Chapter 17 - Liv
It took me several hours to get myself back under control. I stayed in my room, stewing, reminding myself that I couldn’t let people see me this angry. I needed to find some good in all of this. Except Drake had made that impossible. All I wanted was to help. He was supposed to be my mate. He should understand. Instead, all he cared about was controlling what I did, even though he had to know I was right. He had to know I could help.
After some time, though I was still bristling, I forced myself to go back downstairs. I had left a mess, and I needed to clean up. For once, I didn’t care if Drake saw me angry or upset. For the first time, it seemed silly that I had ever thought that I had to hide these emotions from everyone. So, despite still being upset, I trudged down the steps, bracing myself for seeing Drake again.
Except when I got to the living room, it was spotless. Even the wine stain was gone. I blinked, staring at the pristine room. Drake had cleaned it all up. For whatever reason, that cut through the ire. His soft side was showing again.
When Drake emerged from the kitchen and saw me, he paused. A silence lingered.
“Hey,” he grunted.
“Hey.” I shifted in my seat, eyeing him uneasily. After our argument, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.
Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn’t what came out of his mouth.
“During that argument,” he began, “you mentioned everything I did to you.”
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
He nodded. “I’m guessing you’re talking about when we were kids?”
I tilted my head back and forth. “That, and the whole stopping me from leaving when I tried to get out of town. But mostly the first bit, yeah.”
“And I’m also guessing that you’re not talking about all the times I picked on you, even if that was a shitty thing for me to do.”
So close and yet so far from an apology. I wanted to scream. He would acknowledge that he did these things, but for whatever reason, taking that final step to admit culpability seemed beyond him. I couldn’t fathom it.
“That was definitely part of it as well,” I said, trying to keep that frustration out of my voice. I wasn’t going to ask for an apology; that defeated the whole purpose. Any apology that came after would be hollow and meaningless.
He nodded, glancing out at the living room before dragging his attention back to me, his expression unreadable.
“I sort of figured we were okay,” he said. “I mean, you never said anything about it, and I figured there was an understanding that we just wouldn’t talk about it.”
I put my book down. “Drake, you broke my heart. Which is rough, but it happens. But the way you did it hurt worse. Then we basically never spoke about it.”
“Because you kept avoiding me,” he growled. “I figured if you had an issue, you would tell me. Instead, you more or less vanished whenever I showed up.”
“And why do you think I did that? Do you think it was because I was happy with how that conversation went?”
He ran his fingers through his hair as he stared out the window, his brow furrowed, his mouth turned down in a slight frown. After a moment, he let out a frustrated sigh, his shoulders drooping a little.
“You deserve an explanation,” he muttered. “Even if it sounds feeble. But if all of this is still looming over us, then I need to say it, if only so you’ll understand why I did what I did.”
He glanced over at me, waiting. I didn’t want to know why he did what he did. Explanations didn’t take the hurt away. It didn’t change the years of heartache. I wanted to tell him as much. But then I saw the look on his face, that desperate need and twinge of worry, and I softened. My shoulders sagged as I exhaled.
“Which is…?” I asked.
“My father never believed in mates,” he muttered. “Granted, I don’t think he ever believed in love, period. He stuck around because my mother got pregnant, and he was old-fashioned and saw it as his duty. He didn’t stay with her out of love—he made that perfectly clear. If true mates do exist—and I’m still not sure—then they were about as far from true mates as it was possible to get. They were both miserable, and they didn’t bother to hide it.
“Anyway,” he added, “the point is that it’s easy to laugh at the idea of someone being your mate when your father is telling you that they don’t exist.”
I listened in silence, letting him speak. It made perfect sense, knowing everything I did about Drake. It put so much of the enigma into clear light.
“So you’re telling me that when I came to you and told you what I felt, you, what, thought I was just a silly, delusional girl?”
When he shrugged, not looking at me, I pivoted and asked a question I had wanted to ask for nearly ten years.
“Did you really not feel anything? Nothing at all?”
