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CHAPTER18
Tati
Honestly?
This made things easier.
It madeit so much easier.
Before, I’d been so worried about Onyx and his wellbeing, wondering if I pushed too hard, made some kind of mistake. It wasn’t even about trying toforcehim to talk to someone. I just wasn’t cool with him shutting down on me.
And I didn’t have to be.
It wasn’t asking too much of him to participate in his own healing, if he wanted space in my life. There was too much shit going on, too much to process for me to have someone soaking up my mental energy with their trauma with no attempts from them to do any type of replenishing.
That wasnotunfair of me.
I did question my method though.
That probably could have used some work and that was where my concern lied.
I was worried that my actual fears had been buried underneath a miscommunication, worried that I’d scared him off.
I worried that he was somewhere not okay.
But hewasokay.
Clearly.
He was perfectly fine and he’d made his choice.
I could live with that.
I was pissed, most certainly, but I couldlive with it.
“Are you sure you’re good?”Keira had asked, when she dropped me off from our meeting with Zora and Asha Whitfield. I hadn’t even wanted to be out, but Asha and Zora wanted to open a woman-centered poker bar. That type of stuff was right up mine and Keira’s alley, and it would be a good investment for thePredators, which we needed right now.
So I tucked my little feelings aside and got dressed to meet them atBeauchamp’s. Besides the business aspect, I needed something—anything—to get this shit with Onyx off my mind.
Funny how that had turned out.
It was like my eyes had been drawn in their direction like a magnet. I noticed them first, well before Onyx finally noticed me.
I watched them laugh, watch her touch his face, watched him eat that shit up.
And every single bit of it underlined the obvious for me.
The shit between me and him?
That had been cute.
For a moment.
It had been what I needed, to be okay again after the assault, and it had gotten me through this other, messier shit. And maybe in time, I could carve out parts of it to be good memories, and bury the rest where all the other traumatic shit went to die.
In the meantime?
I was going to nurse wine like the heartbroken baby I was, my face wet with tears as I went to the rack in my kitchen to seek a fresh bottle. Keira had wanted me to come back to her house with her, but I refused.
