Painful, page 51
I hadn’t meant to confess that, and the tears in my eyes grew heavy as I took in Kiera’s horrified expression. She swallowed back her emotion so she could speak, and once she did, I instantly wished she hadn’t. “He didn’t know…Maybe you should see him so you can tell him, so you can finally talk about this stuff with someone.”
I didn’t need her implying that I was broken again. I wasn’t. Needing movement, I brushed past her. “I don’t need to talk about it, Kiera. I’m fine.” I started pacing, started embracing the anger I felt brewing. “And I don’t need to see him…ever. Besides, I do have family. I have one aunt who despises me as much as my mom did. But I don’t care. I don’t need them. I’m fine on my own.” I strongly suspected Mom had told her sister the lie, that I was the result of her being raped, and that was why my aunt hated me. I wasn’t sure…I’d never asked her, and I was never going to ask her. Because none of it fucking mattered.
Kiera stepped in front of me, halting my movement and calling me on my bluff. “That’s just it, you aren’t on your own anymore. You have family members out there that want to get to know you.” I tried to look away, but she followed me, reinserting herself in my eyeline. “You have a sister, Kellan…don’t you want to know her?”
That eased some of my anger. Yes, I did want to know her. And Riley. Looking over Kiera’s shoulder, I told her that my family was bigger than she knew. “Hailey told me I have a brother too…” A brother I’d yet to talk to directly. I hated that I hadn’t.
There was happiness in Kiera’s voice when she said, “Hailey? Is that your sister?”
I nodded, then looked down at her. “I gave her my cell number once she told me who she was, and we’ve kept in contact.” Remembering our conversations made me smile, made me laugh a little. “She’s pretty funny. Pretty smart too. We’ve been talking a lot lately…she’s a good kid.”
Kiera’s eyes widened. “That’s who Jenny saw you talking to on the phone when she was visiting Evan? Your sister, right?”
Confused, I shook my head. “Jenny? In Texas?” Glancing away, I tried to remember Jenny’s visit. I supposed I had been on the phone with Hailey a few times while she’d been there, but why would Kiera ask Jenny about that? Why would me on the phone seem weird to her? Unless…
My eyes returned to Kiera. “Is that why you thought I was cheating on you? Because Jenny saw me laughing on the phone with someone else?”
She looked remorseful, but she nodded. Pointing to my jacket, to where I’d returned my phone after picking it up off the floor, she frowned and said, “Plus all of the mysterious texts you wouldn’t let me see. You have to admit that was kind of suspicious.”
I saw the flash of pain on her face, heard it in her voice. I’d purposely shut her out, and she knew it. She’d known it for a while, she just hadn’t known why. She’d thought the worst, and I couldn’t blame her. I had thought the worst about her too. I softly grabbed her cheeks. “I’m sorry…I never meant for any of this to hurt you. I just wasn’t ready…” I dropped my gaze as that damn guilt returned. “I wanted to tell you, so many times…but I couldn’t make myself say the words.” I lifted my eyes to hers and shrugged. “It was like, if I told you…it was real…and I wanted to pretend that it wasn’t.” Grief washed through me, and I closed my eyes. “I just wanted to ignore it—ignore him—but Hailey gave him my number, and he texts me every day…every goddamn day…” He was so fucking relentless. I couldn’t take it.
Releasing her face, I tried to stave off the headache I felt returning. “Every day he sends me messages, and every day I ignore him.” I lifted my head to the ceiling, feeling more worn than ever. “And I’m getting so tired of it all…I just want him to leave me alone.”
Looking at her again, I sighed. “I even thought about changing my number, so he wouldn’t have it anymore, but…I wanted to still be able to talk to you. And I couldn’t exactly tell you why I wanted to change it without…telling you why I wanted to change it. So, I get painful texts every day that I try to forget about.” And fail to forget about.
I could feel the emotion rising, starting to choke me again, and I scrubbed my eyes, trying to get rid of the pain. Kiera gently rubbed my shoulder. “This is killing you, Kellan, don’t you see that?”
