Chapter Twenty-One #2
“Then what?” I ask. “What could possibly make a man who ‘loves’ someone treat them with constant disdain and disrespect?”
His jaw clenches, and I see red.
“No,” I snap. “You came up here to communicate, so you’re going to communicate.
Because you being ‘in love’ with me puts an entirely different lens on us kissing.
It wasn’t two people reluctantly attracted to each other letting their base instincts take over to add another layer to the game they already play.
It was something else entirely, and I deserve to know what, exactly, it was. ”
His eyes darken, loathing at the forefront.
“It was me losing my mind and doing something I shouldn’t have.
It was me taking something that isn’t mine yet, and can’t be mine any time soon.
It was me losing my hold on the self-control I thought I was close to mastering.
” He bends, shoving his hands through his hair as he groans.
“It was me, making a stupid, rash decision and not thinking about the consequences.”
I watch as he crumples further into himself, shoulders scrunching and breaths going ragged as he pulls at his hair and mutters insults at himself, one after another.
“Are you kidding me?” I bark. “Sit up and exit your self-flagellation. I’m not dealing with this situation alone because you can’t confront big feelings.”
“Poem,” Wolfe mutters. “Kindness.”
I turn on him, the freaking idiot. “Kindness? You think it was kindness to bring him up here to ‘communicate’ with me when he clearly hasn’t done an ounce of the inner work necessary to get through an entire grown-up conversation about this?
You think it was kindness to drop his mess on me instead of supporting your brother yourself and helping him get to a place where he could handle confronting his feelings with the person who triggered them?
” My fists clench around the soft, loose fabric of my skirt.
“Absolutely not, Wolfe. You know I love you, and you know I respect you, and you know I think the world of you, but absolutely not. This–” I drop my skirt to cut an irate hand toward Fox.
“–is not kindness. This is cruel. I was laughing at him, Wolfe. I was giddy about all of my plans to manipulate and control him, thinking I was using the desires of his body to do it. I was lying here on his couch, kicking my feet, thrilled at the notion, and you brought him in here to talk to me about the upset and… and… what, upheaval it’s causing him?
Even after you saw me, all you did was give a small warning we both knew I’d ignore about being nice to him.
What would have been nice, Wolfe, was if you’d taken stock of my attitude and gotten him away from me to process his feelings in a safe space.
” My teeth clench as my eyes divert to Fox, who remains bent over, hands in his hair, distress oozing out of him.
One of his favorite curse words graces my lips, and I turn back to Wolfe.
“Don’t talk to me about kindness when you dragged me into this.
I’m many things to him, Wolfe, but I’m not cruel, and I don’t appreciate you making me be.
And I doubly don’t appreciate the insinuation that me doing what you should have done is further cruelty.
You didn’t want to give him tough love. You didn’t want to actually help him deal with his feelings.
So now you don’t get to judge me as I do it for you. ”
He has the decency to look horrified, at least, but it doesn’t appease my anger. If anything, it skyrockets it. “Don’t you start throwing a pity party, too,” I hiss. “Save feeling bad for later. Right now, we have bigger things to worry about.”
Like, for instance, the way that Fox appears to be digging his fingernails straight through his skull and into his brain.
I rise, round the coffee table, and dig my fingernails into his wrists, forcing him to release himself. He shudders when my hand slides into the back of his mussed hair. I tug on the strands until he sits tall and straight. His hands fist on his knees, knuckles white.
I bend, putting our noses hardly an inch apart.
“Explain what you meant by ‘isn’t mine yet and can’t be mine any time soon,’” I order.
“Specifically the ‘can’t be’ part, because I get the feeling that has nothing to do with me not being in love with you back and everything to do with your opinions of your current and past self. ”
He winces and tries to turn away, but I thread my other hand through his hair as well, keeping his head in place.
“No running,” I boss. “No leaving. No making yourself as small as you can be to get away from how awful you feel.” My fingers flex, and I press the pads of their tips into his scalp, dragging them along his soft, dark strands. “Don’t be a coward.”
It may be harsh, but I know from experience that it’s needed.
You don’t get yourself out of horrors by shrinking.
You don’t get away from them by refusing to confront them.
You don’t get away from them by running.
All you get is a lifetime of those horrors visiting you at the worst of times and in the worst of ways.
The only good way out? Confront them and slash them to pieces.
I didn’t get my good way out because my horrors were people. But Fox’s nightmares? They live only inside of him.
And so we’ll slash them until they’re gone.
His gaze shifts to Wolfe, and I shake him. “Don’t be a coward,” I repeat.
He gulps.
He inhales a rough, painful breath.
Then, my heart patters with a pride I have no place feeling when he listens, licking swollen lips before muttering gruffly, “I haven’t earned you.”
