AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s not what I meant,” he replied. “Don’t get inside your head please, Genevieve. What I mean is, we can’t pretend the last three years never fucking happened. We’d be setting ourselves up for failure. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Killian drew in a deep breath as he crossed his arms and leaned back against the couch. The blanket fort was a weirdly comfortable place to have this conversation. There were pillows to cuddle and blankets to burrow into. Even he had a hard time looking intimidating with a crocheted blanket tossed over his feet. “I’d like to hear about the last three years for you, and then I’d like to tell you about my last three years. After that, we need to figure out how to move forward.”
“I think your last three years have been more exciting than mine,” I muttered. Pulling my legs to my chest, I rested my chin on my knees and stared at him. I clicked my tongue piercing against my teeth as I debated what I was supposed to say. What was the best thing to say?
“When did you get your tongue pierced?” he asked, giving me some gentle direction.
“Oh, that. The first Fall Games after you… it was after… ”
“Genevieve,” he interrupted. “We have to be able to talk about it. There’s no future if we can’t talk about it.”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “The first Fall Games after you left, I went with Nolan. I didn’t go to the games themselves. I didn’t even stay in the clubhouse. There was a spa place that I went to, though I never got a massage. I should’ve gotten a massage. I just needed to get out of Cedar Harbor for a while. Bea did all my piercings.”
“At once?”
“In one sitting, yeah.”
“That had to hurt,” he commented.
“Not really. It hurt less than everything else I was feeling.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. His pained expression hit me straight in the heart. “I don’t know… I don’t know how to say it without it… I don’t know how to say it without hurting you.”
Reaching out, he took my hand and kissed the back of my knuckles.
“I need to hear it, Genevieve,” Killian said softly. “It’s going to fucking hurt, but I need to hear it. Please. The pain is inevitable. It’s part of the damn process.”
I nodded and kept going because he was right. Through the hurt was the only way we’d make progress.
“It broke me,” I whispered rather pathetically. I blinked back tears, knowing I couldn’t do a single thing to stop them. “All of it broke me. Both of you were just… gone. And I didn’t have anyone… it was just me. Everyone knew I ended up in the hospital but not why. I couldn’t tell people why. And they knew you were gone. George asked if I wanted to file a missing person’s report, but I knew you weren’t missing. I didn’t know where you were until you answered my call after six months.”
“I did?” He frowned. I’d thought as much. “I don’t remember.”
“You were drunk.”
“What did I say?”
“I don’t want to—”
“What the fuck did I say to you, Genevieve?” Killian demanded. Despite his tone, he wasn’t angry. Distressed maybe? Worried? I couldn’t quite place it.
“Please… I don’t…” But I didn’t want to tell him.
“Genevieve.”
“You told me to go fuck myself.” I could barely say the words out loud. For a long time, I’d clung to the words he’d said as punishment. Some kind of horrible message I needed to hear. Even now, I had to gently remind myself to separate Killian from his drunken thoughts. While I wasn’t positive as to exactly how I knew alcohol was a problem for him.
“What else?” he asked through clenched teeth. I tightened my hold on his hand, trying to convey some kind of comfort.
“You told me you’d rather be dead than come home to me… that I wasn’t your family.” The words were so ugly. “You said… you said if you could go back and never fall in love with me you would—that you’d always regret marrying me. You said I ruined everything good in your life, and your life was better without me. And you told me that if I knew what was good for me, I’d pretend you were dead and move on. You said you weren’t coming back to me ever and to leave you the fuck alone.”
“Fuck.” His head tipped back on the couch, and he covered his face with his hands. Remaining silent, I watched his chest heave with mild fascination. Was he crying? Killian never cried. I’d never seen him cry. He buried everything so deep that I wasn’t sure he even could. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” he replied, his words muffled. “That… that was… fuck. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Killian—”
