Chapter 46
Chapter forty-six
Ingrid
Iwoke to silence. The apartment was still dark, the lamps in the corner casting a low, amber glow across the living room floor. Someone had draped a blanket over me at some point while I lay on the couch. Tristian, probably. I sat up slowly, letting it fall from my shoulders.
It was quiet as I stood, padding softly down the hall to find him.
The door to his room was open, just a crack. I pushed it gently and froze.
Camila.
Asleep in the bed, Tristian’s hoodie swallowing her frame, arms tucked beneath her cheek the way she used to sleep when we were kids. Her hair was tangled, mascara smudged at the corners of her eyes. Her breathing was soft as she slept.
I stood in the doorway with my hand over my mouth.
I don’t know how long I stayed watching her as relief filled me. I crossed the room slowly and sat on the edge of the bed.
She stirred almost immediately, her eyes opening and finding mine.
“Camila—”
“I’ll be gone by morning…” she said. Her voice was rough, scraped raw.
Tears sprung to my eyes. “No.” The word came out steadier than I felt. She didn’t respond. “You don’t get to do that again. Come back half-alive and then disappear like I’m supposed to just be grateful you showed up at all.” Still nothing. “You left, Camila.”
She sat up slowly, wincing, her eyes finally finding mine.
“You think I had a choice? You think I wanted any part of deciding to stay or leave?” I flinched at her words.
Despite our differences, she was always there for me.
Always holding me, always being there when the pain got worse throughout the years, even when she began to direct her anger at me.
“I know you didn’t,” I said quietly.
Camila’s jaw tightened. “Then you don’t get to judge me for leaving.”
I nodded. “…You’re right. I don’t.”
She held my gaze for a moment, eyes narrowing like she didn’t believe I was agreeing with her. “I didn’t ask to be a mom when ours couldn’t fucking do it. I was their kid too, Ingrid,” she seethed.
“And he fucked me up,” she said finally. Not to me exactly. More like she was just letting it out. “He fucked us both up.” Her jaw tightened. “But at least he cared enough about you to not let you go to waste, to not let you go.”
“Camila—”
“I’m not saying what he did to us was good.” Her voice came out strange. “The fucker is in prison for a reason… but at least you were worth the anger. He stopped seeing that in me… a long time ago.”
I went very still.
Because I knew those words. I had lived inside them for more than twenty years. Had turned them over in my hands in the dark, had used them to explain away every bruise, every shaking night, every time I told myself he did it because he loved me and love just looked like this in our home.
I had only just started putting them down.
And here was my sister, picking them up like they were true.
“Camila,” I said softly. “That’s not—”
“Don’t.” Her voice was sharp, immediate and… broken. “Don’t tell me what it is. I know what it is, dammit.”
And I knew too. I knew what it was to confuse his hands on me with proof that I mattered. To mistake the pain for love. To be so starved for it that even the bruises felt like evidence of something.
We were both wronged by the same man.
Just in completely different ways.
She’d been cast off. I’d been kept. And somehow we’d both ended up convinced that said something about our worth.
“You’re lucky, you know,” she said, almost to herself. “Having someone to hold you through it. The dark days… I wouldn’t know what that feels like.”
There was an uncomfortable silence that lingered at her words.
So I reached over and covered her hand with mine. She gazed down at it, her body still, eyes contemplating whether to accept the gesture or not.
I wanted to tell her I was there for her. That I’d pull her out of the storm that was her mind. That I’d help her get clean from whatever helped her numb the pain. That we’d get through this together. But my heart shattered as I felt her pull away and turn, lying down as her back faced me.
She didn’t say anything else for a long time. And neither did I.
Forcing a sad smile, I spoke through the tears that wanted to fall
“Get some rest. We’ll talk in the morning,” I said softly.
She didn’t argue as I pulled the blanket up over her, my hand lingering on her shoulder for only a moment or so before I stepped away.
Standing in the doorway, I watched her until I was sure she was under.
Then I went to find Tristian.
He was in the kitchen, forearms braced on the counter, head down. He looked up when he heard me approaching. His arms found me first, pulling me into him as my eyes scanned him briefly.
His knuckles were raw, the skin split and dark, and there was a terrifying stillness in his gaze.
“What happened?” I asked.
“…I brought you your sister.”
“How did you find her,” I asked, my mind racing at the idea of what he could’ve possibly gone through.
“Darragh’s club. The guys and I dealt with him tonight.”
The way he stood, the way the tension had shifted to a grim satisfaction, made the realization hit me. “Dealt with him? How? Is he... is he dead? Where is he?”
He held my gaze, watched me with those dark eyes that told me everything I needed to know without him uttering a word.
I pressed myself closer to him, his arms pulling me impossibly closer as I looked up at him in shock.
“…Is he really gone?”
“…I told you I’d keep you safe, doll,” he muttered, low, the vibrations from his voice riding through me.
I should have been terrified of Tristian in that moment. Afraid of the things he’d done, the lengths he took to keep me safe. But my heart only beat harder for him. The feeling of being held, kept, safe… loved made me feel warm inside, it felt like something I was finally allowed to have.
Darragh was gone.
My father was in prison.
Camila was back home safe.
The worst of it was behind us… well… most of it.
Somewhere across the city, in a hospital room filled with the quiet beeping of machines, Tristian’s mother lay still.
That was the one thing neither of us could control.