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“You have to stop,” she says, clenching her hands.
“Do not tell me what I must do, Mary,” I growl.
“I … I’m sorry, Sir.” She gulps. “But I care about you.”
“Don’t,” I retort. “Go help out Tobias. He will take over.”
“Take what over?” she mutters.
“Everything.”
Our eyes connect, and her pupils dilate with shock.
“What … but you can’t …”
“I can and I will,” I spit back. When the tears start to flow down her cheeks, I add, “Now go. I don’t need your pity.”
Tears well up in her eyes, and it pains me to see them, but I must look away. “Please, Sir. Don’t do this.”
“Those are the rules!” I yell.
My raised voice makes her step back. Good. I don’t want her here. Not now. Not when I’m at my most vulnerable.
“You know the rules must always be obeyed,” I add, my voice so raspy that it hurts, but I ignore it and grab the hot poker resting in the fire again.
“But you love her,” she murmurs.
The word makes me pause for a moment. “Love doesn’t exist when it’s not reciprocated.”
“What?” She makes a face, shaking her head. “NO. You fight for it!”
“I AM DONE FIGHTING!” I yell, maybe a little too loud.
But I don’t care anymore.
What’s done is done.
I have set Amelia free. And with that, I have committed the gravest of sins.
But I knew it when I first took her that this was the only logical conclusion to our passionate game.
“Now leave me. I have to prepare,” I say, and I march to the door and close it before she can interrupt me again and try to change my mind because it won’t ever work.
Rules are rules … and if I make others obey them … so must I.
Amelia
The first few days were so surreal that they didn’t even register properly. But the more time that passed, the more I became aware that I was truly free and that no one had followed me or chased after me. I was truly and utterly alone. And not only did that make me smile but it also frightened me a little.
I hadn’t been alone in ages, not since before Chris, who mysteriously “vanished,” according to his family. I told them he had disappeared on me after he cheated on me, and that I hadn’t seen him since. The cops never questioned me, and his family stopped contacting me after a while.
I don’t think they actually know I had something to do with it, which is a good thing, I guess.
I don’t want a target on my back. Especially not while I’m alone.
I have no one to fall back on, and that hits me hard.
But what hits me the most out of everything that has happened is that I’m still very much pregnant. And that somehow, someway, Eli still released me.
Did he not know? Did Dr. Audrey really keep my secret?
I take a sip of my tea, trying not to think about it, but I can’t stop myself. Because I sit here in this apartment solely because of Eli. He didn’t just buy it from the landlord and made sure it was crisp and clean and had new furniture. No, he even paid off my student loans.
Just like that, I am debt-free.
No more dangerous strip club work.
No more nit-picking about what I can and can’t buy.
And I even got my dream job at the library back.
How could I not be grateful for that?
Even Jamie was surprised to see me back. I don’t blame her. After I told her I was moving to a different city, only to reappear here as if nothing ever happened, she would obviously think I was a lunatic.
But I explained that I had moved in with my new boyfriend, but that we broke up again and that’s why I was back. I’m surprised she believed me, but I guess I can lie quite well. I simply said that it was all done and over with.
No more Eli.
And for some reason, that made my heart sink.
I thought I hated him. And after the stunt he pulled, I should.
But I can’t help but feel grateful that he did all this for me without expecting anything in return. Out of all the things he could have, he wanted only me … and then I was released.
Was it because I begged him to?
Or because I told him that I could never love him?
My hand that holds the teacup begins to shake. Suddenly, it becomes hard to breathe. I smash my lips together and put down the cup before I break that too.
When did it become so difficult to live with myself?
Just because I told myself I should hate him?
Should I despise him for what he did to me?
Even though, in the end, he still set me free.
It has to mean something, and I can choose to let it slide … or I can choose to care. To care about that choice. Because it matters.
