Chapter 24 #2
I didn’t speak, not as Con retreated to the kitchen and conversed in low tones with Holden. Not as they passed back through the living room with an entire bowl of junk food. I didn’t say a word as the bedroom door clicked shut, leaving Amara and I in stunned silence.
I still hadn’t decided what I’d say to her. Not a clue. Right now, all I could do was bask in her presence. Despite her obvious distress right now, she looked healthy, like she ate well. Like she exercised. Like she used the same fancy face creams Con did.
Fuck, I was nervous, and so the only thing I managed to say was, “Hello.”
Her eyes shifted over me, from the top of my head, lingering on my face, down my chest, my legs and to my feet before lifting back up.
I waited for her to yell, to scream, to tell me what a piece of shit I was, but then her lips trembled.
Her eyes glistened, and she said a word I never thought I’d hear from her ever again. “Tavin.”
I nearly fell to my knees. “Amara, I—I’m sorry.”
“For what?” She shook her head and spread out her hands to gesture vaguely at the situation. “What is this?”
She wasn’t yelling. She was confused. Scared. And she was looking to me, her big brother, for help in the same way she used to when we were kids when she fell off her bike or got a bad grade.
“Do you want to sit down?” I pointed to the small kitchen table.
She shuffled to the side, still staring at me, until she felt the back of the chair at her fingertips.
She sank down, and I grabbed two water bottles out of the fridge before sitting down across from her.
I slid a bottle in front of her, and she didn’t even look at it.
I opened mine and guzzled it. My hands shook.
Water splashed my cheek. I brushed it on my shoulder and felt my face heat.
Her gaze was on my hands. My scarred knuckles. I curled them into fists and dropped them into my lap out of sight.
“This is—” I began and then stopped. “Fuck, I don’t know where to start.”
“Who is that man alone in a bedroom with my son?” Her voice held a bit of a snap to it, and I almost smiled, because that was the Amara I knew.
“That’s Con, he’s…” How did I describe him? “My boyfriend.” There, that felt not sufficient but a good label that Amara would understand. I came out to her when I was twelve, so it wasn’t a surprise I’d be with a man now. “He’s safe.”
“He’s intense,” she said, her tone almost chastising, like a parent who didn’t approve. “How the hell did you meet him?”
I felt relief that I could answer this honestly, and it wasn’t fucking weird. “A bar.”
“Okay,” she drew the word out. “He said Devlin is searching for me. Why is that?”
This wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t wait for her to ask me questions and then have her put the puzzle pieces together.
I had to just get out the whole story. And to do that, I had to tell her about Dennis, and I had to break her heart.
I hadn’t planned to do this, not ever. And I hadn’t made the decision until right now, when she was in front of me.
But Con was right, and she deserved to know the whole truth.
I spun the water bottle in my hands and watched the liquid slosh around. “I need to start from the beginning, but it’s going to hurt, Amara. It’s going to hurt you and me. But it’s the truth.” I looked up to see her squinting at my inner arms. Studying them.
I angled them toward her so she could get a better look, and her eyes met mine. “Devlin told me you’re a junkie. I don’t see track marks or scars.”
“Yeah, because I never took drugs, Mar.” I fell back into my nickname for her so easily, and my voice snapped out with more anger than I intended. “You think I’d do that after knowing how Mom died? Really?”
Her eyes blazed. “He said you killed Dennis. Is that not—”
“Oh no, I killed that fucker.”
She made a wounded sound, like her chest had caved in, and the hatred I had expected from her now shone like a beacon in her green eyes. She ground her jaw. “I’ll never forgive—”
I slammed the water bottle on the table.
“He was going to kill you, Mar. He was going to kill you, and that baby in your belly, because he was a piece of shit. I heard him planning it, and so when I confronted him, he didn’t deny it.
” I leaned forward and gritted out, “I didn’t mean to kill him, but in that moment, it was him or me.
And I’m not sorry. I’d do it again, because you’re alive and so is Holden.
” She went so still that I thought she stopped breathing.
But I couldn’t stop now. The ugly purge had begun, and I had to get all the poison out.
“I didn’t want to tell you that the father of your kid planned to kill you.
I would have gone to jail with that secret, but Devlin found me first. He held me for a week—” I didn’t tell her about the torture, the starvation, the psychological warfare he’d inflicted on me.
“He took the pictures of the needle in my arm that he sent you, but they were fake. And then he told me if I didn’t work for him with no contact with you, he’d kill you and Holden.
So I did whatever he wanted me to do, and that was the way I planned to keep on living, with you and Holden safe and me paying for what I did until one of the shitty jobs killed me.
” I heaved a breath, staring at a stain on the table as I vomited out all the words.
“But then Con came along, and it got all fucked up because he won’t let Devlin control me anymore.
But to do that, he has to keep you safe, because I won’t accept anything else.
” I spread my hands on the table, palms up.
“So there you go. That’s it. That’s why you’re here. ”
I didn’t look away from the table stain, unwilling to see what my words had done, how the ugly truth had broken my sister’s heart.
All I could hear was her breathing and my heart pounding in my ears. From behind the bedroom door, I heard an excited shriek from Holden, followed by the deep murmuring of Con. Somewhere in the hallway outside, a cell phone rang.
“Look at me,” my sister whispered.
I lifted my gaze to hers and flinched. Tears tracked down her cheeks. A bubble of snot popped in her nostril, and she didn’t even bother to wipe it. Red splotches bloomed all over her skin, and her hands rested on the table, each finger trembling.
“Five years,” Her voice cracked. “Five years I spent loving you. Hating that I couldn’t hate you. Worrying about you. Wondering where you were and if you were dead. If you were happy. If you were suffering.” She sucked in a breath. “My heart broke five years ago. You can’t break it more, Tavin.”
The water bottle crinkled in my fists. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t forgive you right now for not telling me the truth.
I don’t forgive myself for getting involved with Dennis.
I don’t—” She squeezed her eyes shut, and fresh tears leaked out.
She opened them again, and they shone with pain.
“I don’t know much right now, but I guess all I have to say is that guy,” she pointed in the direction of the bedroom, “is an asshole. But he’s disgustingly into you. And he made this possible.”
“This?”
“Family reunion.” While tears streamed down her cheeks, she forced a sad smile. “We have a hell of a lot to talk about, but I guess it’s a start.”
My throat clogged. My eyes burned. When something wet tickled my cheek, I swiped it away.
Probably just water. My chest felt light, like a feather, and my heart beat an unfamiliar rhythm in my chest that was a lot like something I’d called hope.
I reached out and tentatively touched Amara’s hand.
She curled her fingers around mine. When I spoke, my voice was choked. “It’s a start.”