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There was also the fact that each voicemail seemed to escalate with emotion, and I couldn’t lie and say that Killian’s anger wasn’t making me feel special. I kept walking away from him, and he kept coming after me, and…and that meant something, even if I wasn’t ready to do anything about it right now. My focus was the call center and refocusing on what I wanted out of life. I had a long road ahead of me with this new turn of events, and I wasn’t sure that I could handle Killian without some space first.
So, when my phone rang again, I stared at it, letting it go to voicemail. When it rang again, I let it go to voicemail again. A little voice in my head was calling me a coward, and maybe I was. Maybe I didn’t want to talk to him because there was a very good chance that I’d abandon everything and run back to him. I also had a family that made it too easy to do that. If I abandoned everything for love, my family would cheer me on.
When the phone rang for an hour straight, I started to worry that there might be an emergency. Killian hadn’t left any voicemails for me to find out why he was calling, but he’d never called for an hour straight before, so I let that reasoning lessen my guilt for finally answering.
“Killian?”
“What the fuck, Posie?” he hissed into the phone. “Where are you?”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” he parroted. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“Kill-”
“You’re away from me, Posie,” he snapped. “That’s what’s fucking wrong. You fucking left me, then haven’t picked up the phone once, so that we can try to work things out.”
“Killian, I already told you-”
“I don’t give a fuck what you told me!” he thundered. “I’m not letting you just walk away from me, Posie. I tried. I fucking tried, and I only made it one fucking night.”
“Do not yell at me like I’m in the wrong here, Killian,” I fired back. “I’m not the one that fucked up.”
“I know that I’m the one that fucked up, Posie,” he shot back, though not yelling anymore. “But you don’t get to just walk away. That’s not how this works.”
“How what works?”
“Us,” he answered. “I’m not letting you end this, Posie.”
“You can’t stop me,” I argued, my heart thumping hard in my chest. I wasn’t trying to be difficult, but I was still so goddamn confused. I was in love with Killian, but it felt like all our time together had been a lie. He had manipulated every second that we had spent together to secure the outcome in his favor.
“Like fuck I can’t,” he growled, and I hated how much passion was in those four little words. “I didn’t get to where I am by shying away from the hard fights, Posie. I’m not scared to come out swinging.”
“Neither am I,” I hissed back. “The very last thing that I’m afraid to do is fight.”
“Unless it’s for love,” he accused. “While I have no doubt that you’re not afraid to battle any fire-breathing dragons that come your way, it’s not dragons that you’re afraid of, is it?”
That hit close enough to home that I almost hung up on him.
“It’s not dragons, monsters, demons, the darkness, or even Satan himself,” Killian went on. “After all, you’ve met them all before and are still standing. You’ve looked evil in the eye and survived in spite of still living with those shadows that are all around you. So, yeah, you’re not afraid to fight. You’re not afraid to fight anything that you’re comfortable fighting. But love, happiness, hope…yeah, those things frighten the shit out of you and that’s why you’re running.”
“Fuck you,” I choked out, hating how he sounded exactly like he knew what he was talking about. “You don’t get to come at me like this-”
“Why?” he bit out. “Because you’re a victim? Because you’re fragile? Because you’re still healing? Make up your mind, Posie. When do you want to be treated like a victim, and when do you want to be treated like a fighter?”
“Go to hell,” I spat. “It’s not that easy.”
“No,” he quickly replied. “It’s not that easy. It’ll never be that easy. Nothing between us will ever be fucking easy because we’re not easy people with easy lives. We have guilt, hate, confusion, remorse, and helplessness weighing us the fuck down all the goddamn time. So, no, it’ll never be easy. But I fucking love you, and I’d rather have hard with you every day than easy with someone else. I don’t care what battles we have to fight every day just as long as we’re fighting them together, Posie.”
Tears were streaming down my face. “Killian-”
“I’m also not stupid enough to believe that I can be the hero in your story, so I’m not even going to try, Posie,” he continued, and I could feel my chest cracking open with every word that he fired at me. “A real hero would be able to save you from your past, but we both know that’s not a possibility. So, while I might not be able to be the hero in your story, I’m strong enough to be everything else in it. I’m strong enough to be the one who will love you unconditionally for the rest of our fucking lives.”
I wanted to believe everything he was telling me. I wanted to believe Uncle Ramsey’s theories about a man in love. I wanted to believe that a dark fairytale was still a fairytale. I wanted to believe that those bastards hadn’t ruined my chances at loving someone freely. Nevertheless, the impossibility of it all was that I did want Killian to know when it was okay to treat me like a victim and when it wasn’t, and that was never going to happen. Mind reading didn’t exist, and I felt the weight of just how unfair this entire situation was.
“Yeah? Are you strong enough to uproot everything that you’ve worked so hard for?” I challenged. “Because I’m staying in Port Lucia, and I’m even starting my own call center here.”
Killian let out a dark laugh. “Do you really think I give a fuck if I have to move my main offices to Port Lucia to be with you, Posie? Do you think I’m going to go all analytical businessman on you and start running the numbers on what something like that would cost? Because, baby, I got news for you, I give two fucks about money. Yeah, it might be easy for me to say something like that because I have so much of it, but it’s still true.” I could hear him taking in a calming breath. “As for opening your own center, do you honestly think that would bother me? As far as I’m concerned, the more call centers there are, the more people that can be helped.”
