Page 105 of Changing Tides

“I was going to tell you everything tonight.”

I laugh in her face. “Sure you were.”

“I was. That’s why I wanted us to go somewhere alone after the festival. I told you I need to talk to you about something.”

“Well, isn’t that awfully convenient?”

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“Didn’t think or didn’t want? Because there’s a big difference.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats.

“About which part?” I howl in her face.

“All of it.”

I throw my hands in the air and stomp to the door.

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“Anywhere but here. I don’t want to look at you right now.”

I block out her guttural wails as I walk the fuck away.

“Sebastian.”

I come to a halt when I hear Amiya’s voice.

“Where’s Leia?” I ask without turning to face her.

“With your grandparents.”

I nod and start forward again.

“She loves you, you know.”

At those words, I finally spin to meet her gaze.

“She’s got a fucking funny way of showing it.”

“You’re right; it’s all a big, ugly, gnarly fucking mess, and she didn’t handle any of it correctly. You have every right to be angry. But you need to know that she wasn’t trying to hurt or manipulate you. She doesn’t have a manipulative bone in her body. Trust me, I’ve tried to find it and set it loose.”

I glare at her. Not in the mood for her shit.

“It just got too big, and she didn’t know how to dig her way out.”

“Yeah, well, she buried herself.”

Her eyes fill with disappointment, and she shakes her head.

“My God, you’re exactly the man she was afraid you’d be.”

With that blow, she twirls on her heel and walks away.

Avie

“Avie, time to get up, sunshine,” Amiya says as she slings the curtains shading the bedroom window open.

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