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I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.You can do this, Milla. You owe it to yourself.I reopened them, looking in turn at each one of them. God, they looked exhausted, but they still looked like every fantasy and reality I’d dreamed of.
“Nothing, and I meannothing—” I emphasised that word, because it mattered, and I needed to make my point clearer than I ever had before. “—can make up for how you’ve treated me over the past weeks.”
“I know,” Texas admitted defeat heavily in his voice. This wasn’t the angry, chaotic man I knew. He knew what I was going to say and was prepared for it.
“We’re sorry,” Preston voiced, looking crestfallen. “We didn’t know…” He shook his head. I didn’t fill in the gaps, but I knew what he meant. He didn’t know about Adam, about what I’d been through. Rehashing it wouldn’t change the past though.
“Thank you all for allowing me to sit in that room and see Adam get what he deserved. It had been a long time coming,” I told them honestly. That meant a lot to me. They’d given me a choice to be involved, and I grabbed it desperately, knowing somehow it would settle me to see that he was gone for good.
“You needed to be there,” Texas stated. I gave him a small smile; it probably came across more like a grimace.
I felt angry with them. With everybody, everything.
“Whatever occurred between us now needs to come to an end. I need some space and I can’t do this with you all…” I cut myself off before I admitted a deep well of pent-up feelings and emotions that had no place in this conversation.
I had nothing else to say to them, unless they wanted to stick around to hear me calling them assholes and cursing them out colourfully.I was tempted. They had to sense this was coming. They may not have known everything that was happening to me, but I was sure they’d felt a part of me dying, screaming out in need, but they ignored it. Instead of delving deeper into what they saw, and what they believed was real, they allowed their emotions to dictate their behaviour.
And I refused to become another punching bag for three more men when I’d just gotten rid of one. I couldn’t cope with anotherhim. I needed more, I deserved more, and I owed it to myself to find that. I owed it to my son. So regardless of how these three beautifully broken men’s souls called out with longing to mine, I rejected the notion of acting on it.
Never say never, but they had a lot to atone for before I’d even considered a future where they were a part of it. They said time was a great healer, but I knew that what had happened to me could never be healed completely. There were always going to be parts of myself that were so badly broken they were irreparable. Jagged edges that would cut those who weren’t careful.
For the first time in a long while, I realised I was okay with that. I could never go back to the innocent fourteen-year-old me who only housed goodness within her and knew nothing of the horrors of the world. I’d been through more trauma in my short life than many went through in their lifetime. Yet I couldn’t feel sorry for myself. I needed to scoop the tattered remains of my life and carefully piece myself into someone that I could live with long term. As much as I wished I could wipe the last few years from my mind in some freak experiment, I couldn’t.
My crumbled foundation needed to be rebuilt, to be impenetrable. Never again would I be at the mercy of another person, whether they were family or not. I didn’t care who it offended. My mental health had to come before anything and everyone. I wouldn’t hesitate to cut people off who brought more stress to my life than happiness. I’d endured one of the hardest things with nobody standing by my side, so I knew I could accomplish anything on my own.
“No.” Hollis stared at me with so much fire glowing in those ice-blue eyes that I had to turn away. “You don’t just get to throw away what we have just because we found out what happened to you. That’s not on us, we didn’t do that to you.” He vibrated with fury.
“I know you didn’t do it to me, and I don’t blame you for what I went through at all.” I just held a small bit of resentment for them not figuring it out, and that wasn’t healthy or fair. “But I do blame all of you three for how you made my life more difficult. You flaunted different girls in front of me. You spread rumours round making the whole campus stop and stare whenever I passed. I got fucking slapped by Barbie. I was drugged.” I narrowed my gaze at Texas and Hollis for those last two points. They had the decency to look ashamed as they winced.Good. I ticked each point off on my fingers.
“I won’t even go into how it made me feel and what I was dealing with at that time. Don’t expect me to fall back into your fucking beds just because you’re okay with it. I’m not.” I realised my hands were clenched tightly on my lap. I released them, ignoring the pain from where I’d dug my nails into my palm. I felt so bitter about it all.
“Have you slept with anyone else since me?” I blurted, instantly regretting what tumbled from my mouth without thought when their eyes lit.Yeah, I’m acting like a jealous girlfriend while pretty much breaking this thing off between us all.I was not helping myself here.
“No, none of us did. It was just for show…” Texas confirmed. I was pleased with that but also, fuck them.
“I love you so fucking much,” Preston choked out. His words stopped and restarted my heart. They were what I wanted to hear but didn’t at the same time.
“It’s not enough,” I declared. My voice was firm even though everything inside me felt like it was shutting down.
“Fuck’s sake, Milla!” Hollis snapped. He jumped up, made his way to me and pulled me off the armchair, smothering me in his arms with a bone-crushing hug. “My heart is yours, my little liar.” He detached himself from me, leaving the room swiftly and didn’t look back.
I glanced at the other two. They’d let their guard down allowing emotions to bleed through their eyes and it nearly floored me.
“Saying those three little words to you gives you a power, leverage of sorts to hold over me. But I’m done pretending that you haven’t owned my beating heart since we were kids. I’m done lying to myself. I love you, Milla, but I understand why you’re doing this. Three little words can’t take away what you’ve been through or what we’ve done to you, but they’re now placed within your mind, so you know without a fucking doubt that you stole my heart long before I realised it was missing and found itself a home outside my body,” Texas divulged, smiling gently, not smirking. It reminded me of the boy underneath the man. I believed that was the most level-headed thing he’d ever said. I was taken aback, so I just mindlessly bobbed my head.
“You aren’t getting rid of us,” Preston stated. He stood shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. I raised my eyebrow to rebuke that statement, but he carried on. “You do you, we’ll do us for now. Don’t think we’ll allow it for too long though.”
He clearly hadn’t listened to a word I’d spoken; I bit the inside of my cheek, not allowing myself to rise to the bait. It’d probably be what he wanted.
What the hell? It was like they’d all switched personalities. Texas was calm and accommodating, Hollis was raging mad, and Preston was being an inconsiderate asshole.
I couldn’t tell them how I felt about them. It would make it much worse, for me and them. They knew. Of course they did. But I could offer a small olive branch and part of my truth.
“It was always you three as well as Kai. When I needed something to cling onto to survive…”
With that statement left hanging in the air and silencing them, I turned round and left the room. I passed Hollis who was standing outside the door, so he would have heard every word I’d spoken.
It was time I focussed on myself. My choices, my life, my son, my freedom. And sometimes, love wasn’t enough.
