Chapter 18
The house was finally quiet. After hours of questions, strategy, and controlled panic, everyone had scattered to different corners of the house to breathe.
I should have been resting. Instead, I sat up in my bed, attempting to read a small-town romance novel by Chante Bellamy.
Reading used to transport Channy in high school, so I figured I would give it a try too.
I stared at the nightstand where Zayden had left a glass of water for me.
My hands were still shaking from the thought that Charles tried to end my life. For a second, I thought I was alone. Then I heard the soft sound of a chair moving.
Channy. She stood near the doorway, arms wrapped around herself like she didn’t know whether to hug me or shake me.
Her eyes were wet.
“My Baby Bear,” I said softly.
She crossed the room in three quick steps and wrapped her arms around me so tight it knocked the air out of my lungs.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered. Her voice cracked on the last word.
I held her just as tightly.
“I’m hard to kill,” I murmured.
She pulled back and looked at my face like she was checking to make sure every piece of me was still there.
“You don’t get to joke right now,” she said.
“I’m not joking.”
She swallowed. “You scared the hell out of me.”
Something in my chest twisted.
For years, I had convinced myself I was protecting her, but standing here now, looking at the fear still lingering in her eyes, I realized something ugly. Control and protection weren’t the same thing. Channy studied me for a long moment.
Then she said quietly, “We need to talk.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah,” I said. “We do.”
She sat across from my bed in the recliner..For a second, neither of us spoke. Then she asked the question I knew had been waiting for years.
“Did you know Xavier before I met him?”
I didn’t lie. I couldn’t lie to her anymore. I felt no better than any other monster Channy encountered.
“Yes.”
Her shoulders stiffened.
“How long?”
“I knew him for two years before you met him.” The words landed between us like broken glass.
Channy blinked slowly. “You’re serious.”
“I am.”
Her laugh was short and disbelieving.“So all those questions you asked during that summer about his age and other little idiotic trivia questions you already knew the answers to?”
“I was lying.” The silence that followed was brutal.
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because I was terrified Baby Bear. Because I had already seen the way you two looked at each other. Because love like that changes people. I knew from the moment I met Xavier King you were going to fall in love with him, I said quietly.”
Her eyes flashed. “And that was a problem?”
“No,” I said. “The problem was he was going to love you back.”
Channy stared at me like she didn’t understand the words. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Because it was dangerous.”
She leaned forward in her chair, “So you decided to ruin my life instead?”
The accusation hit exactly where it should have.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“From the world that follows men like Xavier.”
Her jaw tightened.
“And Charles didn’t come with a world?”
“I thought he didn’t.”
That was the truth that hurt the most.
I looked down at my hands.
“Charles looked safe,” I admitted. “Controlled. Predictable. The kind of man who wouldn’t hurt you.”
My voice dropped. “I was wrong.”
Channy was quiet for a long time.
Then she said the one thing I knew was coming.
“The letters.”
My chest tightened.
“You kept them.”
I nodded slowly.
“At first I thought I was helping you.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“How?”
“I had Miles hack into medical records,” I said quietly.
Her head snapped up.
“What?”
“I knew about Xander,” I continued. “About the loss. About how broken you were when it happened.”
Channy’s breath caught.
“You went digging into my medical history?”
“I was trying to understand how to protect you.”
“By controlling me?”
“Yes,” I screamed. The word tasted like poison.
I forced myself to keep going.
“I thought if you and Xavier stayed apart, you’d heal. That loving someone safer would give you a quieter life.”
She shook her head slowly.
“And the letters?”
“I kept them.”
“Why?”
“Because part of me knew I was wrong.”
Her eyes softened just slightly.
“I couldn’t bring myself to destroy them,” I admitted. “I told myself one day, when I stopped trying to control your life, I would give them to you.”
Channy studied me. Then she asked the question I’d been waiting for.
“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
“Because I was afraid. Because if you chose him, everything I built to protect you would collapse.Because loving Xavier meant war would eventually find you.”
I looked her straight in the eye.
“Because I love you more than I trust the world.”
Her shoulders dropped slightly.
“And Zayden?” she asked.
“He lied to you about Xavier seeing other women because of me.”
She frowned.
“He told me that he had kids on the way.”
“I asked him to.”
“You asked him to lie?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he loves me,” I said quietly. “And he knew I would burn the world down before I let you get hurt.”
Channy leaned back slowly.
For the first time since the conversation started, some of the anger in her face softened.
“You really thought you were helping me.”
“I did.”
“And now?”
“Now I finally understand the damage and I’m so glad that nothing could keep Xavier from loving you Baby Bear.”
For a long moment neither of us spoke.
The silence wasn’t as sharp as before. It was still heavy but softer. Channy rubbed at her face, wiping away the tears she hadn’t realized were still falling.
“You always did think you could fix everything,” she muttered.
I gave a weak smile.
“Systems engineering does that to you.”
She huffed out a small laugh, the sound shaky but real.Then she stood.For a second I thought she was leaving.Instead she kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the bed beside me like we were kids again.
“Move,” she said.
I shifted over and she curled against my side, tucking her head against my shoulder. The same way she used to after nightmares when we were little. Neither of us tried to pretend we weren’t crying anymore.
“Zayden told me everything. About you making money at college to support me and Jared. I hate that you went through all of that alone,” she whispered.
“I wasn’t alone,” I said quietly. “I had you.”
“You didn’t let me help you.”
“That’s because I was busy trying to help you.”
She sniffed.
“Yeah,” she murmured. “You messed that up pretty good.”
I let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “Not my best work.”
Her eyes drifted toward the book still sitting in my lap.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“A small-town romance,” I said. “By Chante Bellamy.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“You? Reading romance?”
“I told you I was trying something new.”
She picked the book up and flipped it open.
“You didn’t even make it past chapter two,” she teased.
“I got distracted.”
“Clearly.”
She settled deeper into the pillows and began reading aloud.
“The town of Willow Creek was the kind of place where everybody knew your name and nobody locked their doors. The kind of place where broken hearts had room to heal and love had time to grow”
Her voice was soft and uneven at first. But as she kept reading, it steadied. I listened to her, letting the words wash over the room. For the first time since Charles tried to take my life, my chest loosened just a little.
Channy paused and looked up at me. “You know what the problem with these books is?” she said.
“What?”
“They always act like love is simple.”
I snorted quietly.
“Yeah. They definitely skipped our story.” She smiled faintly and nudged my shoulder.
“Maybe we’re just the dramatic version.”
“Maybe.”
She went back to reading, her voice filling the quiet house.
Outside, the night settled deeper around us.
And for the first time in a long time, we were just two sisters again. Curled up in the same bed. Crying. Healing.
Listening to a love story while the rest of the world waited for morning.