AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s silent now, at least on the outside. But, inside, my anger mixed with adrenaline is forcing my heart to thump, thump, thump in my eardrums.
I face Leo, beg with my eyes alone. “You think you could take Benny for a while?”
His gaze shifts from me to Mia, and this is how I know Leo’s a good man, how I felt like I could always trust him with her—he waits until Mia gives him a slight nod, letting him know she’ll be okay. Leo dries his hands on his shorts, then squeezes Benny’s shoulders. “Hey, bud. Why don’t we go try out that new drone your uncle Logan got you?”
Benny’s protests last all of two seconds, and all it took was a single look from his dad. I wonder now—when or how it is kids stop listening to their parents. Is there a point when we start questioning... when we realize that respect is earned and not just given simply because they birthed us?
I wait until I know Benny’s out of earshot before clearing my throat and looking at Mia. “Did you know?”
Mia’s eyes widen just a tad, and she shakes her head, looking toward the perfect parents she’s always wanted. “Know what?”
“Holden,” Mom says.
“Shut up!” I spit. It comes out loud, harsher than I expected, but I don’t care.
“Holden!” Mia reprimands.
“Did you know?!” I repeat, because it’s one thing for my mom to do what she did, butmy best friend… we’ve been through so fucking much together, and if she knew and didn’t say a word this entire time…
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she chokes out, her eyes coated with tears.
“She doesn’t know,” Mom says, and I finally trail my eyes to hers.
“Good,” I growl, teeth gritted as I cross my arms, widen my stance. “Then tell her.” Silence descends, and for seconds, no one moves. The air in the room turns thick, and it feels as if the walls are closing in me.“Tell her what you did!”
“It’s out now,” Joseph cuts in. “You obviously know, and that’s all that matters.”
Ah, so he doesn’t want his sweet, innocent daughter to know how much of afucking idiothe is. I ignore him, focusing on my mother again. “I want to hear it from you. Tell her.”
No one speaks, and all it does is set my rage into overdrive. Because here’s the fucked-up thing about this whole mess: I could easily blame myself for the way things turned out, just like Jamie has. Maybe if I’d told my mom my suspicions about Beaker, she would’ve never gone to the extremes she did. But, my mother never asked, never gave me the opportunity to fix the damage before it got out of hand. Instead, sheassumed, shejudged—a trait she despised in everyone else—and she jumped to a conclusion so far-fetched that it forced Jamie to run. Not to me. But toBeaker.All so she could askwhy—an answer she still hasn’t gotten five fucking years later. A question she’ll have to take to the grave.
“Fine.” I face Mia. “Jamie left me because my mom accused her of being a crackhead and blamed her for the attack.”
Mia gasps, her eyes almost as wide as her mouth.
But I’m not done. “And then your dear old daddy offered her a check to disappear from my life.”
“Dad!” Mia fumes.
“She didn’t take the money,” Joseph says, as if that somehow makes it okay.
“No fucking shit, she didn’t! Do you think you can put a dollar value on our life? Ourlove?” I scoff, letting all my pent-up fury pour out of me slowly, slowly. “We don’t all live in the world of Joseph fucking Kovács, where money rules over everything else!”
Mom speaks up, “We didn’t go there with the intention of—”
“Of what?” I cut in. “Of her fucking running away? That’s exactly what you intended, and you knew it was wrong. That’s why you waited until I was out of town to do it, so don’t come at me with this bullshit, Mom!” I shake my head, my eyes right on hers, eyes losing the fight to fake it. “You saw me at my worst when she left me. You saw my struggles, mypain…and I’ve spoken to you about her since we got back together. I told you she was living with me. I told you about our future plans and notoncedid you ever mention any of this!” I wipe the tears of betrayal from my eyes, from mysoul. “For years, you kept this from me… and you didn’t even warn me of what she might be walking into last night.”
“I don’t know what to say, Holden.” Mom openly cries now, her hands covering her face—no doubt hiding her shame—and as much as I want to go to her, to comfort her, Joseph does it for me. “I’m so sorry.”
I wish, more than anything, that it was enough. “You have no idea what you guys did to her,” I struggle to say. “You guys made her face the demons of her past—a man she spent years running from—becauseyou madeher believe she was everything you thought of her, everything she fought so hard to escape!”
Mom lifts her tear-soaked eyes to mine.
“And he killed himself in front of her!”
“Oh my god,” Mia cries.
“He put a bullet right through his fucking skull seconds after trying to choke her to death! She pissed herself, she was so fucking scared, but you know what the worst part is?” I sniff back the heartache and lift my chin, trying to stay as strong as the girl I love. “She was alone, Ma. I wasn’t there for her… and now she’s part of my life, and so are you, and she can’t look at you without seeing a dead man staring back at her… and that’s onboth of you.” I turn quickly and push open the door because I’ve said everything I need to.
