AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It looks that way,” Xeno says roughly.
Placing the photo I’m holding back on the mantle I pick up another one where Louisa’s kissing Hudson passionately as a guy with a beard looks on adoringly. “They don’t care what anyone thinks, Xeno. All I see here is love. So much love…” My voice trails off as I try to wrap my head around what I’m feeling. There’s this pang of longing deep inside my chest. I want what they have so much. Placing the photo back on the mantle, I turn around to face him.
Xeno sighs heavily, his eyes tracing over every inch of my skin like flames licking up a pyre. The heat makes me breathless. “Love is dangerous.”
“You truly believe that?”
“I do. It’s a weakness other people will exploit. Love can be used against you. You know that better than anyone.”
“Yet you love me. So where does that leave us?”
“In a very dangerous position.” Xeno rocks on his feet, his fingers flexing and curling into his palm. He swallows hard and I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he battles with himself.
“What is it? Aren’t we past all the secrets and lies, Xeno?” I ask. He remains stubbornly quiet watching me with his assessing gaze for far longer than is comfortable. I wish I could get inside his head. Understand him better.
“Loving you makes us vulnerable. It makes you a target... Jeb was suspicious enough that he tested us. When we were kids, he knew that you were the one thing we cared about more than the Skins. You were a threat. You were the reason we held back—”
“Until I walked away.”
“It was a trigger, I can’t deny that, but being in the Skins was always an inevitability. Zayn had to join the crew, and we wouldn’t let him do that on his own. Like I said, youweren’tto blame. It was just a hell of a lot easier to do that.”
“Must be nice…” I say, feeling jealous of the loyalty and the brotherhood they share. At least they had each other.
“Nice?”
“Yes, to have that kind of bond. You would do anything for each other, even join a crew you hated.”
“Tiny…” The sound of my nickname on his tongue feels bittersweet. Every time he refers to me that way, my heart squeezes. If only that was enough. “We let you down.”
“I missed you all so much.” I meet his gaze with a sad smile. “I never once stopped thinking about you, worrying for you,lovingyou.” I heave out a sigh, but my lungs just refill with all the past mistakes we made, clogging them up with regret that starves me of oxygen. My head begins to spin, and I’m not sure whether it’s the lingering effects of the anesthesia and alcohol or the emotional drain of this evening’s events, but either way I suddenly feel exhausted. Xeno takes a step towards me but stills when he sees the look on my face. “When you returned, do you know what hurt the most, Xeno? More than your rejection, your harsh words and your hate?”
He shakes his head and keeps his gaze fixed on me. I see him drag in a breath and straighten his spine as though expecting to be felled by my last and final truth. “Tell me,” he demands, stoic.
“It was the family you’d created with each other,withoutme. That hurt more than anything, because whilst I was mourning your loss— dying a little inside every day, living with a woman who despised me, struggling to survive in the absence of affection— you were living a lifetogether. You were brothers. Inseparable. We’ll never get those years back. The only person I had was Lena. Thank God for her.” My eyes fill with tears, and this time when they spill over, I don’t try to stop them. I let them trickle down my face, needing the release. Needing to let this final shard of pain out. “So, yes, I agree, Xeno. Love is dangerous, but the alternative, to live without love, to feel the cold absence of it…That, that is so much worse. I know because I’ve lived it.”
He gives me a pained look, and for a moment I think he’s going to stride over and fold me in his arms. I want him to do that more than anything. Instead, he turns his back to me, presses his palms against the table and drops his head. “You should rest. I’ll wake you up as soon as the boys arrive.”
His dismissal doesn’t surprise me, I expected it. He’s still holding back. It’s that restraint that will ruin us in the end, that will keep us from having what Hudson clearly has with his family.
As I head back to the room I woke up in a few hours ago, I can’t help but wonder if we’ll ever be able to get over the mistakes of our past or if this brief reconnection is just an interlude for more agony yet to come.
