn’t believe he, my parents, and Kai’s parents didn’t tell us seven years ago, but they probably knew we’d battle it and just wanted us to take the lesser sentence instead of taking any chances.
Everyone stood around, silent as the train whistle rang in the air outside, and I watched her chin tremble and the lump in her throat move up and down.
“What, are you gonna cry now?” I taunted. “You gonna cry?”
Again?
I’d fucking give her something to cry about. I could understand the position Martin put her in. I sympathized.
But my God, was she blind? All she had to do was tell me. Lean on me. Ask for help. That was all she ever had to do!
“Look at what you made of me,” I said, inching forward and slapping my chest of tattoos that depicted home and all the life I’d lost even before I went to prison. “You made me into this.” I screamed in her face. “You!”
She flinched, but just then, someone pushed my ass back, and I stumbled, looking up and meeting Micah’s eyes.
He slipped in between us, Rory joining him and both of them inserting themselves between Emmy and me and staring at me like a warning.
What the hell? I tipped my chin up, glaring as my guys—my guys—now stood in front of her instead of behind me.
Unbelievable.
Peering between their shoulders, I met her eyes once more. “I reached for you,” I told her. “In my head, all these years. Even after you dumped me like trash and I couldn’t fall out of love with you no matter how much I drank and snorted, my brain reached for you always.”
She remained frozen, not faltering as she stared at me.
“When nothing gave me a reason to get out of bed, my friends were falling in love, making babies, and I felt so alone…” I choked on the tears in my throat I wouldn’t let loose. “What do you think was the only thing that made me keep breathing?” My tone hardened as I clenched my jaw. “In my brain, I reached for you. I never stopped reaching for you.”
And she let her brother tell my family that, not only did I not love her, but I passed her around for my friends to abuse like she was nothing.
When she was everything.
I hardened my voice. “Get the fuck out of my face,” I gritted out. “And it’s fine if you want to get the fuck off the train, too. Go, run back to him.”
I won’t reach for you anymore.