Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Adeline
When Maya falls asleep, I climb out of her small bed before tucking the blanket around her. Walking out of her room, I close the door before walking downstairs, much too alert, my mind churning with thoughts.
Flicking the kitchen light on, I start putting the dishes away and tidying up. When I finish, I make myself some coffee, just as Cyrus walks in.
“What do you want, Cyrus?”
“Nothing, just checking on you. You have been down here for a while. I heard you talking to Maya,” he says, sitting at the dining table.
“Where is Eli?”
“Asleep, well… trying to sleep,” he says.
I hold the kettle up in question, and he nods. I make him coffee before handing it to him.
“It will work. I have never known anyone to break compulsion before without the person who used it breaking it,” he says.
I don’t understand much of what he is talking about and give up trying to figure out how it works.
“Is there a reason you want to go to Soya so badly?” I ask.
“We have our reasons, the main one being it would put your family at risk you staying here.”
“How would it put my family at risk? We have lived here my entire life. Never once have we had as much drama going on as we do now since you came into my life,” I tell him, sipping my coffee.
“You will understand in time.”
“I don’t want to understand in time. I want to understand now,” I tell him, sick of all the secrecy.
So many secrets about my own family and my friends have come to light, and now I am starting to wonder if I have just been blind to everything or if everyone is just lying to me.
How has dad kept it from mom, or does she know and pretends not to?
Sam knows my father, so is it a coincidence that we met, or was that thought out, too?
“Addie, I promise you won’t regret coming with us,” Cyrus says.
“Regret coming with you? I already do, and we haven’t even left. You want to know what I regret?”
Cyrus seems to think for a second.
“I regret ever getting in that goddamn elevator.”
“You don’t mean that. You’re just upset. Everything will work out. You’ll see.”
“No, what I see is everyone always choosing for me. I never get a say in anything. You think I wanted to be a secretary? That I didn’t have dreams?
That I wanted to raise my sister’s kid? That I would be stuck responsible for everything out of my control?
Everything I have worked for was for nothing because you have ripped the rug right out from under me in a matter of days.
Everything I put on hold is now on hold again because of you and Eli. ”
“You can still do whatever it is that you want. We will just be beside you for it.”
“That’s just it, Cyrus. All I have wanted was to be on my goddamn own, be responsible for no one else but myself, and do what I want to do without having to plan around schedules and everyone else.
Being with you doesn’t change that. It just gives me one more person to answer to, to ask permission from. ”
“You will adjust. It’s that simple. We don’t always get what we want, Addie. You just adjust to it.”
“Adjust? What the fuck do you think I have been doing? I have done nothing but adjust. Adjusted to working three jobs and going to school because my father died and we were going to lose everything, adjusted to having an extra mouth feed and someone else to raise when I was still a kid myself, adjusted to my sister’s drug addiction.
Everything is an adjustment. What’s one more, right? ”
Cyrus says nothing, just lets me rant. My mother clears her throat on the stairs, having woken up from my raised voice, no doubt. Guilt hits me, wondering what she’s heard. By the look on her face, she’s heard everything.
“Mom, what are you doing up?” I ask, looking at the clock. It is 5AM.
Cyrus straightens up, and I hear Eli walk down the stairs behind her. I have managed to wake nearly the entire house, my emotions getting the better of me once again since meeting them.
“Go!” my mother says softly.
“What?”
“Go, Addie. Go to Soya. You’re right. You have done enough, it was never your responsibility, and somehow I lost sight of what it was you wanted. This was never your burden to carry.”
“But, mom, Maya…”
My mother shakes her head. “She was never yours, Adeline, never meant to be your responsibility, and neither am I. You don’t have to keep putting your life on hold for us.
You’re twenty-four years old and have done nothing but help us and stuck around out of fear of me being on my own, so I am helping you by making the decision for you. Go. I can handle everything here.”
“But, Ma, Taylor?”
“No, Adeline, she also isn’t your responsibility. I can manage. We will be fine. Go and do something without having to worry about school runs and appointments and looking after me. We will be fine.”
I don’t know what to say. The way she’s said it sounds like she thinks they are a burden on me, and I don’t want her to think that.
I have done everything along with her; we’ve kept each other sane when everything was insane.
Guilt keeps me from walking away, but she is family.
