Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
Kylie
“Let me out! Martin, you bastard! Let me out!”
“Kylie, baby. Wake up.”
I was aware of gentle hands touching me, dragging me from the depths of hell. It took eons to breach the surface, but I finally came out of the nightmare, gasping for air and desperate to be free of the blankets trapping me.
Opening my eyes, I noticed Gage was standing beside the bed, shifting the blankets away, giving me freedom. Travis was sitting on the other side, giving me space.
But I didn’t want space. I wanted them. Here. I wanted the safety they represented.
As I kicked my legs free of the blankets and shoved them to the foot of the bed, I held out a trembling hand to each of them. I could sense their hesitation, so I added, “Come back. Please.”
The mattress shifted as they joined me. As soon as I could touch them, I pulled them toward me, although pulling was relative since neither one of them would’ve budged if they didn’t want to.
My goal was to ensure they knew I didn’t want the space they continued to give me.
I was tired of the distance. It had gone on long enough.
It was time for us to move forward. And they were waiting on me.
“You’re safe,” Travis whispered, spooning behind me, sliding his arm under the pillow, leaving room for Gage.
Gage rolled to his back and scooted closer, allowing me to rest my head on his chest.
And then there we were, the three of us as we used to be. Together. Safe.
The only sound in the room was my still rapid breaths, but they eventually slowed as Gage’s steady heartbeat near my ear settled me.
“You wanna talk about it?” Gage prompted after a few minutes of silence.
My immediate reaction was no, I didn’t want to talk about the nightmare that continued to plague me. Fortunately, I was usually able to wake myself up before I terrified them. Evidently, I wasn’t as good at it as I thought.
Rather than answer, I countered with, “Do you wanna hear it?”
That seemed to surprise them because I felt the tension in their bodies.
“Yes,” Travis said softly, his breath fanning the back of my neck. “Talk to us, baby.”
Reaching for his hand, I twined our fingers and cuddled it to my chest, sinking into the warmth of his body. I put my leg over Gage’s, urging him closer, wanting to be cocooned between them. It was the only way I was going to get through this in one piece.
For the next hour, I shared with them every detail I could remember since the day I woke up in the hospital, blindfolded and chained.
I told them how I was drugged for a while, then nursed back to health, only to be moved to the shit hole and chained to the floor.
I shared with them my thoughts as I’d drifted in a fugue state, starved and cooking in that hot room.
Neither of them interrupted me to ask questions.
And I didn’t stop even when I felt Travis’s tears and Gage’s silent sobs.
I would’ve preferred they did not know what happened or how I’d talked to my imaginary versions of them.
But they had asked and it felt good to get it off my chest. It wasn’t that I’d kept it to myself because I didn’t want to talk about it.
I hadn’t shared it with them because I didn’t want them to feel my pain.
And they would. Our connection, while not quite as strong as before, was still there.
Deep down, I prayed we would get it back in full force, but sometimes I wasn’t sure that was possible.
But this was the next step for me. For us. For our future.
I was moving forward, not back.
And I was not going to let my past define me anymore.
For the first time in one year, nine months, and twenty-two days, I decided that was going to be true.
I was home.
And it wasn’t that I’d been there for forty-three days.
I was simply home.
That was what mattered.
I had my family, my husbands, my children. I had my life. I wasn’t a prisoner anymore. I wasn’t restrained. And by God, I was not going to keep acting like I was.
It was time I stopped counting days.
It was time for me to define my future, not calculate my past.
Time to live the way I wanted, to take back what had been stolen from me.
Snuggling against them, I squeezed Travis’s hand, then released it so I could touch Gage. “I’m okay.”
I could tell they didn’t quite believe me. But that was all right because I had time to prove to them, to myself.
“I promise, I’m okay,” I whispered as I settled against them, my heart beating a normal rhythm for the first time since I opened my eyes. “And I’m ready to move forward. Together. Like we used to be.”
I could feel their surprise, but no one moved. Not me. Not them.
Despite that, I suddenly felt closer to them. The way it used to be.
The way it was meant to be.