“Why does it need to be more right now? Why can’t we hold on to what we have?”
“It’s not good for either of us, Daniel,” I whisper and wrap my arms around my chest. I don’t know how else to explain it and how he could fail to understand that.
The silence grows. All I can hear is my own breath as Daniel stands there stiffly, staring at the faded carpet beneath his feet. Finally, he looks me in the eye again and the intensity and pain there shatter me to the very center of my soul.
“I know that you belonged to Tyler first, as much as I hate to admit that. I hate to say his name. I don’t want to imagine what used to ...”
“Daniel, please don’t,” I say and reach for him, my heart hurting for his and I hate myself in this moment. Why did I have to do this?
“We can’t change the past, Addison. I wish I could. But it’s over now. And right now I want you.”
There was never a point in my life where I thought I’d hear those words from Daniel. And the shock, the sadness, and the conflict of not knowing how to protect myself and what I should do keep the words I’m desperate to say trapped in my throat.
I want to believe what he’s saying. But he’s already said the words I need to hold on to the conviction of leaving him. There will never be more.
“You know where to find me if you want to see me.” Daniel’s last words are flat, with a defeated tone.
I can’t form a coherent thought as he turns his back to me and walks off. This isn’t what I wanted or how I’d planned for it to go. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” I say, but my choked words are barely audible to me, let alone Daniel as he disappears in the distance.
I worry my bottom lip and a storm brews inside of me. A storm that feels as though it’s never left, like it was only waiting in the darkness. Preparing for when it could come out and destroy the little piece of me that remains.
It’s not until Daniel’s gone that I close the door, lean my back against it and fall to the floor on my ass.
I’ve made a mistake. More than one. But I can’t keep going on like this, making mistake after mistake and running from them.
Helplessness overwhelms me and I’ve never felt weaker. Why is it all so complicated? Why can’t love and lust be one, and right and wrong easier to decipher?
Chapter Eighteen
Daniel
FIVE YEARS AGO
Every small movement makes the pain spread deeper. I shouldn’t have called him a drunk. I shouldn’t have yelled back when my father yelled at me. I know better. I brought this on myself.
I let out a deep breath, but even breathing hurts. Carter will cover for me. He always does. I swallow thickly as I hear heavy footsteps coming to my door and my heart pounds for a moment, thinking it’s him. Thinking I fucked something up.
Like I did last night, losing thousands of dollars. Thousands and thousands of money and merchandise are gone. Stolen off the truck. And it’s my fault. I’m the one who opened it, getting the fucking CD Addison left in there and not remembering to lock it back up.
This is all because of her.
There’s only a slight bit of relief when I hear Tyler yell out my name as he bangs on the door.
I struggle to put my shirt back on, but do it through clenched teeth while wincing. It was only a belt, I grit out with the part of me that thinks I’m pathetic. That I deserve all of this and more.
I open the door without thinking of the cuts on my back and the pain sears through me.
“Why do you have to be such an asshole all the time?”
Tyler’s question is met with nothing from me. Not a single emotion that I can give him.
“You don’t have to make her feel like she’s not welcome.”
Anger makes me swallow hard. I still don’t respond.
I’ll never tell him how I feel about her, but at least now I know how she feels about me.
“Are you going to say anything?”
My lips part and I want to give him something, anything. But the fact that I went out of my way for her last night … maybe that’s why. Maybe she knows I want her. The idea hits and steals my words from me.
“She’s a good person,” Tyler tells me as if that’s why I stay away from her.
“I love you, Tyler. God knows it. But you’re a fucking idiot.”
I should have kept my mouth shut, but everyone has their limits.
“She loves me and she’s not going anywhere,” he tells me with a confidence I’ve never seen in my baby brother.
My baby brother who’s oblivious to what we really are and what goes on here.
My baby brother who’s never been struck once by my father.
My perfect baby brother who wants to make everyone around him smile because he’s never known pain like I have.
“She only loves you because she has no one else who loves her.” My gaze pins him where he is as I say the words. “Remember that.”
Loneliness is a bitter pill to swallow. I know I’ve brought it on myself, but still. A sarcastic, humorless huff leaves me as I grab the bottle of whiskey and take a swig.
It must be karma.
I left Addison to her loneliness so I could survive.
Now she’s leaving me to mine to ruin me.
Touché, little love.
The whiskey burns as I take another heavy drink. And with it every possibility of where I lost her flashes in my mind. The times from back when we were younger and I held back so much, to only moments ago when I didn’t hold back a damn thing.
I lick my lower lip and then pick the bottle back up, but a timid knock stops me from chugging back more of the amber liquid.
“Daniel,” I hear Addison’s voice from beyond the door. Hope flickers deep inside of me, flirting with a darkness that’s nearly consumed me.
My heart pauses. So do my lungs. It’s only when I hear her again that they both decide to function again. She’s here. She came to me.
My blood buzzes as I stand up and make my way to the front door. All while I stride to the door the alcohol sets in, and I hear her call out again. “Please open the door, Daniel.”
She’s mid-motion of knocking again with her mouth parted and more to say when I pull the door open. She looks shocked and even flinches slightly.
“Daniel,” she says my name with a hint of surprise, but quickly her expression and tone change. “I wanted to explain.”
And that right there is why I didn’t let that hope grow. The coldness in my chest puts out the small flame. It’s hard to school my expression. It’s hard to hide it from her. But a part of me is screaming not to. To let her see what she’s doing to me. To make sure she knows she’s destroying me bit by bit.
“Explain?” The question comes out with a bit of anger and I have to readjust my grip on the door and look away from her for a moment.
“You don’t owe me anything, Addison,” I tell her and turn to walk down the hall, but I leave the door open. I let her come to me willingly.
When I hear the door shut and her following me inside, a smile slowly forms on my face. It’s only a trace of genuine happiness. But at least I know she can’t let me go as easily as she thinks she can.