Choosing You (Gravity Hill #3)

11. Chapter 8

I watched him walk away until I couldn’t see him anymore. I watched as his eyes misted over, and his shoulders fell in the barest of hints that I’ve once again killed another part of him.

“Snacks!” Toby shouts, snapping me out of my self-hatred. “We need snacks.”

“We just ate like two hours ago,” I point out with a chuckle.

“And? That,” he gestures wildly around the room, “was weird, and now I’m zombie-hungry.”

“You’re mindlessly hungry?” Talon raises a brow in his brother's direction as the game whirs on, and the TV chimes the same sound it plays every time we turn the game on.

He grins wickedly, leaning over into his brother’s lap, “Exactly.”

Talon laughs and shoves him out of his space. He laughs and asks if we want anything. Talon asks for water, and I follow suit. Finding my place on the couch, I settle in with the controller and check my phone.

I don’t talk to anyone outside of the people under this roof, so I shouldn’t be surprised that I have no notifications. Part of me wishes Henry would send me a text and ask me to come talk or something. But the other part of me knows that if he did, we would be ripping open the same old wounds all over again.

My thoughts always circle back to last night when he crawled into my bed and held me. I don’t know how he knew, but he did, and he wouldn’t let me sit in my misery alone like he should have.

“Dude,” Talon taps my chest to get my attention, “just fucking kiss him and tell him you love him, it’s not that hard. Jesus, you’re so melodramatic, which is saying something coming from me.”

Anger bubbles up my sternum, and I have to tamp it down. “I’m not taking dating advice from you, asshole.”

“It’s not dating advice,” he grumbles, “it’s me giving you a kick in the ass. You treat Henry like a two-cent slut.”

“You have no idea what’s going on Tal, so take your kick in the ass and give it to someone else.”

He snorts, “Ooookay.”

“You know what,” fear and anger mix in my stomach, and I know I’m lashing out, yet I can’t stop it. “Fuck you, Talon.”

“You wish, baby,” he kisses the air in my direction. I spring off the couch and storm out of the room, nearly running into Toby, who’s carrying a bag of chips with his teeth and arms full of water bottles.

“What’d I miss?” I hear Toby whisper as I turn the corner and pause at Henry’s closed door. I try to drown out the twins and their voices by putting my ear to the door and listening for him. I guess I like to torture myself with the knowledge that I’m to blame for his tears staining the sheets.

I don’t hear anything, so he must be asleep already, or all cried out. I don’t know which one I’d prefer. Thoughts of him laying on his side, crying over the boy I used to be, or asleep dreaming of the man he deserves plague my mind.

Leaning my head against the door, I let out a breath and reverently place my palm against the wood before walking down the hall to my own room and closing myself inside–the four walls that held me together after my world fell apart.

Jax was driving. After practice, we grabbed dinner with the team, hamburgers and milkshakes from Jill’s Diner. We were stuffed and helped Jill close down before we left. He dropped me off at the gravel driveway and sped off, howling into the night air.

I shook my head and walked to the front door. Dad was gone a lot for work with Creed, Nile, and Luca, so mom stayed home. As an interior designer, she worked with clients from all over, and she was good, too.

Well loved, really. Her clients loved her so much that she was fully booked for the year and had to turn people away. Having to do it killed her a little, but she never sacrificed her time with me.

“Banks?” I heard her call from somewhere in the house when the door shut. She wasn’t wearing shoes, but I could hear the soft pads of her feet hitting the hardwood.

“Yeah, Ma!” I hollered, making my way into the kitchen to unpack my school stuff on the counter. It’s where I do most of my assignments and help her with dinner. Except tonight, she’s at the stove with a small pan, frying something. “What’s for dinner?”

She laughed, “You’ve already eaten, mister.” She said while waving the flat spatula in the air my way.

I joined her laughter and pressed a kiss to her temple before heading back to the bar stool that served as my desk chair. She flipped the bread and turned to face me, “What’s on the homework schedule tonight?”

“Calculus,” I mumbled. I hated math. I didn’t particularly love anything about school other than football. I love football, and I’m pretty good at it, but in order to play, I have to pass my classes, so… homework it is.

“Ugh,” she mirrors my inner sentiment. “Math, what could you ever do with that valuable skill?” I laugh as her voice drips with sarcasm.

