Page 113 of Jump on Three

His grip on my shoulders tightened to the point of pain, but I let him have it. I remembered Delilah’s anguish in the days that followed when I admitted all that had been going on the past couple years. She hadn’t left my side, not for a single second, and had moved heaven and earth to get me far, far away from there.

If Ivan was feeling even a tenth of what Delilah had, he must have been hurting. I stroked his cheek and the side of his neck, whispering I was okay now. I was whole. I’d moved past that locked room.

“Delilah doesn’t know about Layla, does she?”

My mouth pressed in a tight, straight line. I shook my head.

He nodded, his head falling forward heavily on his neck. “You were letting it happen again and didn’t say a word. Why doesn’t your sister know? Why haven’t you let her defend you?”

“I can’t. You don’t get it. My sister…she gave up too much to leave with me. I cannot ask her to do that again.”

“She would, though. Delilah would leave this place if you needed her to.”

“I know it too. This is why I cannot tell her. She left behind the guy she really loved to come with me to Savage Academy. All her friends, her classes…I will not put her in the position to feel like that’s her only choice. I can handle Layla.”

“Why are you not accepting that you don’t have to deal with Layla on your own? I do not understand. If you’d told anyone, surely you could have gotten help. You intended to deal with this until graduation, didn’t you?”

His tone was gentle, but his words were accusatory. It wasn’t surprising that he didn’t get me. I could be rigid, but that wasn’t why I’d kept Layla’s abuse to myself. Not many people could comprehend a twin bond. I would put Delilah above me if it meant keeping her happy. And the kicker was she would do the same. That was why. She would give up Rhys and our friends to get me away from Layla if I told her.

I nodded. If I had anything to say about it, Delilah would never, ever know.

“When we were seven, I had a very narrow diet, even more than now. The only thing I ate for breakfast was the small cup of vanilla yogurt we were given every day. The nuns at our school had noticed Delilah giving me hers too, so I would have enough to eat and didn’t approve of this. Probably because it had given us too much autonomy, so they gave her an ultimatum: stop giving me her yogurt, or she would only get a bowl of porridge for breakfast from then on. Delilah hated porridge. It would make her sick. The nuns knew this, of course. What they hadn’t counted on was the strength of my sister’s willpower. She’d forced herself to eat porridge, had even convinced herself she loved it after a few weeks, so she could keep giving me her yogurt.”

He stared at me from under furrowed brows. Frustration bled from his expression to his tight hold on my shoulders, but he did not say a word.

“Layla is my porridge. She isn’t hurting me; I just really dislike her. But I will swallow down everything she does so Delilah can have Rhys, Luc, Bella, this school, California. She loves it here, and I adore her being happy.”

His nostrils flared as he inhaled a long, deep breath. “But you’ve had to eat porridge.”

“I have. But there are two other meals each day, and I can eat whatever I want. I can have my friends, my team, California—I can have you. I know you will not agree with my choice, but it’s mine to make.”

“I don’t agree with it,” he grumbled.

“Okay.”

I would not fight him on this. There were many things I wasn’t certain of, but this decision was final. There was no way past this I could see.

My chest was tight, but at the same time, a deep crevice was forming. An impossible feeling I thought must be something like heartbreak.

“You should let me go, please.” My throat was so thick my plea was little more than a rasp. “I need to go.”

“What? No, I am not letting you go.”

I shook my head. “We are at an impasse. You don’t like my choices, and I won’t change them. I understand, okay? I don’t want to hear the words. I already understand.”

“Evelyn.” He nudged my chin with his knuckle, but I kept it tucked to my chest, unable and unwilling to look head-on at his disapproval. “What words, angel? What are you running from?”

“If you need to say them, can you text me? I’ll read it, just…not right now. I’m not ready to read that now.”

Not when my chest had cracked in two and my mind could not comprehend how we’d gotten to the end so quickly.

“Evelyn,” he snapped. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. If you need to leave, I will let you, but first, tell me what I’m supposed to be texting you. I haven’t a clue.”

Oh no. He was going to make me say it. I couldn’t. I tried to slip off his lap, but he held on to me. He said he’d let me go and he was already going back on that. Why wouldn’t he let me go?

“Talk to me, angel. Please explain why you’re shutting down. Is it because I disagree with you?”

His hold on my shoulders turned into a slow slide of his palms on my biceps. Smooth and warm, it would have put me at ease if I wasn’t so inwardly distraught.

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