Poison

I was waiting for Anna when she walked through the front door after her trip away, and my stuff was already gone.

I knew she was forgiving, and loving, and everything I didn’t deserve, and I knew I couldn’t give her a hint of how broken I was too.

I needed her to hate me and carry on living her life, and curse my name whenever she thought of me.

I needed her to run away from me and never even try to reach out and ask me why.

So I choked it back. I choked it all back and pretended this was what I wanted. Pretended I’d been thinking it out and it was so much more than one stupid night and one stupid mistake.

Even through her broken screams her eyes were full of love, and I had to hold it back so fucking tight and get out of there before I begged forgiveness so hard I’d never make it through the door.

Never make it to Maya.

Never live up to being the man my mother had made me into.

I knew it needed to be bad, and unforgiveable.

I knew I needed to be the biggest cunt who’d ever lived.

So I laughed.

I laughed at Anna’s pain as she broke in front of me, and I swore I’d hate myself as long as I lived.

And then, when I was sure I’d destroyed our world beyond all repair, I walked away.Chapter Twenty-OneAnnaI listened to his words without interrupting.

I felt his pain and regret and cried along with him and let it all sink in. It was a beautiful hurt, but it was tragic. It was so tragic, it broke my heart in a thousand new places.

“I’m sorry,” he said and his forehead was pressed to mine all over again. “Please believe me, Anna. I’m so fucking sorry, you’ll never know.”

I did believe him, and it didn’t make what he’d done hurt any less, or make it any more okay, but I felt it all as the truth.

My mind was piling up the questions, letting them spin, and I hated Maya just as much as I’d always hated her, but I had forgiveness for her predicament.

“What happened after that?” I asked. “I mean, Millie is only five… what happened to the baby?”

He didn’t pull his forehead from mine.

“She lost it. Miscarried.”

I sobbed fresh and he wrapped me tight in his arms and rocked us both.

“Then why did you stay with her?!” I begged to know. “Please, Lucas, you have to tell me why the hell you didn’t come back and tell me the truth.”

He let out a sob as he eased away from me, and wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand.

“Because she was broken, Anna. She was absolutely fucking broken.”

And I screamed. I screamed in his face as the pain reached its peak.

“AND SO WAS I! I WAS ABSOLUTELY FUCKING BROKEN!”

I put my face in my hands and struggled with my own story, knowing it was time to lay it all out on the table, and trying. Just trying to let it out.

“I can’t make it better,” he said as I was still finding my voice. “I can only say I’m sorry. I thought you’d move on. I thought I’d be such a prick that you’d leave me behind and find someone better. And you did, right? You found Sebastian Maitland and I heard you were happy.”

“I wasn’t happy! I was just trying to find what the hell happy was again!”

We took a minute to get our breaths back to some semblance of steady, and then I cleared my throat.

“When you left me that day, I couldn’t even begin to handle the pain. I loved you so much, and I wanted you so much, and I thought we had our whole world right there.”

“We did,” he said. “We did, I just fucked it up.”

“And fucked me up,” I continued. “I didn’t know where to even start with it. I was crying like a wreck and couldn’t speak, and I felt like you’d sliced me into pieces and stamped them into nothing. I tried to call Nicola and she was coming over, and I was trying to think, but I couldn’t.”

“I know,” he said. “I know how broken you were. I saw it.”

“BUT YOU DON’T!” I shouted, then struggled to calm my voice. “I was on the floor retching and sobbing with my brain fucking broken, and then it did break. It broke right there and then. I got a wave across my head that felt like I was falling out of myself, and I went so blank I didn’t know where I was, and I couldn’t speak, or think, or understand what the hell was going on.” I paused to breathe. “I was so scared, Lucas. I was so scared and alone until Nicola came through the door and found me there. And that was the start of it. That was the start of the seizures, and they were so bad, and so cruel and I was terrified. I WAS TERRIFIED!”