Chapter Seventy-One
SUNNY
I sit at the gate, clutching my boarding pass, knee bouncing with each second that passes until boarding time.
I know it’ll hurt them to not say goodbye. But it’ll hurt them more if he finds me. Finds them.
If Ryan is anything, he’s vengeful. And he’d hurt all the people around me first to taunt and torment me. To hurt me.
I have enough cash to purchase a new phone and spend some nights in a hotel. I’ve always wanted to go to Colorado, anyways. It was the earliest flight I could catch getting out of here.
Leaving them is just as hard as it was leaving my parents. But it’s something that needs to be done, whether it’s now or when my contract ends. I’ve been here too long.
People rush all around me, bustling to get to their flights. I pull my hood in tighter, scared to look anywhere and see Ryan’s face.
Despite my efforts, there is a presence that demands my attention. A pull that forces me to look up and meet golden eyes and warm skin.
Someone familiar. Someone who feels like home.
Anthony.
He stands still in the motion of people. A pillar to the family that has somehow accepted me, regardless of my broken pieces that keep cutting them.
A small smile pulls his lips and he places his hands in his pockets with a shrug.
Tears sting my eyes, my pain a physical manifestation as my heart breaks all over again. Neither of us move. We are still among the chaos.
That’s what they’ve all been to me.
I don’t even think before I get up and run into his arms. He wraps them around me tightly as I bury my head in the chest of his button up.
“You’ve got a lot of people worried about you,” he murmurs as he places his cheek atop my head.
A choked sob leaves my lips because tonight may not be the night, but it’s coming no matter what. I have to leave. Tonight proved that.
“Come home, Sunny. Just come home. Finish out your contract. Just come home and we’ll figure out the rest. Day by day, okay?” He squeezes me tighter.
“I don’t know what to do,” I admit.
“Just come home. That’s all you can do. Come home and give yourself the next four weeks like you promised yourself, us, your work. Give yourself those four weeks to prepare for the next stop after here. But don’t leave like this. Not like this, Sunny.” He rubs his hand up and down my back.
My lip quivers trying to hold back the sobs.
I have a family here. A family who loves me so much they were scouring the city for me. A family who is begging for just a little more time with me. A family who doesn’t want to say goodbye to me.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”
Approaching my apartment door, Anthony pauses, giving me a brief glance over his shoulder. “Do you need a minute?”
I contemplate. “I think I’m okay.”
“Alright.” He opens the door, moving aside to let me through.
I walk in to see Tyler sitting on my couch, elbows on knees and hands pressed together at his mouth. Those eyes flick up to me from under his brows, no emotion behind them.
Cole leans against the counter in my kitchen behind him, arms crossed over his chest, feet crossed over one another.
They don’t move. They just watch.
I swallow down the thickness in my throat and blink back the stupid fucking tears that seem to not want to subside, no matter my efforts.
Tyler’s words from months ago echo through my head. They will protect you on instinct.
Anthony places my duffle on the ground and presses a kiss to the top of my head. With a nod to Tyler, he exits the apartment.
Cole follows, giving Tyler a pat on the shoulder and a murmured, “She’s safe.”
With a muscled arm, he wraps it around my head and places a kiss in my curls and exits the apartment right behind Anthony with a click of the door.
Few words were even said. Yet somehow, they knew Tyler’s command.
I shift on my feet, refusing to meet the piercing emeralds I know are focused on me. Nervously, I toy with the beanie in my hands but soon enough my eyes betray me, and I feel that undeniable pull lifting my gaze to Tyler's.
He stands to his full height, boots thudding against the wood floors as he makes his way to me. No words are said as he wraps his arms around me and presses my head to his chest.
“Tell me everything,” he murmurs in my hair.
My body trembles as I fight another sob clawing up my throat. He leans down, gently cradling my face and wiping my tears with his thumbs.
I’m not okay, Tyler.
“I’ve been getting these spam calls but...” My voice catches. “it was him.”
He doesn’t say anything, he simply watches me while stroking his thumbs along my wet cheeks. The predator, analyzing every detail I’m giving him.
“He begged for me to tell him where I am, and I was too fucking stunned that I kept him on the phone for too long and he’s probably going to be able to trace the call to the location.
” I back out of Tyler’s embrace and place my hands on top of my head as my frantic cries escape me.
My heart beats violently in my chest, making it thunder in my ears and amplifying my spiraling thoughts.
“Baby…” He reaches for me.
I can’t stop it. My brakes have gone out on this steep downward spiral.
“I won’t let that happen.” He takes a step forward.
I step back. “How do you know?”
Shaking my head slowly, I shove past him and run back into my bedroom, placing the duffle bag on the bed where me and Tyler first were together.
The bed where you knew you loved me.
“Sunny, you can’t leave. You still have a month left.”
I ignore him, going through my things, deciding what to give and what to just leave behind. Maybe I’ll donate it. Maybe I’ll just trash it. I don’t care. I just need to stop being the fucking problem in people’s lives.
I am the problem.
“Sunny stop, please!” He grabs my wrists.
I rip myself from his grip, looking him directly in the eyes despite the fact I know my face is breaking just like my heart.
“I. Am. The. Problem,” I say in a broken, choked sob.
And finally, the predator breaks, and through the cracks, I see the human, hurting for me in a way that no one has.
I have secrets, Tyler. I have dark places no one should see.
“Baby,” he chokes, stepping towards me.
I hold a hand up, halting him as I try to compose the tears running down my face. I’m broken, and maybe he will finally see that.
He has been desperately trying to piece me back together, cutting himself along the way, but maybe finally he will realize I’ll simply never be able to be put back together.
“I was a stupid, hopeless romantic girl who clung to the first boy who loved me in hopes of a future filled with promises he couldn’t keep.
In hopes that, maybe, just maybe, he could love me the way I loved him.
A girl who’d do anything to save what we had, desperate to make all my firsts my lasts too.
And he knew that. He knew that. And he used it. He used me,” I cry.
“You are not the problem, Ryan is,” he growls out. “None of this is your fault. You think my life was problem free before you? That is the absolute opposite. The farthest thing from the truth. You belong here, Sunny. Even if you feel like you have to run, you belong here. With our family.”
I run my fingers through my hair, clutching the curls in frustration as another anger filled sob releases from me. I hate that I let myself do this again. To plant roots. To feel what I feel. To feel at all. I hate myself for loving you all.
But it’s too late. I feel it. And now I’m here. My soulmate is standing before me, begging to help me.
No one can help me, Tyler.
“He took so much that I’m not sure I have anything else left to give,” I say.
“Baby, can we just take tonight to breathe?” he finally asks.
“Just stay at my place for now, please. You’ll be safe.
I have security cameras everywhere. I can’t–” he cuts himself off.
“I’m not leaving you like this. So it’s either here or there, but there has cameras and a security system and I can have some of my guys stand post outside all hours,” he assures me, grabbing my duffle now filled with god knows what.
I lick my chapped lips. “Okay.”
“I just need to text Sam and Mace and let them know you’re safe.” He pulls his phone out.
They love me. And I have to leave them.
I’m not only going to break Tyler’s heart, but all of theirs, too.