Chapter 28 #2
“It was very abrupt, and I don’t think I ever actually recovered.
My mind has always been unstable because of my aspect.
Obsessive and violent. But this changed me in a different, worse way.
And I know you probably think that’s dramatic, or something, because everyone gets left, but I swear it’s different. ”
It felt different to me. It had to be different than just getting dumped.
I got the other half of my soul ripped away from me without so much as a glance back.
After so many years, it was the worst thing he could’ve done to me.
It was the worst thing he could’ve done, and also, exactly what he did.
He knew that.
He didn’t let me talk to him, ask him any questions, get any sort of closure, and I had to hate him for the rest of my life because of that. No matter what other emotions he dragged from me, that hatred would be there beneath it all. There was no excuse for that.
If I was too much for him, he could’ve talked to me about it. Granted me the dignity of a single conversation before obliterating my heart.
It wasn’t like I was incapable of realizing I was a lot to deal with.
I knew that. It was crystal fucking clear to me.
“Like an ex girlfriend?” Dakota asked.
“Yeah.” Ex boyfriend, but close enough.
“Okay.” She glanced away, frowning a little bit. “Do you still love her or something?”
“No,” I answered quickly. “It was a really long time ago. Before you were even alive, baby.” I cupped her cheek, bringing her back to me.
The strands of hair around her face were damp with mist blowing off the ocean.
“It’s not like that. But I had to tell you why I can’t let you go. I thought it would help, if you knew.”
“I don’t know.” Her gaze dipped to my mouth, then slid back up. A red flush stained her cheeks from the cold. “It’s better than more lying.”
“Good. I want it to be better. This is—this is probably what you’d most want to know about me.”
“A pretty big secret. The biggest?”
“I don’t know.”
Even now, the most honest I’d ever been, I was still lying to her.
Concealing two very large truths that controlled the majority of my life—things that directly affected her.
The fact of Micah being my ex—even though that word felt like a very pale imitation of what he actually was to me—and the fact of me relying on her to calm myself if I could feel a fracture tugging at me.
Both of those things were a lot to take in.
My fear consumed me.
If Dakota left me, the only thing I had to rely on was the thought of her to calm myself. I would no longer have access to her precious face and soft voice and body perfectly molded to fit mine. I would only have memories, and I wasn’t sure that would be enough now.
How I’d survived after Micah was a mystery I couldn’t solve myself, even if I’d tried.
Most of those early years didn’t even exist in my memory, and I could assume I’d spent most of them on the brink of death.
Well…
My chest tightened up. Dakota was born a little less than a year after Micah ended things with me, and there was always something stabilizing about her soul that I could feel in my head. I still didn’t have the words to explain why she was different, but I knew it was the truth.
But I’d never take the risk of asking any other Thrausians if they could feel it the way I could because they’d use her, steal her, use her, break her down just to keep themselves alive.
Am I doing the same thing?
“Well, I’m sorry,” Dakota said quietly. “I don’t want to leave you, you know. But sometimes you make it hard.”
I swallowed against the lump forming in my throat.
If only she knew how similar she sounded to Micah right now.
“I’m not sure I can fix that,” I admitted. “But I don’t want you to think I’m not trying.”
It’s just how I’m fucking wired.
I hate it even more than you do.
“I don’t know. It’d be helpful if you talked to me more.” She turned her head, green eyes finding mine. “I want to help you.”
“I appreciate that, baby.” You can’t help me. You can’t fix me.
“And I think I understand, in a way,” she said.
“My brother used to leave me all the time. Everything started the summer before he went to college, but once the semester began, he held his distance over my head. When I got mad at him, he’d leave me.
It’s not the same, but I wanted you to know that, too.
I guess that’s why I like the fact that you don’t let me leave, even when I’m acting insane. It’s like the opposite of what he did.”
“You know, you can always talk about him to me,” I offered, my stomach turning. That piece of shit deserved to die a slow and painful death.
“I know. But I don’t want to. I’d prefer never to talk about or think of him ever again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I have to see him soon. I know I didn’t tell you that—I didn’t tell Micah, either. I’m trying not to think about it.” Dakota was focusing intently on gluing a piece of lace to the front of her journal now. Irritation stabbed through me at what she’d said.
“Why the fuck do you have to see him?” She shouldn’t have to do that. Ever again. I didn’t give a shit that they were blood related family. Family didn’t mean anything.
“Well, there’s this holiday coming up…” She trailed off, waiting for me to fill in the blank.
“Your family celebrates Thanksgiving?” I questioned, somewhat incredulously, even though I hadn’t meant for it to come out that way. It was just shocking to me. I knew Dakota never spoke to or saw her parents, and especially not her brother. I didn’t think he lived in Washington at all anymore.
“Not usually,” she answered, looking out at the ocean. “But, um, Anthony is getting married next year, and nobody has met his fiancee. So, we’re doing Thanksgiving at my parent’s place. It’s going to be stupid. I don’t want to meet her.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“Absolutely not.” Her head whipped around, her concerned expression looking more fearful under the gray light from the sky. “I don’t want them to know anything about my life. And it would cause arguments. I’d rather just be silent so none of them notice me. It won’t be difficult.”
I hated what she was saying. Hated it so fucking much.
Hated thinking about Dakota going most of her life never being noticed by anyone, when she was the only thing I saw.
Lonely and quiet and hurting, distanced from the rest of the world because nobody took the time to pay attention to her.
No porch light on outside because she liked the darkness.
She was used to it. Used to never being seen.
“You know I’ll go if you ask me to, though? Even if it’s terrible. I want to be there for you.”
“You don’t understand, Mason. It would be terrible for me.” She stared out over the waves, pressing her sweatshirt sleeves just below her eyes to catch the tears forming in her eyes. “And are you telling me you wouldn’t try and kill my brother if you saw him?”
“I’ve thought about it.”
“I know you have. But you have to also know that’s not what I want, okay? I don’t want to feel any more conflicted about that part of my life than I already do. I don’t want to watch people grieve him.” She sniffled, and I felt I could understand what she meant.
If she felt sad about his death, that would only wreck her mind worse.
It was better not to know how that grief might feel to her.
“I’m not going to go against your wishes,” I promised.
“Thank you.” She sniffled again, then went back to focusing on her journal. She was attaching charms to the ribbon now—well, trying to. “Can you open this ring?”
Dakota held up the little charm, pointing to the tiny silver jump ring on the end of it. I took it out of her hands and bent the metal open, then closed it once secured to the piece on the end of the ribbon.
“I should’ve made you buy pliers,” she said.
“I mean, my hands seem to work fine.”
“Yeah.”
I stared at her side profile, watching her cheek lift as she smiled softly, my mind full of so much fucking love for her. Love to the point of agony.