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He smiled at me, maybe the most genuine he’d ever given me. “I know.” He stepped past me but his hand remained on my shoulder. “Come on, why don’t you stay in the house tonight? We need some genuine family time before you move, anyway.”
I reluctantly stood up and followed him out of the pool house, realizing the reason he’d been standing out there in the first place was to stop me from going to the Mason’s. Probably at the request of Dan. I’d give them space for now, but I wasn’t waiting until tomorrow. I’d sneak up to her window later tonight if I had to.
As we walked across the yard, my father said, “And come and visit more this time around. You didn’t visit enough when you were living in Hawaii. The family doesn’t feel complete without you here.”
I smiled but didn’t disclose to him how much I truly needed to hear that.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Penelope
Ididn’trememberopeningmy front door or shutting it behind me. I didn’t remember any step I took until I was standing in the entryway of my parents’ house, my entire family staring after me from the hall, apparently waiting for me.
The same devastation in Carter’s eyes now shined in all of theirs.
Along with pity.
My throat began to tighten. Tendrils of invisible black smoke gripped around my neck, clenching it shut. My stomach was a funnel swirling with despair, my chest was concaving inside me and– I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.
My limbs were going numb, and my brain felt mushy, the room spinning around me. I needed to get away. Get out. I couldn’t face them. I couldn’t face any of this anymore.
My father stepped toward me but I shook my head and made an immediate right, bounding up the stairs and racing to my room, slamming the door behind me and hoping it would speak the words I couldn’t.
I grabbed a duffle bag from underneath my bed and filled it with the clothes I had kept unpacked to get through the next ten days before my move. I threw in my toothbrush and maybe some other things, unable to even comprehend what I was packing. All I knew was that I needed out. I needed to leave. I was going to start driving tonight. That’s what L.A. had always truly been, my escape hatch. My plan when this all blew up in my face.
Because I’d always known it would.
Except, I hoped it wouldn’t. Ireallyhoped it wouldn’t.
When I began unraveling my past, my therapist convinced me I could not only heal from it, but that I move forward from it too. With Carter. With my family. With myself. That I wasn’t a villain, but a victim. I began to believe her. I let myself believe her. I thought I could take all the pain and turn it into something more. Something better.
I was so fucking wrong.
I should’ve never even tried.
Because it hurts less to hate yourself than to believe you deserve love and realize you don’t.
I couldn’t hear through the raging in my head, I couldn’t see through the watery veil that coated my eyes. The only thing that existed in this darkness were the words that echoed through my ears over, and over, and over again:You deserve this.
It was screaming, pounding as my skin was being ripped apart from the inside out.
I wasn’t the type of person who could be loved and accepted unconditionally, I never had been and had always known it. Deep inside the depths of my body, the pit of my stomach, that awareness was there. I pressed it away, pushed it down, ignored it. But I’d always known I was a burden. A burden on my birth father, so much so that he left before he’d ever even seen my face. A burden on my mother, so much so that she turned to drugs and died. I was adopted into a new family out of pity for the orphan my dad found in that hospital waiting room. I tried to give it back. Give back all that I had taken from others. I tried to be the best at everything I did. A daughter worth having. I couldn’t– I failed. I became a burden to them too.
A burden and a disappointment. A person incapable of being truly loved, that look on Carter’s face being all the confirmation I’d ever need that those deepest fears held true. He’d never forgive me. If even he couldn’t love me, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find someone who could. And I didn’t want to. I’d only ever wanted him.
If even he couldn’t love me, then I wanted to be alone.
I wanted to leave– run.
A knock sounded at my door.
“No,” was all I could croak through the streams of tears.
I stilled my trembling hands as I realized that in order to leave, I’d have to get past my family. They wouldn’t let me go. My throat began to constrict again, my lungs collapsing in on themselves. I tried gulping back mouthfuls of air but nothing was going in. I felt like I was gagging on my own tongue as I slipped to the ground, pulling my knees to my chest.
? ? ?
The haze only started to clear when the rocking began. I wasn’t moving my own body, something else was. Vibrations bounced inside my ears, but I couldn’t understand them. My eyes were closed. I couldn’t remember where I was. Splashes of light dotted the inside of my lids as I realized I’d been squeezing them tightly. My entire body had been clenched and tense. Even though I couldn’t breathe, I became aware of my chest moving up and down, the air going in and out of my nostrils. Those vibrations in my ear came through sharper, clearer. Someone was whispering to me.