“Ha-ha, Ma,” I say with an eye roll.

She walks to the bar across from me and smiles, “It won’t be long, and you’ll be away at some college, playing football, and you can choose whatever you want to study.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“So don’t stress the small stuff,” she hunkers down so she can catch my eyes. “Besides, you’re brilliant. Any college will be lucky to have you.”

“You’re my Mom, you have to believe that.”

She laughs, turning around to grab her sandwich. Once plated, she turns back to face me. “That’s fair, but I know plenty of mothers who don’t have that much faith in their kids.”

“Maybe they just aren’t good mothers,” I quip, “I’m just lucky,”

“And don’t you forget it!” She bites into her grilled cheese, and the sound crunches, making me hunger for one myself.

“You don’t happen to have more of that, do you?”

“Growing boys!” She exclaims, “They’ll eat me out of house and home! I swear I’m going to have to go to the grocery store just for the four of you this weekend.”

I try my best puppy dog eyes as she rolls hers, waving her hand at me. “Of course I do.”

“You’re the best.”

“So I’ve been told.”

I finish my homework, with a few rewatched lessons, and eat the grilled cheese mom made after she finished hers. She sat with me the entire time, offering help when she could and providing emotional support when I got frustrated.

She yawns and declares, lights out. “Love you, Banksie.”

“Love you, Ma.”

When she hit the stairs, she turned around and snapped her fingers, “Oh, I forgot. Your dad will be home late. Leave the porch light on, will you?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Sweet dreams.”

“You too,” I holler after her.

A tear travels down my cheek at the memory of the last time I spoke to my mother. I can almost smell her perfume and hear her voice floating up the stairs… sweet dreams. It’s the last thing she said to me, the last words I ever heard my mother speak.

The rage I know all too well swells inside of me, and I let it out on my pillows. Punching and tearing at them to try and dull the ache in my chest. I won’t waste another tear, it’s been two years, and I still feel like a lost child thinking about my mother’s death. I want to scream, to find whoever took her from me and tear them to shreds.

A soft knock on the door jars me from my outburst, and I clear my throat to tell whoever’s on the other side to come in. Henry opens the door, poking his head in. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” I lie.

“It didn’t sound like it,” he pushes a little further into the room. His eyes search my face, and I wish he would leave. That he wouldn’t inch further and further into the room.

“So you thought you’d come console me? Maybe we’d end up tangled together again? Just like old times?”

He sighs a heavy breath, “It’s not like that, and you know it.”

“No? So you’re not here to crawl into my bed again?”

“Don’t–” he starts, but I’m not done.

“Don’t what, Henry?” I shout, shocking him into silence. Standing, I cross the room and crowd his space. “Don’t talk about how you came to me . How you begged me to let you suck my cock? How you loved being used so much, you came in your pants?”

“That’s not what happened,” he grits out.

Laughing, I shove him back toward the door, but with the way he’s standing, it slams shut. His back is against the white paint and our chests brush with each harsh breath.

“Really? So why can’t you talk to me? Or look at me?” I growl at him, “Because you wanted it to mean something it didn’t. Just like now, you’re hoping, despite everything I’ve said, that I’ll suddenly change my mind and be the same person I was when we first fucked.”

“We didn’t fuck!” Henry shouts, his eyes stern, looking up at me, “We were together because we loved each other.”

“So maybe you finally do get it. Loved . It’s in the past, get over it,” my heart lurches in my chest, pounding against my chest as if it knows how much of a goddamn liar I am and wants to prove it.

His eyes harden from my harsh words but hope still shines there. “You’re a fucking coward. Being an asshole won’t make me hate you, and hiding from your pain isn’t going to make it better.”

My laughter is forced, “Well, you’d know all about that now, wouldn’t you?”

He licks his lips, tucking them into his mouth before a broken whisper, “Fuck you, Banks.” A lone tear streaks down his cheek, and my heart skips a beat at the pain beneath his hazel eyes. Stepping back, I open the door for him to retreat.

“Run away now, Fancy. It’s what you’re good at,” I spew because that’s what he does. He runs until he can’t run anymore and then circles right back to me.

I can’t keep letting him circle back, not anymore.