We sit in silence. Not moving. Not speaking.
He runs his fingertips up and down my back.
As the high of the moment begins to fade, anger slips into my mind.
I clear my throat as the clouded judgment of desire fades.
“I, uh, I am just going to clean up,” I mutter, climbing off his lap, letting his cock slowly slide out of me.
“Kayla,” he calls my name as I try to slip away without letting him see the change in my mood.
I glance over my shoulder, keeping my back to him. “Yes?” I ask, and my voice causes it to slip out as one cold word.
“Nothing,” he mutters.
I hurry away, searching for the bathroom. I rush into it and close the door behind me.
Tears are stinging my eyes.
I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to claw at him and tell him he is an asshole.
How dare he tell me he loves me. How dare he tell me that all those years while I was alone, terrified and in pain, he still loved me.But he left me alone in this world. He snatched that love away from me and left me alone.
The ache of heartbreak pushes into my chest, and I clutch at my skin, trying to hold on so I don’t collapse. But the tears fall. They fall in heavy, body-wrenching sobs. I am clamping my hand over my mouth to try and smother the sounds of pain, but I’m still being too loud. I’m fighting years of emotions. Years of buried feelings.
There is a knock at the door.
“Kayla, what’s going on? Please don’t shut me out,” he says gently.
“Please go away,” I mutter. Forcing myself to stand up.
“No, I’m not going anywhere. You have to speak to me.”
I pull my dress back on, tugging it so it sits properly over my body.
Rushing to the basin, I splash water on my face, desperate to wash away the feelings.
I hear the door opening and grab a towel, pressing my face into it.
“Kayla, what is going on? I heard you crying,” he demands.
I had no intention of confronting him with the turmoil inside me, but it spills out anyway.
“Why would you say something like that to me?” I blurt out. “Why would you tell me you never stopped loving me when I have spent the last five years so utterly and completely alone and terrified and struggling to survive. Is that what people do to the ones they love? Is that the kind of love you give? Because that doesn’t seem right at all!”
“Kayla,” he walks towards me, his hand reaching out and his eyes dark with regret.
“Don’t,” I huff. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry. It doesn’t change what I went through. It doesn’t change the fact that I had to raise our girls alone. You have no idea what my life has been like.”
“I did what I thought was right for you. To keep you safe!”
I scoff, shaking my head and throwing the towel into the sink. I push past him and storm towards the living room. He follows close behind me. At some point, I stop in my tracks and spin to confront him again. “So, you get to decide my life for me? You get to say what will and won’t make me happy? Is that how it is? You’re in charge, and I have no say in anything?”
“Uh…” he stammers. But I ignore him.
“I might have been young back then, but I wasn’tyoung. I was mature enough to choose. Naïve, maybe, yes. Naïve because I believed that while I had never had it before—love was real and possible. But at the same time, I was mature enough to understand and take a risk if I wanted to. I might have been more protected than most children who came from the system, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t strong. All you saw was a weak little girl who you had to protect…and the way you chose to protect me was to shatter me in every way possible! And thenafterwards, I had to deal witheverythingalone while I tried to pull myself back together!”
“Kayla, I am so sorry. I truly am. Please understand that I made a mistake back then. I regretted it every day of my life…”