I gave her a darkly amused smile. I doubted I was actually dying because of this. Just emotionally dying…but that was different. That was survivable. This just…sucked. Kiera shook her head as she examined me. “No, it is. It’s eating at you…I can see it now. Have you talked with anyone about this? The guys? Evan? Have you been dealing with this alone…all this time?”
Of course, I’ve been dealing with it alone. Alone is my default setting. I fell onto the couch, too tired to keep standing. “Who would I tell, Kiera? Everyone thinks my dad died with my mom.” I looked up at her and shrugged. “You’re the only one I’ve ever been able to tell about my dad…not being my real dad. I just can’t get the words out around other people. Just you…” I supposed Hailey knew that much, but she knew nothing about the abuse—I’d never given her a real reason why I didn’t want to see Gavin. Kiera was the only one who knew all my dark corners. And still I’d kept quiet. It just…hurt too much.
Kiera sat beside me on the couch. Putting a hand on my knee, she called me out on the thought I’d just had. “But your real dad contacting you…? You had to keep that from me?”
I could hear the sadness in her voice, and I looked away from her. “I didn’t want to, and I did try to tell you a couple of times…” My eyes returned to hers. “It was just too hard…too fresh.” My gaze drifted to the floor. “I’m sorry if I hurt you…”
She grabbed my head and pulled me into her body. I reveled in the warmth I didn’t deserve. I should have told her. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I get it.”
Letting out a relieved exhale, I wrapped my arms around her. In a soft voice, she asked, “Christmas Day…was that text really from Griffin?”
I stiffened as I realized she’d known I’d been lying. Fuck. Pulling back, guilt in my heart, pain in my eyes, I shook my head. “No…that was from him.” I cupped her cheek, hoping she could forgive me for this too. “I’m so sorry I lied…I just didn’t want you to ask…I wasn’t ready.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks, killing me, but she nodded. “All those texts…?”
Knowing what she was asking, I quickly told her, “Were from him, I promise.” Needing her, I gave her a gentle kiss. Her lips softened the ache around my heart, made my confession easier to bear. “They were all from him. I’ll let you look at them if you want, if you don’t believe me, but that’s all I’ve been hiding…I promise.” I kissed her again. “I promise…”
She kissed me back, then whispered, “I believe you.”
My fingers shifted to her neck as our mouths moved together. The intoxication of touching her again was chipping away at the pain. But not quickly enough. I still felt rubbed raw. I needed more. I needed to stop thinking, stop feeling. I needed her to distract me. Would she do that for me? Were we…okay enough for that? I needed her so much right now, needed to know if she could be on the same page as me. I deepened the kiss, experimenting with her forgiveness.
She pulled away, but I saw passion in her eyes, not rejection. The way she searched my face though…I wasn’t sure what she saw, but it was enough to make her concerned. “You need to see him, Kellan. You need to put this chapter behind you, so you can move forward.”
Annoyance shot up my spine. Shaking my head, I tried to find her lips again. The only thing I needed was for us to stop talking about it. She knew everything, knew all my secrets…that was how I was putting the past behind me.
I almost reconnected with her lips, but she firmly held me back. “You need to,” she said again.
The annoyance shifted to anger, and I compressed my lips tight so that I didn’t say something rash. I inhaled a deep breath, but it did nothing to calm me. Shaking my head again, I told her, “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you.” All those other reasons applied too, but this was the biggest reason I held back. I knew she wouldn’t let it go.
She opened her mouth to say something, but I shook my head again and cut her off. “No, you can save all of your logical reasons and philosophical viewpoints. I will never see that man. Got it?” I don’t give a shit if it doesn’t make any sense to you. It’s what I want.
Not allowing her time to try and debate with me, since her opinion was irrelevant, I shot up off the couch and headed for the stairs. If she couldn’t be on board with this…I wasn’t sure what that meant for us. Just let me have this, please.
