Briella
Iexpected him to come back.
I waited for him to come back.
He didn't.
By the time the sun had risen, I had finally given up hearing his key in the door.
Our first fight and it had been a big one. I hated that he thought he could tell me what to do. That somehow because I was sleeping with him it gave him the right to dictate to me. If he had given me a chance to explain, he would have understood. I would have made him understand. He was always telling me how beautiful my soul was, according to him it was one of the things that had attracted him to me. Because I was selfless.
So why couldn't he understand that I needed to help those children, if I could. I had to. They were my responsibility when we were taken. If I didn't try and fight for them, who would? Their parents? Their parents didn't have a clue about the monsters that lurked in the shadows.
I did.
Most of all though I regretted what I had said to him as he headed out the door. I had called him a monster. And I had seen the pain burst into life into his eyes. I hadn't meant it. The moment the words left my mouth I had regretted them but by then it had been too late.
He was gone and I was alone.
Tommy wasn't a monster. Sure, the research I had done on the name Bloody Bones had brought back some blood curdling results. Tales of a gruesome creature that hid under the stairs and preyed on children. But they were just fairy-tales. And very old ones.
That wasn't the Tommy I knew.
Tommy was my hero.
The man I was in a relationship with.
The man I was falling in love with.
The realisation made me freeze, the mug of coffee I was holding fell from my fingers, which had gone suddenly numb. It hit the white tiles floor and shattered. Spilling its dark contents everywhere.
I stared down at it.
I was in love with him.
It shouldn't have come as a surprise but it did.
I didn't know when it had happened. Probably the moment I had spotted him across the auction. The way he had stared at me like I was the most beautiful woman in the world had taken my breath away. It was more than that though. He had made me feel instantly safe.
And what had I done? I had called him a monster. I had intentionally hurt him instead of trying to explain why I was doing what I was doing.
What did that make me?
A fool. That's what.
A damn pig-headed fool.
I needed to apologise. To tell him I didn't mean it. And beg for forgiveness if need be.
I didn't want our relationship to be over because I had spoken and said hurtful things before I had engaged my brain.
My entire adult life had been full of sacrifice and pain. Tommy was the best thing to have happened to me.
And I wasn't about to lose him without a fight,
Reaching for a cloth, I fell to my knees to clean up the mess my coffee had created. My mind was a million miles away from the task at hand, and a plan started to form in my head.
If Tommy didn't show up or answer my call by tonight, I was going to go to him.
