26. Thayla #3
“Forgetting you is truly impossible.” His words scrape through his throat. “Even attempting to use my own power on myself didn’t stop the longing I had for you. My child. My person. My purpose.”
A shattered breath slips from him. My lips part.
He put an emotional barrier up…
“Every move I made, I weighed against what it might cost you. One letter found by the wrong person. One message intercepted. One mistake. One decision, one chance could’ve taken you from us completely.
The Valories don’t make threats, Thayla.
They tell you your punishment the moment it begins.
You, your mother, you two are the only beings they could use to punish me.
I couldn’t risk it. No contact at all was safer. ”
“Safer for who?”
He doesn’t answer, and I take another step until only a few feet separate us.
“It wasn’t safer for me,” I mumble. “I spent twenty years believing I wasn’t enough. Do you know how that shaped me before I got here?”
His shoulders sink, and tears cascade down his chin.
“I do. Now.”
I stare at the water flowing freely from his shattering eyes. There is so much regret, and other emotions that war across every fractured feature on his face. It’s hard to hold his gaze.
“What sucks about this is how much I truly do understand,” I tell him honestly, then cast my gaze behind him.
To Amick, Kyzen, Riven, and Creed’s door.
“If you had come back into my life just mere months ago, I wouldn’t have understood your choice.
I had to fight like hell to heal myself.
They stood by me while I did. Now I know a love that would drive me to make an impossible decision such as that.
I also can see how we would’ve handled it differently. ”
My shoulders rise as I take a massive breath.
“A letter or message genuinely could’ve endangered everything. But it might not have. You chose certainty over hope. I would’ve chosen chance over cost.”
I’ve made that decision before for them and I’d do it again. Unfortunately, I can see the difference, though. They are the loves of my life. He had to choose between the love of his and the child they made together.
A despicable situation I will never find myself in.
Ultimately, he isn’t me and I’m not him.
One clear common denominator we have, though, is our willingness to protect the ones we love.
“I hate that I know that we’re both right because I’ve spent years resenting you for leaving me.
You unintentionally let me grow up believing I’d been abandoned, but really, you were letting fear dictate how you loved me from afar.
You protected my life at the cost of my heart.
It was the price that had to be paid. Now… we live with the consequences of it.”
Silence settles between us and neither of us rushes to fill it. We both stand tall and still as we study one another.
When he finally speaks, his voice is a mere murmur.
“I never wanted you to carry it like that. I told myself you would understand one day that everything I did was to keep you alive long enough to become who you are now.”
His gaze continues to hold mine and his jaw works like he isn’t sure what he wants to say next.
“I was wrong about the part that would hurt you the most. I thought it would be the absence of answers. Not the absence of me, and I am so sorry I wasn’t there.”
His shoulders curve in slightly as my bottom lip trembles.
“I don’t expect forgiveness, and I won’t pressure or ask you for it,” he says, then runs his hand down his face as though he can wipe the emotion away. “But I need you to know, none of it was ever because you weren’t enough. You were always the reason I kept choosing at all.”
My heart aches in a way I don’t have words for. And for a moment, I can’t look at him. The way he seems to slowly crumble right before my eyes will be my undoing.
My eyes drift past him again. Not toward my men or Creed’s door, but farther like I’m trying to search beyond the walls themselves.
Not to the door this time.
“My mother,” I say, clearing my voice. “I want to see her.”
He shakes his head once.
“That’s—”
“Don’t you dare say impossible.”
He closes his eyes for a heartbeat.
“Conditions of my choice, her punishment, are still in place at this very moment. Now that I’m here with you, I can no longer see your mother. She cannot cross that barrier.”
Gods…she really is all alone.
“I’m not asking you to see her. I’m asking you to take me to her so I can see her. You can do that for me, or I’ll find my own way.”
A small hint of pride shines through the water in his eyes, and I swallow down how that makes me feel.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” I say, nodding. “As soon as Creed is awake and feeling better, we’re going. For now…I just need a minute.”
I don’t wait for him to respond or say anything else. I turn on my heels, then freeze.
There’s no point in wiping away my tear-drenched cheeks.
They all see it already.
How I forgot that Yemi, her Valtrue, Lambrit, Rose, Havar, Mara, and her Valtrue were standing behind me, bearing witness to all that, beats me. My mind zeroed in on getting answers and everything else became irrelevant.
There’s no pity in any of their eyes. They all stare at me like they’re ready to go back to battle for me if need be. That warms my throbbing heart.
“Thank you, all of you, for today. We wouldn’t have survived if we didn’t have all of you by our side.”
I cough a couple of times to clear the rasp from my throat.
“One of us will let you know when Creed wakes up. Our trip beyond the barrier will be just us, but we’ll keep you all updated.”
They all nod, but no one says anything. Nor do they try to stop me as I march through them to reach my hallway.
Before I can disappear into my room, Yemi’s fingers latch onto mine.
No words pass through her lips. She just holds my stare and offers me a small smile that says I’m here if you need me.
I return the gesture as much as I can.
The second she releases me, I practically race to my room. My back presses against my door, and I slide down its length until my ass hits the ground.
I sit in the stillness. The silence.
And just…think. Accept.