Kiera didn’t follow me as I headed for my room, and I was grateful for the space. I just needed a minute to calm the fuck down. I paced near my bed, my hands clenching and unclenching. I really wanted to hit something, but what I really wanted to hit—who I really wanted to hit—wasn’t here. Kiera was wrong. I didn’t need to see him. What I needed was to never see him. Or hear from him. I needed to go back to that time when I had no idea where he was or if he was even alive. The ignorance had been bliss. I didn’t think about him, and he didn’t think about me. It had been a mutual agreement, one I was more than happy to keep honoring, but for some reason, that fucker got it into his head that I owed him something. But I didn’t owe him a fucking thing. If anything, he owed me, but all I wanted from him was for him to be gone.
Collapsing onto my bed, I dropped my head into my hands. Why couldn’t he just leave me the fuck alone? What had changed for him? No. It didn’t matter what had changed. He gave up his right to know me the minute he left me.
He left me. He hadn’t even waited for me to be born, he just…left me. He let them smack me around, tear me down…torture me…for years. He could have saved me, but he didn’t. He didn’t even try. He just…stopped thinking about me. Stopped caring. Or more accurately, he never started caring. I was nothing in his eyes. He’d let me become…nothing.
Lifting my head, I stared at a patched hole in my wall—an outlet for my rage back when I first saw this place, when I saw how my parents had tried to erase me. They’d never cared either. I remembered the day I’d called them after I’d run away, the day I’d let them know I was still alive…months after I’d left home.
Dad answered the phone. “Yes?”
“Hey…it’s me.” Silence met my ear. “Kellan,” I added, feeling like I needed to explain.
“Yes,” he said, his voice apathetic. “What do you want?”
“I just…I wanted to let you know…I’m okay.”
“All right,” he answered, still sounding almost…bored. I wished he would yell at me, call me names…that would have hurt so much less than his disinterest.
My throat tightened up, but I managed to tell him, “I’m living in L.A. This is my number if you want to reach me…” He was quiet after I rattled off the number, and I had no idea if he’d written it down. “Is Mom there?” I asked, my voice cracking just as much as my heart.
“She’s busy.”
“Can I talk to her?” I hated that I was pleading. I really hated that he didn’t care if I was pleading.
I heard him let out an annoyed sigh, then heard him say to her, “Kellan wants to talk to you.” There was a brief pause, then his voice returned to me. “She says she’s busy…just like I told you she was.”
The rejection stung. It still fucking stung. “Just…let her know I’m fine.”
“Yeah. You coming back?” It didn’t sound like he cared either way. It was more like he needed to ask so he would know how to plan.
“No.” The word felt bitter in my mouth. Cold and unfeeling, just like them. Dad didn’t care about that either.
“Okay,” he stated.
I felt Kiera’s presence in the doorway as that remembered word echoed in my brain. Okay. It was okay that I was gone, and it was okay that I was never coming back. It was all just…okay. That was the last conversation I’d ever had with them. Eight months later, they were both dead, and I’d done what I’d said I wouldn’t do—I’d come back. I still wasn’t entirely sure why.
“Can I come in?” Kiera softly asked.
Making myself disengage from the past, I inhaled a deep breath and looked over to see her leaning against the doorframe. I nodded at her, then returned my eyes to the damaged wall. It felt like looking inside myself. Sure, it was patched-up, fixed to the best of my ability, but it would never look the same. The scar would always be there.
Kiera sat beside me on the bed, then she gently laid her head on my shoulder. I just sat there for a moment, wallowing in the pain of regret and abandonment. Then I let it go. With a weary sigh, I laid my head against Kiera’s, choosing to absorb her warmth instead of my pain.
“I’m sorry if that was harsh, Kiera. I’m just…don’t push me on this one, okay?” Please.
I felt my stomach clenching, tensing for another fight I didn’t want to have, but Kiera surprised me. Nodding against my shoulder, she said, “All right, Kellan.” I nearly sagged with relief. Thank God…she’s going to let it go.
We sat there in silence for a long time, resting against each other, recovering from the emotional onslaught. Then finally, Kiera placed her hand over my heart and quietly asked, “How long do you have? Until you have to go back?”