She raised me, so I’ve never seen it as a burden, just that it was necessary.
Everything we have done was for a reason: keeping the house, making ends meet, or helping raise Maya. And now she is telling me to leave?
I feel tears threaten to spill over at her words. Grabbing my keys off the kitchen counter, I walk out of the kitchen heading for the front door.
“Ada, wait!” my mother calls out to me.
But I am done, so fucking done. I’ve wanted my freedom, but not like this, and I sure as hell don’t want to go with them to Soya.
Getting to the door, I swing it open, the door shutting behind me, and I make a run for my car.
Getting in, I start my little beast just as the passenger side door opens, and Eli hops in.
“Get out, Eli!” I scream in frustration.
“No! Why are you leaving?”
“Eli, get the fuck out of my car!” I scream even louder, but he doesn’t move and instead reaches over, ripping my keys from the ignition. My anger gets the better of me, and I turn in my seat and slap him. He growls in the back of his throat.
“I am going to pretend you didn’t just hit me, Adeline,” he snaps at me with a glare on his face as he rubs his cheek.
My breathing quickens as I fight the urge to break down. My life has just been completely thrown upside down.
“I know you are upset, I know you don’t want this, but you need to calm down. My temper is paper-thin, Addie, so pull yourself together and fucking deal with it instead of running from us,” Eli says before opening the door and hopping out.
He walks back inside, leaving me in the car.
I can’t believe my mother is letting me go; I’ve always wanted to be on my own, but truly being on my own now scares me.
Technically I won’t be on my own, but I am still losing all the responsibility that comes with being in this family, and now that I am being given my freedom, I somehow no longer want it.
Funny how that works. You want something so bad that once you get it, you no longer know what to do with it.
It is always some goal you are working toward but never truly see happening, yet you continue trying to strive for it.
Maya brings me out of my thoughts when she suddenly climbs into my car.
I look at her in the backseat when Cyrus climbs in the passenger seat with her school bag.
Have I really been sitting out here long enough that an hour has slipped past without me realizing it?
Looking at the clock in my car, it is 6:30AM, the time I usually drop her to before-school care.
Looking down, I am still in my pajamas. Cyrus hands me the keys and doesn’t say a word.
I start the car, driving her to before-school care.
“Where is Eli?”
“Organizing things for Taylor,” he says, and I nod.
Pulling up at her school, Cyrus gets out before unbuckling Maya.
Maya leans over the seat, pecking me on the cheek before climbing out and grabbing Cyrus’s hand.
I watch as he takes her through the gates to where she needs to go.
The teacher is waiting out the front as she waits for her pupils to arrive.
I watch as she takes Maya’s hand, escorting her into the before-school care room.
Cyrus waits for her to be out of sight before turning around, walking back to the car, and climbing in.
“Coffee?” he asks, and I look down at my clothes.
“I’ll go in,” he says, and I nod, driving to the café where I usually get my morning coffee.
Cyrus gets out before returning with four coffees. I drive home and see Eli’s car gone from the driveway.
“He will be back any minute with Taylor,” Cyrus says, and I nod.
Walking to the door, I unlock it and find my mother has already left for work. Going inside, I go upstairs to get changed. I am just pulling my shirt off over my head when Cyrus walks in. I quickly pull my shirt back down.
Cyrus’s hands move to my hip before he rests his chin on my shoulder. Tingles are moving across my skin, making me shiver against him, which doesn’t go unnoticed by him. Cyrus moves his hands underneath my shirt, his hands moving over my stomach, sending sparks everywhere.
“Do the tingles ever stop?” I ask.
“Nope. Why do they bother you?”
I shake my head. “No, just a strange feeling,” I tell him, and he nods, running his nose across my jaw before kissing my cheek.
“I hit Eli,” I tell him.
“I know, I saw,” he says. “You have a thing with hitting him.” He chuckles.
“I shouldn’t have,” I tell him, and he hums softly.
“No, but it wouldn’t have hurt him. You can’t hurt us, Addie, not in that way anyway.”
“How then?”
“You want to hurt us?” he asks, pulling back.
I turn in his arms, facing him. “No, just curious,” I tell him as he looks down at me.
“Everything will be alright, Addie. You have us now,” he says, and I look away.
Do I want them, though?