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I shook my head from side to side in denial. I knew that, I really did. But knowing it and hearing it were two very different things.
"The twins," I choked out. God, what would happen when they found out? They had abandonment issues, and both had made me promise to never leave them. They would see this as the ultimate betrayal and it would rip them apart. Why hadn't I thought about this sooner, why hadn't I thought about all of the consequences before?
And now that I was thinking about them, could I still go through with it?
I had to, because for Dash, I imagined I could do anything, even when he acted like he hated my guts. That was okay, it had to be.
"Do you know what bothers me the most about this?" I asked in a quiet voice that shook with emotion. Neither of them answered me, they both stared at me with wide, stricken eyes. "They didn't even bother to ask me why. They just automatically assumed I'm just like Annabell and that was that. How could they think that of me after all this time? Have I ever once so much as even acted anything like her or given the impression I'm anything at all like that nasty woman? No, no fucking way. Yet they both acted like it was the easiest thing to swallow, like they had been just waiting for me to turn sour on them. How messed up is that?"
If I was being honest with myself, that hurt me more than actually seeing them hurting. Selfish, I knew, but I was allowed to be selfish every now and then, especially given what I was about to do. But, seriously, how could they so easily think the worst of me? Tyson and I had just shared something beautiful together and he'd told me he loved me, something he told me all the time.
I knew she'd hurt him very badly, but I thought he'd gotten over it. Had I been wrong about that? Should I not have slept with him? Did this mean he still had feelings for her and was projecting his bullshit with her onto me?
Maybe I was thinking too much into it and they'd simply been hurt and lashing out. That was understandable, though it hurt like a mother.
I swallowed down the lump suddenly lodged in my throat and almost choked on my own stupid emotions. There was no time for them here, no room to question my actions. Later, I could cry and worry then.
"Julian," I said, and had to pause to clear my throat. "I need you to make something for me, and I need a rush order on it because they are coming to get me tomorrow. Quinton will tell you what I need. I'm going to go pack and hide out in my room. Please, just leave me be for right now. I need some space for myself for a while. It's nothing personal, I just... need to be alone."
Neither of them looked like they liked it very much, but they let me go and I practically ran to my bedroom. I shut the door behind me, and even though locks in this house were relatively pointless, I locked the door anyways. Maybe someone would try it, find it locked, and think twice about barging in on me.
All I knew for certain was I absolutely hoped Tyson and Dash stayed the hell away from me, because I could take no more of their abuse before something inside me broke beyond repair and I wouldn't be able to come back from it.
As much as I wanted to crawl into bed and bawl my eyes out, I wouldn't allow myself the luxury of doing so just yet. Instead, I dug a duffel bag out from my closet and very quickly packed it with the essentials I thought I might need. I did this as fast as humanly possible and got the heck out of there. I absolutely did not want to run the risk of bumping into Dash again so I could be verbally destroyed. Therefore, I needed to avoid the spaces we shared together. I didn't think it was right that, since he was so upset with me, I used any of our shared spaces. I didn't want him to have to be around me if that was the last place he wanted to be.
So I wouldn't use the bathroom in here or go into the closet again. I could do that if it made things easier for my ginger boyfriend. In the end, he would forgive me and still be one of my boyfriends, this I was certain of, I just hoped like hell he'd be able to forgive himself.
If I thought I could get away with it, I'd take my duffel bag down to the room I'd originally used while staying here, but I figured that would piss Quinton off because there literally wasn't anything in there anymore, the whole place had been cleared out when I moved in here.
I would ask if I could spend the night in Quinton's room, he'd have absolutely no problem with me staying with him, but I didn't want to cause more problems for him. He would try to defend me from the rest of the guys and they wouldn't look at him kindly if they thought he didn't have a problem with me leaving. It would cause more problems between the guys, and though I might be selfish from time to time, I would never do that to Quinton, or any of them for that matter.
When I finished packing, I locked my closet door from the outside and then went around and locked my bathroom door from the outside as well.
I sat the duffel on the edge of my bed, plugged my phone into the charger on my nightstand, and crawled on top of the comforter. I scooted along until I was in the middle of the bed and leaned back against the headboard. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs. I sat there like that for a really long time, thinking about nothing and trying hard not to cry.
Hours later, when I knew it wouldn't work no matter how hard I tried, I uncurled from my position and stretched across the bed toward the nightstand I actually used to dump things on. I grabbed the remote off the top and leaned back against the headboard. I hit the power button on the remote and turned the television on. I debated for a few minutes on what to watch and finally clicked on the Amazon Prime App. It took me to the home screen and I arrowed over until I could click on purchases and rentals.
Everything Tyson and I had been watching showed up, and I quickly scrolled through until I found something that had just been for me, something I had watched all on my own. I know it seemed stupid, but I couldn't watch something that would remind me of him because his words were already haunting my mind. I figured watching something we had together would only make it so much worse.
There wasn't much there that I'd watched on my own, everything came attached with memories of either Tyson or the group of guys as a whole. I clicked on The Challenge. I'd only ever watched that myself because I hadn't found one of the guys who enjoyed it yet. I enjoyed watching it becausehello!CT was fine, even with his dad bod, and people like Bananas and Wes were hilarious.
I picked a season at random, I owned all of them that you could own through Amazon, and picked an episode at random as well.
It took three episodes straight of me crying silently nonstop through each one for exhaustion to take over, and I finally passed out lying on my bed, on top of my comforter, curled up in a tight ball.
I woke up to someone removing the headband from my hair, and then my hair being pushed back from my face.
I blinked my eyes open and stared up into silver eyes. Not exactly who I'd been expecting to find looming over me in my bedroom.
"Trenton?" I asked sleepily. "What are you doing in here?"
I brushed his hand away from my head and sat up quickly. I stretched my arms up above my head and scooted back a little, putting a safe distance between the two of us. I really did not want to go through another round of someone telling me how crappy of a person I was. It hurt way too much.
He leaned in further and shoved his face right in mine. He didn't look angry like the others had. He didn't look anything other than curious and very, very alert. His hand came up to my face and cupped my cheek lightly. The soft, careful touch of his hand didn't match the intensity of his eyes.
"Tell me what's going on," he whispered harshly. "You should know by now that you can trust me and you can trust my brother. We aren't going to judge you or call you bad names, or reference you to some other woman who blew through our lives forever and a day ago and should have no bearing on you or our relationship with you whatsoever. I don't know what the fuck is the matter with your coven right now, but I am not them, I am not even like them in the slightest. My brother and I are bound to you for life, and nothing you do will ever change that unless you're dead. Only then it won't matter because we'll both want to die too."
My mouth dropped open, and I whispered back, "Don't say things like that. I don't want to think about either you or your brother dying. If something happens to me, I want you both to go on living your lives, and I want you to find a girl to fall in love with and make lots of babies with and live a life happily ever after. I want your brother to do that too. I've sat money aside for the both of you in case something happens to me, you'll both be set for life. I've made sure of it."
