Secret (Betrothed 9)

Thirteen

Heath

Balto stepped out of the hallway, pulling on a t-shirt as he walked. “Do you ever call?”

I helped myself to the liquor cabinet, searching for a bottle of vodka. There was none, unfortunately, so I grabbed a substitute.

“Change your codes if you don’t want me to stop by unannounced.” I was the only one besides the two of them who had unrestricted access to their place, because I used to occupy the third floor. And I knew he never changed it because I was family—and I was always welcome. I filled my glass then made one for him.

“None for me.” He fell onto the couch.

“Then more for me.” I carried both glasses to the table and sat on the other couch. The last couple weeks of my life had been filled with booze and solitude. When I went to the Underground and took care of business, I was usually out of touch with my own actions, only partially listening to conversations.

Balto watched me, his hands together on his lap as he relaxed into the couch, watching me go to town on both drinks. “What’s wrong?”

“Why do you assume something’s wrong?”

His eyes didn’t blink. “Because you look like shit. And it’s two in the morning.”

“Not a night owl anymore?”

He didn’t answer the question.

I downed the first drink. “One down. Another to go.” I pushed the empty glass away then grabbed the other.

Balto was right on the money, and instead of interrogating me about it, he chose to hold his silence, to let me come clean when I was ready to.

I stared at the ground a long time, unsure how to handle the tightness in my chest, the devastation that had destroyed my entire body. Time and patience healed all my physical wounds, and pain could easily be treated with a couple of pills. But this…there was no shortcut for this. “She left me.”

My brother didn’t react. “I haven’t seen you this low in a long time…so I assumed.”

Was my agony that obvious?

“You told her?”

I shook my head. “Damien did.”

He bowed his head slightly. “That’s even worse.”

“She told him about me, I think in the hope of burying our mutual grievances so she and I could be together. That just makes it so much worse, that she was willing to fight for me.” I pressed my hands to my face and just sat there, imagining how that conversation backfired and exploded in her face.

“I’m sorry, Heath,” he said quietly. “What are you going to do now?”

“I’ve tried talking to her…she wants nothing to do with me.” I gave her a few weeks of space so she could calm down, let the initial flame lower to room temperature, but when I saw her at the bar, she was the same. She wasn’t just hostile—but indifferent. That was the worst part, watching her burn white-hot then become an arctic winter. “All those feelings she had for me…just died.”

“What kind of feelings?”

“I told her I loved her… She never said it back. But she implied it.”

Now Balto’s hard expression softened entirely, giving me a look he’d never shown me before. He actually felt terrible for me, actually felt the pain I felt.

“But that wasn’t enough for her. She said what we had was never real…not if it was based on a lie.”

He dropped his gaze and stared at the floor.

I did the same, sitting in the painful silence, wanting my brother to comfort me even though I already knew there was nothing he could do for me. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Heath, I don’t think there is anything you can do.”

I opened my eyes. “Don’t say that to me.”

“You know I’ll never tell you what you want to hear. I’ll tell you the truth. That’s my job.”

I raised my head and stared straight ahead. “She said she hates me, that she wishes she hadn’t warned me and fucked up Damien’s plan…that she wishes I were dead for what I did to her father.” That hurt the most, to hear her say those things and mean every word, to wish everything we’d had never happened at all.

“You did a pretty terrible thing, Heath.”

I closed my eyes in a grimace. “I was a different person then. And come on, don’t make me feel worse—”

“But I find it hard to believe she really means that.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him.

“Maybe she means them in the moment, but I don’t think she means it literally. She doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to wish death on anyone…especially the man she loves.”

“Loved,” I whispered.

He gave me another remorseful look. “I think you should give her space. A lot of it. And maybe…someday…you can try again.”

“I don’t want to wait until someday. I want her now.”

“Well, I just don’t think that’s possible,” he said. “This woman was in a deep and emotional relationship with you, then heard something so terrible. Of course, she feels betrayed. Of course, she feels foolish. Her mind is in shock. The initial anger is so potent that it’s masked all of her other feelings. Her shell is hard, her guard is up. She’s not who she used to be…because this was so traumatic for her.”