Chapter Nineteen
Kylo
“You can’t stay in here forever,” Velle said after opening the door without waiting for me to say he could come in.
He was usually someone who respected boundaries.
Then again, I was usually someone who came out of my room to eat, shower, work, and socialize.
It’d been three days, and I’d barely done anything but stare at my ceiling and beat myself up over everything that had happened.
“Wanna bet?”
Velle ignored that.
“You gotta come out. For no other reason than this place is gonna need to be fumigated if you don’t take a shower soon.”
He was exaggerating.
Not that I cared if I rotted in my own filth.
I had that coming.
Then I’d be just as scummy outside as I felt inside.
“What do you want, Velle? Huck send you in here?”
“Nah, you know Huck,” he said, leaning in the doorway. “He’s got that dad vibe. He figures if you want to be a bitch then we should leave you alone to be that.”
I snorted at that.
“He can be a dick sometimes, but I think we both know he actually does care.”
“Sure.” I sounded anything but sure about that, though.
“To be fair, Kylo, did you even tell him you had feelings for the girl?”
“Not in that many words.”
“And you thought that he was the mind-reading, emotionally intelligent sort?”
“Even if he knew, it wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“I think you underestimate Huck. He’s dealt with a lot of shit brought about by the women the men of this club fall for. He would have found a way around this if he knew you cared about Rue like that.”
“There was no way around this. It was too late the first time I opened my mouth and lied to her.”
“I think we both know it was over the second you put your hands on her,” he clarified. “She probably would have understood up to that point.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Yet as much as I regretted the shocked betrayal on her face, the way she barked at Huck that I better not show up in her life again, I couldn’t bring myself to regret what we’d shared in that hotel.
Maybe that was selfish.
But at least I had those happy memories to go along with all the ugly ones that were dominating my mind then.
“I can’t undo it,” I said, shrugging. “So what’s the point in talking about it?”
“The point,” Velle said with a little laugh, “is that you stink, your room stinks, and you haven’t eaten anything in days. That’s the point.”
“Fine,” I said, folding up and hopping off the bed.
I shoved my feet into my shoes.
“If you guys are sick of me being in bed, I’ll go be in my bed in my place.”
He didn’t try to stop me.
I didn’t expect him to.
If anyone else called to me when I rushed through the house, I didn’t hear them.
I didn’t even really see any of them.
It wasn’t until I was on my bike and about to pull out of the driveway that I did notice something.
Someone.
Not Rue.
No.
Claudia.
Shit.
Before I could peel out to avoid her, though, she was rushing across the street in her green and white house dress, a determined look on her face.
She moved to stand in front of my bike, staring at me until I did the right thing and cut the engine.
Up until that moment, I figured Claudia was all light, all fun. But this was a woman made of concrete standing in front of me. Fierce, hard. And clearly very, very angry with me.
“Claudia,” I greeted her, ignoring the way my stomach knotted.
“I don’t know what you did to my girl,” she started, making my heart—already so brittle—crack a little more. “But you need to fix it.”
“I can’t,” I told her.
There was no fixing it.
No one got over that kind of betrayal.
“I trusted you with her. She came alive when she was around you, when she talked about you. Then, after a date she was bouncing on her feet telling me about, she is someone I don’t even recognize anymore.”
“Is it the depression?” I asked, blood turning to ice.
“No. No, this is different.”
“The anxiety?”
“No. This is something colder, harder. There are glaciers in her eyes. She’s frigid from the inside out. What did you do?”
“Things she will never forgive me for,” I admitted.
“Did you even try to explain?”
“She wouldn’t want to hear it.”
“Why do you think it is your place to decide for her what she does or doesn’t want to hear?”
“Claudia, I know you want to think that I can fix it because I broke it, but that’s not the case here. She made it very clear she doesn’t want to see me again. I’m going to respect that. I’ve done enough damage.”
With that, I moved around her, started the engine, and peeled off before she could say anything else.
I wanted to be relieved that Claudia didn’t think Rue’s depression and anxiety were spiraling. But I was too horrified at the idea of a cold version taking over the sweet, warm woman I’d grown to know, to like, to maybe, just possibly, love.
“Fuck,” I growled at myself as I slammed the door of my house, moving into the mostly empty space that still somehow felt full of the ghosts of her.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” I snarled, seeing one of my plants wilted near the window.
I grabbed it, rushing upstairs to stick it in the tub, fill the tub up, and let it drink up as much as it wanted.
It couldn’t die.
It was completely fucking irrational, but I had to keep the plants alive. If they were the last bit of Rue I was ever going to get, I was going to take care of them, dammit.
Once all the plants were in the tub, soaking up as much water as they needed, I took myself into the guest room, stripped out of my dirty clothes, and stood under the spray until the water heater ran out of steam.
Claudia’s words drifted through my head enough that some part of me started to believe them. But I knew it was just wishful thinking, that I wanted an excuse to be able to show up at Vital Greens again to see her. Under the guise of giving her an apology her grandmother said she would want.
I knew better, though.
Because Claudia hadn’t been in that kitchen.
She hadn’t seen the way the deception had etched shock, hurt, and anger on Rue’s pretty face, hadn’t watched her slip guards up and around herself in real time, making her harder, harsher.
I hated it. Even if I saw it gave her the strength to stand up to Huck instead of shrinking into herself, instead of the panic overtaking her.
As I pulled the plants out of their bath and placed them back in their homes, I couldn’t help but wonder about the picture Claudia painted, though.
Of a cold Rue.
It didn’t make sense.
It didn’t seem possible.
She was so warm, so soft, so sweet.
It was like a punch to the gut to know that because of me, she wasn’t those things anymore. That she wouldn’t trust people the same way again. That she would second-guess herself even more.
That said, showing up would do nothing but ease some of my guilt while fucking with her mind and emotions once again.
No.
I couldn’t do that to her.
I had to leave her alone.
But make sure that the club was taking care of her, keeping an eye on her, making sure she was safe.
I hadn’t asked what the plan was.
I had to trust that Huck would do what was best for us, yes, but also for Rue. Because Velle was right; Huck might come off as cool sonofabitch at times, but he did care. He always made sure the innocents didn’t get caught up in the crossfire.
Sure, Rue was really entrenched in this shit.
But I was equally sure that Huck would find a way to either cut Marco off at the knees by removing his supply, or, well, he could find a more permanent type of solution.
Either way, so long as Rue was left alone to pick up the pieces of her life and rebuild, I was okay with that.
Even if I wouldn’t get to be a part of it.
I was just going to have to get used to that ache in my chest every time I thought about her.