Chapter 12 Neil #2
How big a bastard did you have to be to put a woman in mortal peril and not even have the decency to be in love with her?
How much of a bastard was I?
A huge one…gigantic.
Because if I’d just been a little more sensible, more cautious, and less selfish, Player wouldn’t have gone after her.
When did I become so callous? When did I lose track of who I was?
My heart was paralyzed.
I couldn’t feel anything except hate and shame.
I didn’t know who the real me was anymore.
Had there ever even been a real me?
My brain worked differently: It was like being caught in a spiral from which there was no escape.
I was in a constant state of alertness, inundated all the time with sick thoughts.
I was always wondering if I was properly understanding human relationships, and my confusion only deepened when I tried to process the experience of being abused by fleeing deeper into my own mind instead of disassociating from it like many survivors did.
My mind, then, became the real prison that I lived inside.
The only time I could escape my cursed reality was when I was with Selene. With her, I felt free.
Different.
That was why I couldn’t stay away from her. It was a constant struggle not to give in to the temptation to go back to her. On one hand, I needed to be with her to escape myself. On the other hand, I needed to protect the Boy from the monsters inside me.
So which was the right path? There was no easy answer.
I grumbled in frustration as I took off my clothes, preparing to take another one of my many showers.
Maybe it would help me calm down and ease some of my constant worries about Player.
The lunatic was on the loose, completely free to hurt the people I cared about, especially my Tinkerbell, who was far away from me. The distance between us made me uneasy because I knew that, without my protection, Selene was a sitting duck.
I was trapped in New York; she was trapped in Detroit.
What if the son of a bitch was there right now?
Maybe creeping around underneath her bedroom window?
I lathered up my body, swearing furiously before allowing the warm water to massage my overworked muscles.
If I’d left her phone with her, I could have just called her, but now I had no means of getting in contact with her.
Misery washed over me, and I saw my past stretched out before me on the wet tile floor.
It was vast and black, ready to suck me in.
I opened and shut my eyes, trying to banish the mocking visions.
I got out of the shower and dried myself off quickly.
Clearheaded. I needed to stay clearheaded.
Shit.
It wasn’t six o’clock yet, but I was very anxious to meet up with Luke to get some answers about the hacking.
Agitated, I rubbed my hair dry and pulled on a black sweater as well as my usual dark jeans. I grabbed my packet of Winstons, car keys, and my phone and Selene’s and tucked everything into my coat pocket.
“Where are you going?”
I jumped a little at the sound of my brother’s voice. I turned to find him leaning against the doorframe. We hadn’t talked much since we had that fight over Alyssa. That bitch had driven a wedge between Logan and me.
“Out,” I answered shortly. I didn’t enjoy acting that way with him; it wasn’t like me to put up my impenetrable walls with my siblings, but my pride often made me act aloof, especially after receiving any sort of slight.
In the few human relationships I did have, my inherent nature did nothing but cause problems and conflict.
“I don’t like this tension between us. You don’t talk to me like you did before,” he went on, just as unyielding as I was. I didn’t like it either, but he knew how I was. I still couldn’t accept that he’d doubted me, even if only for a moment.
“If you hadn’t believed your little fucking girlfriend, then none of that would have happened.” I moved toward him on my way out of the room. Logan moved in front of me, however, halting me where I stood. I could see the sadness in his eyes, but I remained unmoved.
I was very good at pretending not to care about people. Even when the people in question were my whole life.
“You know how much you mean to me. I was angry.” He pushed a hand through his hair with a heavy sigh. I remained cold, considering his words without conceding anything.
“You believed I would betray your trust. That’s pretty serious to me,” I said sharply.
Never had I imagined something like that could happen between the two of us.
Never. I let myself be violated by a psycho to keep her from acting out her perversions on my brother, and still, he believed the fantasies of some chick over me?
No…he really shouldn’t have let me down like that.
And here I was, acting like an insolent child about it.
Perched up there on my wall of pride, kicking my feet and laughing as I raked my brother over the coals.
“Please, Neil. I don’t know what’s going on with you at all anymore.
