Page 73 of In the Midst of Chaos

That’s why he started to get away from me. It’s why I picked Huxley over him. Now I regret not saying what I wanted to say all along. That it killed me when he’d kicked me out of his bed. That he was the only person I wanted, and it tore me up more than when I lost my parents because his cut was fresh.

Falling in love sucked ass.

It was like a drug that took you high, and then the moment it got taken away, the crash splintered you beyond repair.

Footsteps sounded near me, and I didn’t even have it in me to pretend to fight anymore. I had been strong for so long. It was time I called it quits. I had lived my life the best I could have. Tried to make my father proud at every turn, and all it got me was a broken heart.

“Levantate,” I heard someone speak to me in Spanish.

Cold water was splashed on my face, and I blinked from the icy liquid pouring down my face.

Humberto was there patting my cheek so I could wake up. “You reek like piss.”

I opened my mouth to try and spit on his face, but I had no energy.

He smiled.

“Let’s go,” he said.

He undid my ties, then carried me out of the house. I tried to open my eyes as much as I could to try to get a sense of where I was, but the light blinded me since I was kept in the dark for days.

“Throw her in the back. She won’t be going anywhere,” he told someone.

My body dropped like a bag of potatoes in what I assumed was a van. The metal hit my rib cage, making tears spring down my eyes.

The movements of the car made my head throb and made me want to throw up. No one crashed and burned like a king—and here I was about to die.

My state of delirium came again, and then I saw it. It was like I was ten years old again, coming out of my father’s office a few days later after picking Huxley instead of Nashton.

My mother was arguing with Leon in the foyer.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she scolded him.

“I had to see you,” he said in a pleading tone I had never heard him use before.

I stayed back, thinking it was weird that he was getting close to my mother, almost to the point where he was begging her.

“I told you to not talk to me when you’re here,” my mother spat at him.

“You seriously didn’t expect me to stand back when I found out you were pregnant with my child,” Leon told my mother.

My little world was crashing all around me. The idea of marrying Huxley made me feel funny, like it was going to make me sick.

Now my mother was having a baby…but not with my daddy.

“It’s not yours,” she said, and I felt better.

Leon didn’t like this news at all. His face got angry, and he held onto my mother by the elbow until she hissed he was hurting her.

“Whose is it?” he demanded to know. “I know it’s not Micah’s because he hasn’t touched you in years.”

“That’s none of your business,” my mother hissed, trying not to make a noise.

“Axton? No, Eleanor would kill you if you touched him. Gunner?”

Something passed over my mom’s features.

“I took care of that problem, so there’s nothing for you to worry about.”

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