Chapter Ten
Isla
Ihide out at my apartment, curled up in bed with a broken heart. Brantley's voice echoes in my head over and over. I can't shut it out. And that makes me angry. I don't want to hear him right now. I don't want to listen to my world crumbling at the foundations every two seconds.
But I do anyway.
I don't understand how this could happen. He said I didn't know the full story, and I'm sure he's probably right about that. Brantley may be a lot of things, but he isn't someone capable of walking away and allowing a murder to happen. Not even if it was his father. At least, that's what I want to believe.
But the truth is…Brantley's like a wounded animal who has been backed into a corner. I think he's been that way for a long time. He tried to drink it away and that didn't help. So then he tried to hold it together, pretending he was fine. But the whole time he was pretending, he was ripping open new wounds. Working beside his father every single day with all those old wounds still festering…well, it's an ugly business. The infection spread. Every day, it spread a little further.
And he ignored it because he's been trying to hold it together and survive. When you're in survival mode, you don't have time to focus on healing. You're just trying to make it through the day. He's been doing that for a long damn time—just trying to make it through the day.
And the pressure just kept growing. Could it have grown to the point he would have willingly walked away and let them kill Bellamy? Maybe. Desperation isn't rational. And pain isn't logical.
I can't blame him for either, not really. Not after everything. Because, despite everything, he isn't the kind of guy who would have walked away had he known Bella would be in the middle. Even if he could walk away from his father, he wouldn't have walked away and left her to pick up the pieces. Just like he refuses to leave his mom to do it. He'd rather carry it all himself, keep hurting himself, than let her feel another moment of grief.
But he still lied about it. And that's the part that scares me. He didn't tell me because he knew I wouldn't like that he was paying them off. That was a conscious decision.
How many more of those will he make before he heals? How many more times will his past threaten everything before he decides enough is enough? I don't know. It's been doing it for most of his life—ripping it apart at the seams. Ripping him apart at the seams. And he lets it because he thinks it's what he deserves.
I'm sorry, little bird. I'm so damn sorry. You deserve better than me.
Can we really build a future when the past still haunts him?
I spend all day batting that question around before my phone rings.
I groan when I see my dad's name on the display.
"Hey," I whisper, clearing my throat as I bring it to my ear.
"Hey, pirate princess," he murmurs. "Just checking in. It's getting late."
"I'm on my way," I lie.
He hesitates for a moment. "You okay? You sound stressed."
"Fine. Just had a long day."
I'm not sure if he believes me—honestly, I'm not sure he believes anything I've said lately. He keeps watching me like he knows I'm lying to him. But he hasn't called me out on it. It's like he's waiting for me to come to him.
I guess there is no point now, is there?
"I'll be there soon," I whisper, fighting tears.
He sighs quietly. "Drive safe, sweetheart."
I disconnect, dropping the phone onto my lap. And then I take a deep, shuddering breath, trying to pull myself together before I lose it all over again. I can't cry again right now. If I do, he'll notice. And he won't let me off the hook until I confess everything.
I don't want to confess. I don't want to talk. I just want to go home, crawl into bed, and pretend none of this is happening. Maybe then it won't hurt so much. Because right now, it's unbearable.
The man I love lied to me. He's been lying to me all along. And I'm too damn worried about him to even be mad about it.
Alittle after eleven, my mom taps on my door before popping her head in to check on me. "Hey," she murmurs, her eyes full of worry as they run over me. "You okay, baby girl?"
"Yeah," I lie. And then my shoulders droop and I shake my head. "No."
She pushes the door closed, crossing the room to perch on the bed beside me with an arm around my waist. I lay my head against her shoulder with a sigh.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?"
"Everything."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not really." I sigh quietly. "I mostly want to forget it happened."
"Is it something you can forget?"
"No." I swallow hard. "He lied to me, Mama. And it ruined everything."
"I'm sorry, sweetheart." She runs her fingers through my hair, trying to comfort me. "But I'm sure he didn't mean for that to happen."
"I know." I swallow the tears burning up my throat. "But it happened anyway. I'm not sure how we're supposed to move on from here."
"Do you love him?"
"Yes," I whisper. "So much it's terrifying."
"Does he feel the same way about you?"
My answer is immediate. "Yes."
"Do you know why he lied?"
"Maybe? Kind of?" I shrug helplessly. "He thought he could fix something. Instead, it made everything worse."
"How did it make it worse, sweetheart?"
"He…" I lick my lips. "I guess it made me realize that there are things he needs to fix—stuff he needs to deal with—before he can really move on from what happened to him. And he's not willing to do that." Tears well in my eyes. "It's just going to keep coming up over and over. It's going to keep coming out over and over. And I guess it feels a little like enabling destructive behavior to just accept the collateral damage that comes with him not dealing with it."
At the end of the day, that's what this was. Collateral damage. He thought he needed to fix it to prove something—that he was worthy, that he isn't his father…I'm not sure what, exactly. But I know it was something because I know him. He's driven by guilt. It consumes him. And I'm guessing he feels guilty as hell about Bella. So he didn't tell me so he could fix it and ease that burden, prove that he was worthy.
