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Briar’s mom starts talking about gifts and it takes everything in me not to roll my eyes out fucking loud.
Of course, she's the one that wants to pull her daughter back into this crazy when she's the reason, at least mostly, that Briar hates today. The anger that rose up in me as Asher explained what happened to Briar’s little sister was stronger than almost anything I've ever felt in my life. Knowing she went through that because her mom was too dysfunctional to be able to actually be an adult. It makes me want to tear things apart.
The problem with being such a big guy is that when I get angry, things tend to end up very broken, so I've had to learn how to manage my rage over the years. But every time I look at Sofie right now, all I want to do is help Briar destroy everything that made her life as dark as it’s been.
"I’m going to go and get Briar," Sawyer says quietly and slinks out of the room. I'm only a little jealous of the fact that Briar is actually talking to him and Asher.
She's barely uttered a word to Travis and me since the night the engagement was announced, even with everything that happened with Professor Crawford. I can't say I blame her. I did sleep with her knowing what was coming, but that wasn'twhyI slept with her. I made her mine because I was finally done with denying myself the things that I wanted, even though I knew it was a bad idea and that I probably wouldn’t get to keep her.
I finally wanted to do something that was for myself, I wanted to have a moment with her that wasn't tainted by what I knew would be coming. I wanted her to do something with me because she wanted to rather than because she felt she had to.
I’m not the kind of guy to force anything upon anyone that they don't want. So yes, it was selfish of me to take that moment with her, but I also can’t make myself regret it because I know, in that moment, she wanted everything I had to give her… and I would happily give her the world over and over again if it meant that I could see her smile.
The girl who lights up my world appears in the living room, Sawyer at her side, with the puppies yipping at her feet. I'm jealous once again of how much affection she gives to the twins and to the puppies. I never thought I'd be jealous of the dogs and yet, here we are. This is what my life has boiled down to.
She makes her way over to us and sits next to Asher, with Sawyer sliding in on her other side. Shadow jumps up on her lap and the others sit around her feet. Fi and Hellion have been sitting with me and the boys ever since she went outside. They lift their heads to watch their puppies coming back, but then lower them back down as if nothing of any significance has happened.
Sofie bounces over to Briar and hands her a thin rectangular box.
"Merry Christmas, sweetheart," she says, drawing all eyes in the room onto Briar, and I can see her squirming in her seat. I clench my fists, knowing how much she hates the attention on her and how much she must hate it extra today.
"And where's my gift?" Sawyer asks, laughing beside Briar. And in that moment, I'm thankful for him for drawing attention to himself and making everybody laugh, distracting them from her.
Travis stands and heads toward the tree and starts handing out presents to everybody while Briar just stares at the box in her hands.
"What is it?" she asks quietly, looking at her mom.
Her mom doesn’t answer her, and Briar’s hands shake as she opens the small box. I watch as her eyes fill with tears as she takes a look inside. She closes the box and hands it back to her mom. "I don't want this. I don't want anything from you. The only thing that I ever wanted, you managed to take away from me, so now I'm done."
Briar stands and leaves the room once more. I gaze after her before turning to look at the twins. They both look bewildered.
"I’ll go after her," I say quietly, and make my way from the room, trying to follow the sound of the clicks of her heels on the hard floors.
Finding her sitting on the staircase, tears streaming down her face, I perch beside her on the step and pull her into my side, letting her cry onto my chest. I don't care about mascara running down her face or staining my shirt. I don't care about any of it except her. Seeing her cry makes me want to tear her mom to shreds, consequences be damned.
"Is there anything I can do?" I ask so quietly that she doesn't hear me, or maybe she just doesn’t answer me. She just continues to cry silently while I hold her and keep my mouth shut. So I sit with her, letting her be whatever she needs to be right now. All this while knowing that I'm probably not the person she wants sitting here with her, but also knowing that there isn't anywhere else I would rather be.
* * *
I sit in the suite the Kensingtons allocated to her and wait for her to finish in the shower. The sound of running water tells me she's still trying to put herself back together after crying so hard that she needed to get away.
So I accidentally spilled my drink down her shirt, giving her the best kind of excuse to escape for a little while.
I stare at the bare room, wondering what it must be like for this to be her life now. I've never really considered her position before, or how insane all of this must be for her.
For the rest of us, this is just life: the plots, the planning, the twists and turns. This is what we learn to navigate before we even hit double digits. But life was never like this for her.
Sure, she had challenges, but they were entirely different from the ones that we’ve had to face, and having heard about some of hers, I'm not sure I would have survived her challenges the way that she has, so gracefully battling through the horrors life has thrown at her.
The sound of the shower shuts off and I sit up straighter, waiting for her to emerge from the bathroom. When she pads into the room in just a towel, it's hard not to stare, and I shut down every basic urge that I have to run away with her every time that she's around. All I have to do is look at the sadness in her eyes and it’s like a sharp slap of reality, throwing me back down to Earth.
"Are you feeling any better?" I ask her as she moves toward the bed and sits cross-legged in front of me. She just shrugs before patting down her wet hair with a towel.
I hand her a brush from the bedside table and she starts brushing it out while we sit in silence.
What should be an awkward moment just isn’t, except for the whole engagement thing hanging over us.
"I’m sorry I didn't tell you what my father had planned. And I'm sorry I deceived you. I'm also sorry that I slept with you without telling you about everything, but I'm still not sorry about anything that happened between us."