You shut me out completely. You don’t tell me things, and you don’t ask for advice…
” he said in a rush of frustration. “I don’t even know how things are going between you and Selene or if you’ve started therapy back up with Dr. Lively or how you’re dealing with Player attacking our sister…
” His voice shook as though he were about to cry.
He wouldn’t, but I could tell from his tone of voice just how much pain he was in.
I shook my head and tried to push past him; he shoved me back furiously, and my guard immediately went up.
“Yeah, do it! Hit me! I’d prefer it to this fucking indifference!” he shouted in a show of defiance, and I clenched my hand into a fist. I wasn’t going to lose control; I wasn’t going to hit Logan.
I was a monster, sure, but not that much of a monster.
My siblings were like precious gems, like holy relics as far as I was concerned.
I would have done anything—no matter how insane—for them.
“Move. I need to leave,” I said again, and he didn’t so much as flinch, let alone let me pass.
“Whatever blond is waiting to get railed by you can wait. I’m more important,” he said, echoing something I’d once said to him. He motioned to himself, and I screwed up my face for a moment before letting slip a genuine smile.
Goddammit!
I could never manage to be a complete bastard with my siblings. Logan sensed that and tried to hide a cheeky grin.
The two of us had always been more important to each other than any woman who occupied our time. That was the rule.
I huffed an irritated sigh, and Logan took advantage of my moment of weakness to wrap his arms around me.
He held me tightly and gave me a couple pats on the back as I stood there, completely rigid. Instead of repaying the gesture in kind, I immediately trapped him in a headlock and mercilessly rucked up his hair.
He struggled to break free, and when I finally let him, he staggered back grumpily.
“What the fuck! I just styled that!” he spat at me as he tried to fix his hair with his fingers, and I smiled at him.
“That’s what you get when you attach yourself to me like a baby koala,” I chided him mockingly.
“Chloe’s the koala,” he said, still attempting to straighten up his hair. In less than an instant, the tension between us had been obliterated. I was foul-tempered, and I was stubborn and touchy, but Logan could bring out my more indulgent side.
He loved me.
He knew everything about me: fears, anxieties, nightmares. And he knew that I wouldn’t make it without him.
“You asshole. You’ll never change. You really hurt me, not talking to me and ignoring me as much as possible,” he grumbled, and the more I looked at him, the more of me I saw in his eyes.
That was how it had always been: My brother was the better version of me.
“I have to go to Luke’s to sort something out,” I said shortly. I didn’t want to alarm him about Player, though he did look askance at me.
“What happened to your lip?” he asked, looking at my mouth.
“Why the fuck is everyone asking me that?” I snapped. “It’s from the cold,” I explained. Sure, I had also chomped on it in a rage, but it was also true that the freezing cold air had been causing small cracks in my lips since I was a kid. Logan should have remembered that.
“Sorry, I thought one of your girls decided to take a chunk out of you,” he laughed, and I rolled my eyes.
I brushed past him, but he reached out and grabbed my arm.
“Can I go with you?” he asked. It had been a while since we spent any time together, and I did still need to tell him about everything that had gone down.
Still, I didn’t want to freak him out with Player’s latest moves. I was torn.
“Come on, we haven’t hung out in a while. I’m your little bro, your shadow, your—”
“My irritating, pain-in-the-ass Jiminy Cricket?” I finished for him, and he grinned cheerfully, like I had just paid him the nicest compliment. I hesitated for a few more seconds before finally deciding to just give in.
“Fine. Come with me,” I said, realizing I was going to need to tell him the whole story.
From beginning to end.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, I was bitterly regretting agreeing to take Logan along.
On the long drive to Luke’s place, I told him everything that had happened with Selene.
Starting with Alyssa’s lie all the way to the night at our mother’s apartment.
My brother said I was crazy and over the top and needed to control my impulses, but I shrugged off his criticisms and continued my tale.
Then I told him all about how Ms. Martin wanted me to let Babygirl go and how I had promised her I’d do so as soon as I left for my internship because I couldn’t see a future with her daughter.
Logan managed to resist the urge to smack me, but I think that was only because he didn’t want the car to go off the road.