Page 204 of Cashmere Cruelty

“Let’s go,” I command.

For the rest of the way, all I can think of is April’s red-rimmed eyes. The sound of her sobs through a closed door. Forks scraping over empty plates.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Every night, I come back for dinner.

That’s my own brand of torture for myself: I can’t be honest with her, but I can’t stay away from her, either.

So I pull rank and make her sit with me.

It’s the worst thing in the world. I feel like the goddamn Beast. Like I plunged April into a fairytale gone wrong.

But then again, ours was never that kind of story. We never promised each other anything.Inever promised her anything. Only?—

I love you.

“Do you love her?”

Her voice overlaps with the memory of mine. It takes me a moment to untangle my words from hers—to figure out what she’s actually saying.

When I do, I want to fuckingscream.

Love her?Petra?I’d sooner chew on glass. What my brother sees in her, I’ll never understand. She’s moody, unpredictable, always trying to claw her way to the top, incapable of giving a shit about anybody else who might find themselves in the way.

She’s—

Too much like me, my mind whispers.

And April…

April is everything I’m not.

Warm. Kind. Always walking on her tiptoes, afraid to break the eggshells under her feet. Her whole life, she’s been taught that that was the only way to survive.

But I wanted to show her more.

I wanted to show her that family doesn’t have to mean misery. That it can be happiness, too. Me, her, our child—we could make a home. We couldbea home.

And now, she’s asking me if I lovePetra?

No, I want to scream.I don’t fucking love Petra: I loveyou, April Flowers. It’s always been you.

But then she’d have questions.

And I could never give her an answer.

Why?!A part of me goddamn howls.Why can’t you give her answers? Why can’t you come clean? Why can’t youtrusther?

“It’s none of your business.”

It’s like a sick game of back-and-forth. Every time I come close to telling her—to spilling my guts and then begging her for forgiveness—that other, older part of me whispers back,She’s not family.

She’s the mother of your child, the newer me argues.She’s your partner.

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