Page 53 of Mayflower

Maddy, my beautiful girl, is not a tiny movement. She is an avalanche of emotions. And now she is telling me she loves me.

I should’ve said it back. I should’ve screamed it from all the rooftops of Ayana long before she was kidnapped. But I was a coward.

Feeling her wrap around me makes it even harder to contain myself.

“I love you, Rave,” she says quietly. “And I want you to accept it. Because I won’t stop telling you that.”

I push off the wall, run my palm over my face to wipe away water, and turn around. Right away, I kiss her. Kiss her as hard as I can, hoping to balance my feelings out.

But she pulls away. There’s a smile on her face, that saintly kindness that always takes my breath away.

“Don’t take my softness for weakness, Rave. Because next time, I will trade myself for you. Next time, I will kill for you.”

She says it with a smile, the words that twist me on the inside, letting the awful memories rush to my head and pound in my ears again.

“Don’t say that,” I whisper, fear crawling back into me through the sound of the running shower. “Please, don’t say that.”

She has no idea.

“But I will, Rave. I am capable. I know how. And if something threatens what I love, I will kill. It’s a promise. You are mine.”

I shake my head furiously and cup her face, trying to fight the bile that’s rising to my throat, the guilt from what happened the last time someone did that for me. “Don’t. Take it back. Take it back, now. Please.”

She only smiles, a little confusion in her eyes. “But you killed for someone you loved, Rave. Years ago.”

She means Emily. She means the limited story I told her. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know.

“No.” I shake my head. “No, Maddy.”

She can’t say shit like that. That’s not how it works. I’ve been there. It backfires, that sort of love. It never ends well.

She frowns a little. “You did. Don’t tell me I can’t. Because you did. For Emily.”

Here it is, the moment of truth.

I swallow hard. “No, I didn’t.”

Her frown deepens. “You went to jail for stabbing your foster father. For her.”

“I did.”

“You said you stabbed him. Eleven times.”

I shake my head. “I didn’t,” I say so quietly that I hope she doesn’t hear it, but the truth needs to come out. “She did.”

I close my eyes and bow my forehead to Maddy’s shoulder. Her hands cup my head, and I feel so fucking weak.

But I start talking, for the first time telling someone what really happened. Something I only told Mac.

I was doing the right thing. Back then, when I returned to that monster’s house, I was determined to avenge Emily. But I was young, stupid, angry. Too angry. I was distracted by that anger when he slammed a bottle against my head. He tied me, half-conscious, to a chair, like he had so many times before. He was going to cut me. Just like before. For fun. Laughing drunkenly. But this time, Emily was there, standing wide-eyed in her pajamas, tears streaming down her face. I remember hearing his words, “Now you will watch what happens to this useless piece of shit.” And then I blacked out.

“I couldn’t do anything. So she did it instead,” I say almost in a whisper. “With the broken bottle she picked up off the floor. When I came to, my ties were loose. His body lay on the floor in a pool of his own blood. And Emily’s tearful eyes were on me, the bloodied broken bottle still in her hand. She said the words that broke me that night. ‘I couldn’t let him do that to you anymore.’”

A sob shakes my chest. I grit my teeth. I shut my eyes close, feel Maddy’s hands stroking my head.

“She said that, Maddy. The girl who went through hell. Who was four years younger than me. Who was broken, used, forced to do horrible things. And yes, when I went to juvie, I thought I was saving her, paying for the crime I didn’t commit but doing the right thing by her. I only understood later what that did to Emily. When she sent me the last letter. I didn’t know it was the last…” My voice breaks, and I take a deep breath. “The last one… ‘I want it to end,’ she wrote. ‘I never meant to hurt you. You weren’t supposed to pay for it, Mathew. I am sorry. Please, forgive me. Because I will never forgive myself for you taking the blame. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’”

I take in a shaky breath and exhale through my lips.

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