Page 79 of Inevitable

In a blinding moment of outrage, I threw my phone against the wall with a shout, grabbing my hair and yanking it hard. The pain was just enough to pull me back and give me some clarity over the moment. Micah rushed over to me, trying to grab for my hands to remove them from my scalp.

“No! Don't touch me!” I barked, backing away out of his reach. He looked at me like I had slapped him, eyes wide and slightly frightened.

“But…I don't understand, what happened?” he murmured. The common urge to take him in my arms and soothe him was crushed by the anger and guilt blaring in my brain.

“What happened? My mother was locked up in a psych ward because of me! Because I was too fucking selfish to keep her safe!” I yelled, tears muddling my vision of him.

Micah looked bewildered, eyebrows pulled low as he tried to make sense of what I was saying. “What do you mean? I don't get it, why would your father do that to her?”

I let out a frustrated growl and started pacing the room like a caged animal. “He did it because he found out about you and me. This is what I was afraid of the whole time.Thisis the one thing I worked so hard to avoid and why I couldn't choose you to begin with! This all happened because of YOU!” I lost it. My heart was screaming at me to stop right then before I said things I couldn't take back, but I was well past any good sense. I was nothing but fire and fury, blind to everything I felt for him.

“Me??” Micah grated. I could tell when the pieces clicked into place for him. “Is that…is that what your dad's real threat was? Is that what had you so scared to choose us from the beginning?”

He took my silence as confirmation, and he scoffed, shaking his head. “I don't believe it…why would you keep that from me? Why would you lie to me and say you had everything under control with him when this is what was at stake? Why didn't you trust me with that, Bash?”

“Because I was a goddamn idiot!” I snarled. “I couldn't let you go despite everything, even knowing what it could cost me. I chose you thinking that it would be okay, that it couldn't possibly go wrong, but it did! This is all my fault! I never should have started any of this with you! I ruined everything that night at UNT. I never should have kissed you to begin with!”

Micah's face fell instantaneously, the wrath of my words unlocking the secret I had kept hidden away from him for months. I knew he realized it. I felt our foundation crack and shatter at my feet with that single sentence.

I stared at him, holding my breath as I begged God to be able to take back what I just said, to put Pandora back in the box I had just thoughtlessly opened.

“Oh my God…no. Oh no, you didn't…please tell me you didn't do that to me,” Micah cried, his voice pleading through a river of tears making their way down his beautiful, devastated face. “Please tell me you didn't lie to me about that.”

I couldn't tell him that. I couldn't take back what I had said, and he saw the truth in my eyes. I remembered that night. I rememberedevery second of it.

Micah's tears came harder, his sobs wrenching my heart and flaying me alive, but I was stuck in my own guilt. There was no forcing myself to his side to comfort him because there was no fixing this.

“How could you? You lied to me! Not just once, but so many times that I don't even think you know all of them!” he screamed at me, the desolation wrecking him. “I have never lied to you, Bash. I never could. I trusted you more than any other person on the planet and you fucking stabbed me in the back! You remembered everything about our night together! You knew how much it meant to me because I fucking told you so, and you pretended to forget?! How could you do that to me?”

His words gutted me alive, making me wish I could curl up in a ball on the carpet and never move again. I had ruined him, ruined us. It wasn't just my mom who suffered because of me, but Micah as well. It was all because of me.

Micah stomped back into the bedroom, rustling noises of clothes being thrown on reaching my ears. I just stood there, hardly breathing and my heart barely beating.

He came thundering out of the room, not sparing me another glance on his way to the front door with his bag fully packed and thrown over his shoulder. That one sight knocked me out of my stupor enough to call out to him.

“Micah, wait!” I reached out even though he was far away. He spun around, his face painted with tears of anger and heartbreak.

“NO!” he shouted, stopping me in my tracks. “Don't you fucking come near me! I never…I never thought you'd make me hate you. I thought it was impossible, but no. I hate you. I hate you for ruining us from the start. We never stood a chance, not when you can't stop lying to me. I doubt you can even be honest with yourself. Leave me the fuck alone and don't contact me again! Go to hell, Bastian!”

With that, he flung open the front door and marched out, slamming it behind him with a deafening finality. The moment I heard my full name fall from his lips, I broke. I crumpled to the floor and let misery pull me under.

CHAPTER 28

Bastian

Istayed sprawled on the floor for at least a couple of hours after Micah ran off, incapable of moving or thinking without sharp pain lancing through me. I felt his loss like shrapnel, ricocheting off every bone and organ in my body. I had lost my best friend and the love of my life in one fell swoop, and I didn't think there was any way to come back from that.

Micah's scathing accusations were all justified. He was right about everything. My lies and secrets had leeched poison into our relationship from the beginning, infecting us and festering in the dark until I shined a harsh light on it in a moment of anger. Looking back, this was the only way we were going to end up. I had known from the start that we were playing with fire and my mother could get burned, but I was naive enough to think Micah and I were strong enough to withstand the fallout.

I tried to protect him, but I was a goddamn idiot. I couldn't keep him from harm when I was the one causing it. My dad didn't have to do anything to Micah to fracture our relationship, to tear us apart.

I did that all on my own. It was all me and my fucked up decisions.

I couldn't stay in my apartment for another minute. I kept smelling his scent, hearing his voice, and seeing his face, and it made my stomach churn violently. My heart was clamped in a vice, gripped tight by the agony of losing everything I held dear in the space of a single morning. I couldn't do anything about my relationship because it was over. I had lost Micah. Even if I managed to stem the flood ofresentment from my mom's hospitalization, I was powerless to fix the damage my lies had caused.

The only one thing I could do now was try to help my mom. I didn't care what my sperm donor had said on the phone, I was going to do everything in my power to get her released and out from under his vindictive thumb. I haphazardly packed a duffel bag, not even sure what I was throwing in it while my brain was on a chaotic rampage. My only clear thoughts were to get to Dallas and find a way to get her released. I just had to find where he put her.

The three hour drive to my parents' house was silent torment with thoughts of Micah and our breakup ravaging my head. I begged any god listening to forget it all for even a few minutes, but those images were only replaced with beautiful memories of our time together. It was lovely agony. It was free falling through the sky in those first, glorious moments where you felt unencumbered and alive, only to hit the ground at the last second in a terrible end. My brain cycled through regret at having ever started this journey with Micah, but my heart rebelled brutally at the thought that he could ever be regretted.

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