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“Shh … you don’t have to tell me.”
I’m not just doing this because it’s hard for her to talk about. I’m also doing it for me. Because I’m that girl who didn’t have parents, who lost them when she was too young to be an orphan.
And she’s the girl who wished them away.
It’s hard to empathize with that, but at the same time, I know there must be a reason for her to hate them so much, and it’s not my job to judge.
“What happens now?” I ask.
She smiles. “I don’t know. Tobias wants to keep me at the house in case I relapse.”
I look her directly in the eyes. “Is he good to you?”
She nods a couple of times. “Better than I deserve.” Her entire face flushes, and she attempts to hide it behind her hair, but I still notice.
I was so worried about her, yet when I look at her now, I only see a woman who’s survived the worst and lives to better her life. Someone who truly wants to repair the broken parts in her. But what’s driving her? It couldn’t be …
Tobias?
Could it be?
“Is this your room now?” I ask.
“Tobias wants me to stay here with him,” she says, a soft but quirky smile settling on her face. “So he can keep an eye on me.”
“Hmm …” I don’t know how to respond.
She gawks at me. “What?”
“Nothing.” I raise my brows and look away. “I was just thinking about how he treated you, and—”
“He treats me fine,” she interjects. “More than fine.”
“Right.” I smile. “Well, I’m glad.”
“Is Eli not treating you right?” she suddenly asks.
The question is so abrupt, so invasive, that I turn entirely silent, but my lips still part as though they have something to say. He did treat me fine … until I found out he was going to bring me back here when he knows I will never be happy with losing my freedom.
But isn’t it the same for her? She’s being kept here even after confessing her sins. What else could there be except for the mad cravings of men?
Doesn’t she hate him for it?
“Are you okay with Tobias keeping you here?” I ask.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
She makes it sound so normal. Like it was meant to be this way, but it’s not.
“You committed a sin, okay? Your grandparents decide not to have you prosecuted the regular way but send you here, fine. But you confessed. You were done. Why are you still here? You’re supposed to be free.”
She looks up at me with a certain melancholy in her eyes that reminds me of a forlorn woman waiting by the ocean for her longlost sailor lover.
“I … I … I don’t know,” she says, her cheeks turning strawberry red again.
I take her hand. “Is he keeping you here as a prisoner?”
“No!” She stands up, releasing herself from my grip. “No, it’s not like that.”
“But he’s one of them,” I say.
“Is that what you are to Eli?” she asks, raising a brow. “A prisoner?”
When I nod, she sighs and starts pacing around the room. “I’m sorry. It’s just that … that’s not at all what Tobias is like. Sure, he might be arrogant. And he’s definitely dominant …” Her face flushes with heat again. “But he’s also kind and gentle with me.”
She stops in her tracks and bends over to squish her stomach, and I immediately get up and support her before she falls over. “Careful.”
“Sorry … I forget how weak I still am,” she mutters as I help her sit back down on the bed.
“I get it,” I say.
“I hate what I did. All of it. The second I did it, I regretted it,” she says. “And I hate that I can’t ever take it back.”
We sit there for a while, not saying anything, but no words sometimes say more than any ever could.
“But more importantly, I hate how much I hurt him.”
Him? She can’t be talking about Tobias?
Has he twisted her mind so far, or has she truly fallen for him?
I swallow hard, considering my own fate and how I too have kissed Eli, willingly … and let him fuck me, willingly. Who am I to judge her choices if I made the same ones?
“I get it,” I say.
“Do you, though?” She raises a brow at me. “I mean, you don’t look madly in love to me.”
I snort and hide a blush behind my hand. “Well, no, not like that.”
“But in some other way, you do like him?”
“Liked,” I correct. “And it was only in a moment of stupidity.”
She chuckles, and so do I, and eventually, she ends up with her head against my shoulders. We sigh in sync. “We’re fucked, aren’t we?” I murmur.
She nods against me. “That’s what you get for sinning hard. The sins only come back to bite you in the ass.”
