Released (Caged 3)

I stared at my trainer and almost wished she’d just go back to punching me. I could take that kind of hit. What she was suggesting—now that was a low blow.

“Did you tell her?” I knew the answer before Yolanda shook her head. I almost wished she had told Tria—that would have made things a lot easier. In my head, I heard Dr. Baynor asking me if I would take me back. I looked at Tria. “I’ll tell you everything.”

Tria’s arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against the wall and seemed to contemplate.

“Everything?” she asked.

“I swear.”

“You’ll answer any question I have with a complete answer, hold nothing back from me?”

“Yes,” I told her.

Tria huffed a breath out her nose. Yolanda glanced back at her and raised an eyebrow.

“I’d be happy to just beat him unconscious,” she said.

“It’s okay, Yolanda,” Tria answered with a sigh. “I’ll give him five minutes.”

Yolanda looked back at me and then over at Tria. Tria turned around and went back into the guest bedroom, and Yolanda let me past the doorway. As I went by, she grabbed my arm and dug her fingers into my skin.

“I’m not giving you another chance,” Yolanda said definitively. “I don’t think she should, either. You and I are done. Is that clear?”

I nodded and swallowed past the lump in my throat. I knew there were a lot more implications to her words than just having to find another trainer, but I was going to have to think about that later. Nothing else was going to matter if Tria wouldn’t hear me out.

I walked through the living room of Yolanda’s apartment and down the short hallway to her guest room. I remembered the room well—I had lived in it for a couple of weeks when I was getting clean. The furniture and stuff looked pretty much the same though she had painted the walls from blue to green.

With her hands resting on her thighs, Tria sat in a faded wingback chair next to the window. She twisted her fingers around the little ties that held the robe together. Now that I could see her in better light, she looked different, but I didn’t really understand how that could be when I had seen her just a couple of weeks ago. She did, though. Her face was pale, seemed heavy, and I was pretty sure she had been crying recently.

Taking a step forward, I brought myself fully into the bedroom. Tria obviously knew I was there, but she didn’t look up at me. She kept her eyes trained on her hands in her lap and sat as still as a statue.

“Tria…” My voice was nothing more than a heated whisper.

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she informed me. “Either tell me what happened that made you act this way or leave.”

I cringed at her tone as much as her words. She’d been angry with me before, and I knew what she sounded like then. The way she spoke now was completely different, and it felt like getting kicked in the face repeatedly.

“I’ll tell you,” I said quietly. “It’s going to take longer than five minutes, though.”

She looked at me, narrowed her eyes, and stared.

“You know what, Liam?” she finally replied. “Forget it. I just don’t give a shit anymore. Just get out. I have other things to think about

now, and I don’t have time for an overgrown child who can’t deal with himself. I’m going to have an actual child soon enough—one that needs me.”

I need you.

“You’re definitely going to…to have it?” I asked.

She narrowed her eyes further.

“Yes.”

My body went cold, and I dropped my gaze to the floor and squeezed my eyes shut for a moment.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you,” I told her.

“It’s not your concern anymore.”