“I’m trying!” she screams, hands gripping at the sides of her head, clenching handfuls of hair until they rip from the root.
My anger simmers a bit when the first teardrop falls from her eyes. “I get it, but fuck! Amira. I need you to try harder… this is hard for me too.”
Holding my hands out, I reach for her, but she backs away, cynicism and incredulity swallowing her gaze until her mocha eyes are balls of coal.
“This is hard… foryou?” She spits out the wordyoulike it tasted foul in her mouth, the tears instantly drying as she roams her glare up and down my face. “Did your father shove his dick so far up your ass, you choked? Did your brother chain you to a tree and fuck you? Did he laugh when the bark sliced into your back, leaving splinters and chunks of wood embedded so deeply into your skin, you had to cut it out?! No! He fucking didn’t! But want to know what your brother did?! Tommy carved his name into my mother's abdomen while he forced her to swallow down his rancid cum! He did that tomymother! And you fuckingwatched!You did fucking nothing!”
“I killed him!” I roar, blood from my damaged tongue and spittle flying out of my mouth as I hover over her. My fist punches through the drywall behind her head as I cage her to the wall.
This time her flinch doesn’t faze me. It only increases the anger I have bubbling inside me.
Amira shrinks under my aggression but doesn’t back down. Rising on the tips of her toes, she shoves her face against mine and rips a hole into my chest.
“For you. You killed Tommy,for you, and you left me. You left me to fucking die, and now you want me to fuck you.” She laughs, a bitter, malicious, fucking joyous laugh. “After everything… I can’t fuck you, Roman. So you want to fuck someone so badly?Fucking leave and go fuck someone else.”
“Everything okay?” I hear Ash ask somewhere behind me. I didn’t even realize he had come into the house.
I don’t turn around to answer. I can’t even take my gaze off Amira’s hollow eyes as I stagger away from her. For the first time since I’ve known Amira, I don’t see her. Whoever is in front of me isn’t the girl I fell in love with. The Amira I know isn’t this fucking ugly on the inside. She wouldn’t want to hurt me just because she knew she could.
“Fine,” I finally get out, the tension in my chest making it impossible to breathe, let alone speak.
As badly as I want to, I can’t tear my eyes off her as I begin to walk away.
Amira doesn’t reach out for me as I step through the front door. Her voice… her sweet, soft voice, doesn’t call out for me once I cross the threshold into the front yard. She lets me walk away.
The fresh air doesn’t ease the prison around my heart. It doesn’t make walking away any easier. I see the swaying trees and the glittering moonlight, and all I want to do is run inside and take Amira into my arms. I want her to see the open sky, listen to the chirping crickets, and realize we finally made it.
I don’t get far from the property before I crash to my knees, and for the first time that I can remember, I let the tears fall and the wails I keep trapped in my chest roar out, echoing in the quiet of the night.
I wonder if she can hear the pain she caused.
I wonder if she even fucking cares.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
AMIRA
Monday
March 22, 2021
The second Roman disappears from my sight, I fall to my knees. My bones crying out in pain as they hit the edge of the brick hearth.
Ash looks between me and the open door, his eyes wide as he stands in the middle of the room.
“Amira? What the fuck was that?”
I can’t respond. My mind is full of the howls drifting in from the outside. The anguish I hear in those bellows is a product of what I did.
I’ve never heard him in so much pain, and it’s my fault.
I did this.
“Please go to him. I-I can’t.” I cry, rocking back onto my ass. Then, bringing my knees up to my chin, I bury my head and cry. I ignore Shadow’s whimpering nudges and hate myself.
“Amira, he doesn’t want me. He doesn’t fucking need me. He needs you! He’s always needed you!”
“Ash! Just! I fucking can’t do this right now! Please! Just go to him….” I beg, lifting my head enough to stare at him through blurry, swollen eyes. I can’t stop my body from flinching when the front door slams shut, leaving me alone to deal with the consequences of my unforgiving words on my own.
