Page 104 of Unraveled

Why?! Why is the trauma of my life never ending?!

Mom had deserved her happiness with Daddy, but he was ripped away and taken from all of us, the massivebleeding gap of his loss left pulsing around our family since he passed. It put Mom through hell.I’vebeen through hell. The way I had to find her, almost losing her, too! Right after I almost lostIzzy!My sister was so broken, and I couldn’t do anything to help! Her tortured screams from losing Zoeystillhaunt me. My niece freaking died! How can that be right?! How can any of it be right?!

Especially everything with Jet. The promise of his forever was gone now, too. There had been times since my world had started to fall apart that he’d been the only thing keeping me sane. He’d been my rock. The calm in my storm. Now, without him, there was nothing left to hold me together.

Those tattered seams that had been valiantly keeping everything in had now burst, leaving my entire world to keep unraveling around me.

I barely stifled the next retch that almost made it up my throat. The thoughts too close, too real. Bleeding out around me as I ran.

I had to run faster. I had to get away. I could beat the storm of my thoughts in the end. I had to. I just had to run harder. And my steps hastened just in time to plow, hard, into a figure that suddenly emerged from under the pier.

I flipped over the solid, human form, landing hard against my shoulder, and cursed with justanothersource of pain.

NIC

My pocket vibrated for what had to be the twelfth time tonight. A few of the buzzing rings and texts were from my dad. One text was from Jet. The rest were from Izzy.

The sun was completely below the horizon now, and I could proudly, yet excruciatingly, say that the bottle was still unopened. Though my fingertips had broached the paper bag that shielded it from a very alluring view more times than I cared to admit.

I didn’t even have to look at my mobile to know it was Izzy again. She’d been trying to reach me for hours now, so I knew graduation was over. I was sorry I’d missed it. The milestone was huge, and my absence would have disappointed her, Jet, and my father. Perhaps even some of the others, but I knew I was in no state to go.

I sighed, feeling guilty, and sent her a text back before she could decide to come search me out.

Me: Really, Izzy. I just need some time. We’ll talk later.

It was necessary to convince her to leave me here alone. That part was vital this evening with my secret shame lying beside me for all to see.

Well, Ihadalready told Izzy that I’d had problems with alcohol before, but I’d been vague, wanting to keep this particular demon in the past. And for the most part, it was. Over time, I’d learned what I could handle and when, never turning to hard liquor, but judgment was hard at times. It had damn near failed me completely after Enzo and Anna’s betrayal. Those first few weeks were a haze. Luckily, Dad had been able to intervene before my abuse got entirely out of hand.

But I wasn’t too keen on involving my dad after he’d blurted out my secret this afternoon. I couldn’t take everyone’s pity. EvenAnniehad looked sorry for me. Thenwith the story about my family’s past… Everything was so twisted from what I’d thought.

I’d had to escape, and I’d purchased this bottle to prove to myself that I could resist it without anyone’s help. But the sodding stuff just got more tempting the longer it was here. It was taunting me, begging me to sample it. One swig to roll across my tongue and savor before it burned its way down my throat, slowly dulling my pain… Then another. And another as my demons took control.

“Arrrgh!” I threw the bottle out into the water. “Not today, damn it!”

The splash was minuscule considering the weight I felt in releasing it, but I didn’t feel any better with it gone. I only felt worse.

I hate this! I hate feeling so weak! I hate feeling so angry all the time!

And having nowhere to place that anger just…sucked. My aunt had been perfect for that. I’d seized the opportunity to have someone to blame for everything that had happened. To have someone to take the guilt off of myself.

I just can’t believe I had it wrong. I was so certain Aunt Helen had done something terrible.

But she hadn’t. Not from the story they’d told. It was my grandparents and those before them that had been the destructive ones. All my aunt had done was fall in love and not let anything tear it apart.

Exactly what Ifailedto do!

I had no one to blame but myself now. It was my fault that I’d lost Anna. I couldn’t siphon that off on anyone else. An emotionally sound person, an undamaged person, might say I should blame Enzo and Anna, but I knewthat if I’d been there the way that Anna had needed me, she never would have turned to someone else.

So, ultimately, the fault was mine.

AndIwas the reason my family moved to London.That fickle piece of blame I’d tried to put on someone else was really on me. My very existence was the reason my heart wasableto be put in harm’s way. The anger and the guilt ate relentlessly at me from within, and I honestly didn’t know what to do with either anymore.

One step forward, two steps back.I mused cynically. That’s what it felt like, anyway. I reached for my wallet and pulled out the ring, twisting it in my fingers as my thumb ran along the smooth surface of the several carat stone.

Anna would have loved this.I’d thought of her the moment I’d seen it, and I’d worked so hard to be able to get it for her. To get her all that she wanted and deserved. It had all been for her. But it had backfired somewhere. Somewhere in trying to give her everything, I’d given her nothing. Nothing that really mattered. It was a lesson I’d taken to heart, though I couldn’t seem to give up the passion I found in my work, the need for productivity and creation like a drive within me.

But so what? Was it a crime to enjoy what I did? I was bloody good at it, and I’d followed that business opportunity, wanting everything for Anna, forus, but she didn’t care. Now, my work was all I had left. It would have been a disgrace if she’d ruined that for me, too, they way she’d ruined me. Because the truth of it was, Anna had damaged me beyond repair. She’d had my heart fully in her grasp. It was hers to hold, and as I looked at the ring,I knew that even if she didn’t want to, she still had a firm grip.

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