I let out a haggard sigh. Not long enough. “I have a flight in the morning, well, in a few hours.”
Her fingers clutched at my shirt, like she wanted to hold me here. “I wish you didn’t have to go…”
The hope her words gave me hurt so much. I was sure I’d lost her, sure I’d finally shoved her away from me, and even though she’d given me an ultimatum and I’d chosen her over my secret, I still wasn’t sure if she wanted…this. I lifted my head from hers and she looked up at me. I couldn’t keep the fear from my expression, couldn’t stop the ice from flooding my veins. Were we okay? Shaking my head, I whispered the question that could potentially undo me. “Do you still want to be with me?”
She seemed surprised that I would ask that. She shouldn’t be. I had broken up with her after all. It wasn’t right for me to assume anything about us. Pulling back further, she searched my face. “Of course,” she told me. Her hand went to my cheek as my fear started evaporating. “I’m in love with you. Of course, I still want to be with you.”
The relief was overwhelming and exhausting. Thank God. I looked down at the floor as I remembered all of the horrible things I’d said to her. She deserved so much better than me. Sometimes, I felt like I was holding her back. She should have stayed with Denny. He never would have assumed the worst about her and then not let her explain. He never would have dared her to say she was raped. He was a good guy, easy to get along with. I wasn’t so easy. I could be…challenging. I knew that.
“I know I’m not the easiest person to love,” I told her. “I thought maybe you’d had enough…” And I won’t blame you if you change your mind right now. You should go. You’re better off without me.
Kiera grabbed my chin and made me look at her. Her smile was warm, loving, but it was the compassion in her eyes that struck me. “Loving you, Kellan, is so easy, it’s effortless.” I smiled at her sentiment. I hope that’s true. Her smile fell as she stared at me. She sighed, then said, “Trusting you…that’s the hard part.”
God. Truer words had never been spoken. My gaze drifted to the floor. Was there any hope for us? Feeling broken, I told her, “We messed up, didn’t we?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I peeked up at her; there was fear on her face. It matched how I felt. I shrugged. “How we got together, the lies, the betrayals…we doomed ourselves before we even started.” I felt the despair welling inside as I shook my head. “We love each other so much…and we don’t trust each other at all.” Push come to shove, we’d both feared the worst about each other, we’d both believed the worst about each other. It was so possible that we might hurt each other that it made the thought of us staying together seem…impossible. Where do we go from here?
Kiera didn’t object to my statement. She couldn’t. She knew it was true. Her eyes watered as she stared at me, as she contemplated the hopelessness of our future. Her breath became so fast it was erratic. She tossed her arms around me and squeezed with everything inside her. Panic in her voice, she squeaked out, “Don’t leave me.”
I wrapped my arms around her, her stress and my pain cinching around me tight. I can’t leave you. Not again. I’m not strong enough. “I won’t,” I told her. “I’m yours, Kiera, for as long as you want me.” I would never end it with her again. Even if…even if she did cheat on me. Next time, if there was a next time, it would be her choice to end things.
Pulling away, she cupped my cheek and frantically searched my eyes; I could feel them growing heavy with tears. “Forever, I want you forever,” she stated.
A tear rolled down my cheek as I stared at her. “I want that too, Kiera.” It’s all I’ve ever wanted.
She touched her lips to mine, wanting me, needing me. I tried to push out the desolation as I let my love for her consume me. She hadn’t betrayed me. I hadn’t betrayed her. Our fear of hurting, our fear of pain, that was what made us doubt, and the doubt was what made us not trust each other. But we could work on that. God, please let us be able to work on that. I needed her.
Kiera’s fingers tugged at the hem of my shirt, lifting it. I paused from her lips to pull it off. Her hands drifted down my stomach to my jeans. While I moved my mouth softly against hers, she unbuttoned my jeans, then carefully unzipped them. I kicked off my boots, then sat up a little, so I could take off the rest of my clothes. Kiera’s fingers explored my bare skin while I removed her shirt, her pants, and every last obstacle between us.