“What a stupid thing to say,” I reply, ruthless. “As if you get to decide that. I decide if I’ve been earned or not.” I twist the knife. “Which means I am the one who gets to say you haven’t earned anything from me but games and kisses.”
He flinches.
“I don’t think–”
“Shut up,” I interrupt Wolfe. “It’s my turn to handle him.”
“I haven’t earned the games or the kisses, either,” Fox says, the words ripped from his chest. “I haven’t earned anything.”
I pull at his hair. “I decide.”
“And what if you’ve decided wrong?” he asks. “What then?”
“Then that’s my mistake to make,” I reply, anger slicing my words through the air. “You don’t get to choose what I offer to you, Fox. You only get to decide how much you take.”
“Fine. Then I don’t deserve to take anything.”
“Better,” I praise, gentling my grip. “Now, explain what’s behind that.”
His head tries to jerk beneath my hands. “Poem,” he very nearly whimpers, “we both know what’s behind that. It’s your favorite ammunition.”
“I know what I’ve assumed about your insecurities,” I correct.
“What I’ve picked up from bits and pieces of things you’ve said, but my assumptions aren’t lining up perfectly with this response from you, so I want to hear your insecurities from your own lips.
Tell me what’s wrong with you, Fox. Lay it out for me to judge, then I’ll tell you if you’re right or if you’re wrong. ”
His brows furrow, and he fights against my hold once more. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do?”
Frustrated, my fingers tighten, and I try a different approach.
“I’m afraid of not being wanted,” I declare.
He freezes, and his fists twitch. “What?”
“Not being wanted,” I say again. “Not being cared for. Not being worthy of someone’s attention at any scale.
Terrified of it.” My fingers flex, though not of my own accord this time.
“My parents never wanted to have kids. Made sure we knew it, from the moment we were born until the moment we left. We were accidents, every one of us. A teen pregnancy. Taking antibiotics and not knowing it cancelled out her birth control. Drunkenly forgetting condoms and not caring, assuming there’d be no consequences.
Three mistakes, three consequences, followed by decades of making sure those consequences knew exactly what they were.
Their verbal abuse was joined by physical abuse, and both were compounded by alcohol and drugs.
Because of this, I never truly feel like I matter.
I never feel like I’m supposed to be anywhere—like I belong or am wanted.
I’m not desperate to be a part of your family just because I like them, Fox.
I’m desperate for it because I’d do anything to be a part of a family like you have, where it’s clear beyond reason that you’re all loved and wanted, every moment of every day.
You don’t have to wonder. You don’t have to question it.
You know.” I sniff, salt coating my tongue when I lick my lips.
“I want that so bad that I’d do anything for it, even going so far as to try to convince a man that I feel in no way sisterly toward that I want to be his sister.
My first thought after this afternoon, Fox?
Once I’d calmed down? It wasn’t about you, or me, or how it felt.
It was about how I could use the situation to keep the space I’ve carved for myself within your family.
That’s how badly I want it. That’s how scared I am at the idea of losing it. ”
“Poem,” he whispers, pity covering the syllables of my name. “That’s awful.”
I nod as Wolfe’s hand comes to rest on and squeezes my shoulder. “It is,” I agree. “And now it’s your turn. Tell me what’s wrong with you, and let me judge.”
He jerks, the slightest twitch of his body telling me he forgot completely where we started, and I’ve surprised him by taking us back there. “You want to trade?” he asks, aghast.
Tired of standing half bent over him and exhausted from this conversation and the fact that I’m, apparently, the only one actually having it, I drop.
Fox grunts, throwing his arms to the side as I land in his lap.
“Trade,” I confirm.
“Should I–”
I twist, glaring at Wolfe. “Sit,” I order. “Consider any discomfort you feel to be punishment for picking literally every single bad option in the name of ‘helping.’”
He throws his hands up in surrender as he sits back on the couch, grimacing.
“Poem,” his brother mutters, “he didn’t do anything wrong.”
I turn on Fox. “I disagree.”
“He didn’t,” he insists.
“I disagree,” I insist back.
He sighs.
I slide my hands from his hair to his neck, scraping my nails along his skin, where goosebumps rise. “Are you going to trade or not?”
He groans. “Okay,” he mutters. Then, louder, “Okay.” His eyes close, but shoot back open when I tsk. “I don’t know where to start,” he admits.
“Start with why you think you don’t deserve to take anything from me, even if it’s scraps compared to what you really want,” I suggest.
Broad shoulders slumped, he opens his mouth to finally try his hand at proper communication.
And what he says is the dumbest, stupidest, most idiotic bit of nonsense I’ve ever heard.