But that's the past speaking. He thinks he needs to prove his worth or make himself deserving of me when he always has been. He just doesn't see it because he still has Bellamy's voice in his head, filling him with lies. He has the whole damn city in his ear, shouting that he's a terrible person. And it's so freaking loud, he can't hear his own voice.
The collateral damage piles up because he can't hear it. It's been piling up for years. The drinking. Working with his father despite it being the worst possible thing for him. Keeping his secrets. Now this.
When does it stop? How much does he have to lose before he decides to fight for himself for once?
My mom's fingers drift to a stop in my hair, her blue eyes meeting mine. "You've always been the smartest person I know," she murmurs. "You see the world and people in a way no one else does. You know exactly what everyone around you needs because you see everyone so clearly. I forget sometimes that you're still just a baby yourself."
"I'm not a baby, Mama."
A tiny smile curves her lips upward. "Yeah, you are. But that's not a bad thing, sweet girl. You're twenty-one. You've got your entire life ahead of you still. You have decades to learn and grow. I can't wait to see what you do with them and who you become. Because the girl you are right now? She's already wise beyond her years."
"Mama," I whisper.
"I mean it, Isla. You took what you went through and turned it into a strength. It's your superpower, baby girl. No matter what you go through, you find a way to learn and grow from it, and then you share that wisdom with the people who need it." Her fingers slide through my hair again. "It's not like that for everyone. Some of us have to be beat over the head with our lessons before we learn them. We have to wallow in the muck and fight our way free. We stumble and fall down and make a thousand mistakes before we finally get it right. And when you've gone through so many awful things, sometimes, it takes a lot longer to figure out how to get it right. It takes longer to believe you deserve to get it right."
"He deserves to get it right," I whisper. "More than anyone, he deserves that. I just…I don't know how to help him. And I'm freaking terrified that he's going to break my heart."
That's the part that really scares me. The fact that he has the potential to completely devastate me. And perhaps it's the realization that he might. Because I'd choose him. If it came right down to it, I'd choose him over everything. Over anyone. But I know he wouldn't choose himself.
I need him to choose himself. We won't survive if he doesn't because the past will destroy him. The writing is on the walls. It's been on the walls all along.
"Then you teach him how to love you," my mom says. "And you ask him how you can help him. And you have faith that you two will figure it out together. It may not be easy, but the things in life that are worth it rarely are, baby girl. That's why we fight for them." She meets my gaze. "If he doesn't know how to fight for himself, you fight for him, Isla. You show him how. That's what he needs from you. And that's what you're best at. You and Bella both. You're fighters."
I jerk my chin in a nod, squeezing her in a tight hug. "Thank you," I whisper. "For loving us."
She laughs quietly, squeezing me tight. "You don't have to thank me for that, Isla. It's the easiest thing I've ever done."
"That's your superpower."
She smiles, kissing me on the cheek. "Are you okay now, baby girl?"
"Yeah, I think I will be."
She climbs from the bed, stretching her arms over her head. "Then I'll see you in the morning.
"Goodnight."
I wait for her to leave and then climb to my feet, pacing the floor, thinking about everything she said. Maybe she's right. Instead of pushing him away, I should be pulling him closer right now. That's what he needs. He needs to know that no matter what, I'm not giving up on him. I'm not giving up on us.
He's been through hell. He's still going through it. He's had twenty-six years of hell. He's going to screw up. He'll make mistakes. I have to give him a little grace. It's the only way we'll ever get to a place where he's ready to ignore the whispers of the past and embrace the future. And, more than anything, I want that for him. He may not believe he deserves it, but I do.
I'm not thrilled that he lied to me. He's not off the hook for that. But…I can forgive him for it because I can understand it. When you've never had anything soft to cling to, you're afraid to mess it up. You do crazy things to avoid messing it up. Bella and I did that when Jenna first came into our lives. She was so good to us, and we were afraid we'd screw it up. There were growing pains. But she never got mad at us. She never pushed us away. She pulled us closer.
Brantley deserves the same thing from me. That's what I want to give him—a safe place to land. Someone who is in his corner no matter what. I stumbled today. I didn't get it right. But I will next time.
He's my future. Hell, I'm pretty sure that he's my soul. I want him to know that. I'm not entirely sure he does, not right now.
The desire to see him, to tell him that I love him, surges through me, too fierce to be contained. I glance at the clock and bite my bottom lip. It's after midnight. My dad will lose his mind if he wakes up and I'm not here. But…this is too important to wait.
I cross to my desk and grab a pen and paper, scrawling a quick note to let him know that I'm fine. I don't tell him where I'm going. That's a conversation we need to have face to face. But we will be having it soon. I'm done hiding Brantley. I'm done spending every night here when where I really want to be is with him.
It's my life and my decision. I'm making it now.
I leave the note in the center of my bed where they'll find it if they come looking for me, and then I slip out, determination filling me. My mom told me to fight for him.
Well, I'm declaring war.