AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Forty-One
Malcolm
I call Brooks for the first time since he walked away four days ago. When it rings, I take a deep breath and ignore the clenching in my gut that tells me he’s deciding whether or not he wants to talk to me. Whether or not he cares enough to pick up the phone.
He answers on the fifth ring, his voice curt. “Malcolm.”
I don’t waste time saying hello, because bigger than he and I, is the fact that I had to leave Nala alone when she was hurt. “I need you to stop what you’re doing and check on Nala.”
“Why?” When I don’t say anything, he cusses and I hear Jordan’s voice in the background. “What happened, Malcolm? Is she all right?”
“I don’t know,” I say, and Jesus Christ, that’s like another dagger in the chest. Because if she’s not, it’s on me. I hurt her, and now someone else has to make sure she’s okay.
“Fuck, Mal.” This time his voice is softer, like he knows, but I don’t respond, don’t give him anything more. I just repeat my request.
“Can you just check on her? I need…”her. Fuck, I need her. Need you and Jacks. Need the family I somehow had and lost because of one decision. “I need to know she’s taken care of.”
I hang up, knowing that Brooks won’t let me down, however upset with me he is. Nala is his family, and he’ll take care of her.
I wanted to stay at her apartment and wait for him to get there. Even more, I wanted to pound on the bathroom door and force Nala to let me in, to let me show her that never, in my entire life, have I ever wanted to do anything to hurt her. All I’ve ever wanted to do is save her: from me, from everything and everyone that could hurt her.
But then her words were flashing around in my head, and I realized that exactly what I feared would happen if I ever touched Nalani Jansen did: I broke her, more than once, and she’d paid a heavier price than anyone deserved to for the choices I had made. If she wanted to be alone, away from me, the least I could do was honor her wish. Even if walking away felt like I was cutting out my own heart and throwing it away.
There’s the vise around my chest again, the one that’s making it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to do anything but feel the painful, crushing weight of knowing that I pushed Nala away. The girl I’ve wanted since before I was a man— I pushed her away, forced her to leave, because I couldn’t give her the one thing she asked for: honesty. Trust. Unconditional love.
Me.
Isn’t that what she had told me the first night we slept together, the night I went to her because I had finally realized that she was pulling away and I was no one without her? I’d looked at her, wishing I could find tenderness inside of me, and she’d said all she wanted was me, the person I was.
I had pretended to give him to her, but I hadn’t, not the way she’d given herself to me. I asked her questions—I forced her to open up to me, to let me in all of the way and see her, and I didn’t do the same. Even after it all, I was a pussy, keeping the real me, fears and insecurities and doubts, hidden, while I pushed her. Now she’s gone, and I’m home in my house, alone, like I was at sixteen when the last parent I had left this world.
It might be the realization that I am alone, well and truly alone, or the knowledge that Nala isn’t coming back and I’ve lost her for good this time, but before I acknowledge what I’m doing, there’s furniture crashing around my house. I upend the small coffee table, and when that’s not enough, I sweep the mail and other paraphernalia off the dining-room table and send that sailing, too. Chairs go next, then the bowl on the counter, a stray glass.
I set out to destroy anything I can get my hands on, because that’s who I am: the son of an asshole abuser, a man set out to harm everyone in his way. The apple didn’t fall far; I’ve not only broken crockery and cabinets, I’ve ruined my life because I was too selfish to give my girl the one thing she asked for.
My breath is heaving, my chest cracking right down the center, and the sound that comes from my mouth isn’t human.
Gone. It’s a chorus inside of my head, a track on repeat for my entire life.
Gone.
My biological mom.
Gone.
Katarina and Natalie.
Gone.
My asshole father.
Gone.
Brooklyn and Hunter.
And now,Nala.
Gone.
