Page 42 of Penance

“You left me first,” I whisper back, but it holds no power.

There’s no real weight to those words, it’s just a thing we do, isn’t it? We always want to be right when we feel we’ve been wronged. To counter back. When you hold hate for someone without their side of the story, you always have to have the last word. Everything’s a competition. Everything feels like it’s the end of the motherfucking world.

Max grunts, blowing out a breath. His shoulders dropping even further as he brings his gaze onto me. I’m not looking at him now, staring down at his feet. The back of my eyes burning as I think of that night, how awful and perfect and thrilling it was. It was everything I wanted and everything I knew I shouldn’t. But I went there anyway, temptation and greed. That’s how I feel now when I look back on that night. I was selfish for the first time in my life because I could be. Because the woman who hated me was dead and I was finally free. I think it’s why I didn’t tell him about it. I didn’t want her evil, even in death, to taint our moment.

“You just had to wait, that’s all, Lala. You just had to fucking wait for me. None of this shit would have happened if you’d just fucking waited,” he lashes out the last part in frustration, but I don’t think it’s only for me, it sounds more like it’s for him.

For us.

“I-” I hesitate, the words dying on my tongue as I swallow the lump in my raw throat.

Sucking in a shaky breath, I glance up.

“I thought you weren’t coming back, I thought you’d left me. It’s what you did, Maddox. You fucking left me when I needed you, numerous fucking times, and then you’d pop back up and interfere when it was something that botheredyou.Why the fuck would Ieverexpect you to keep your word and come back to me? What did I have to go off other than your desertion? Why would I sit there in the dark for four fucking hours, and think, ‘oh, yes, I’m sure he’s still coming back, I’ll just wait here until I die,’. What part of any of this makes you think I would have had some sort of deluded fucking beliefin you? When you were nothing but a fucking let down.”

Max stares at me, his tongue rolling across his front teeth. He sniffs back his emotion, snuffing out any and all tells that could reveal how he actually feels.

“For what it’s worth,” he starts, swallowing hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing violently in his throat. “I always intended to come for you. I just, I shouldn’t have even left you there in the fucking first place.” He sighs so hard, so defeated that my entire body shakes in response. “I got myself in too deep, into some real bad shit, Lala. I was so fucking stuck, I was drowning in quicksand. And I-” he pauses, his intense gaze so strong my knees almost buckle. “And I thought I was doing it for you, but I realise now that although I thought I was, it was probably more than that. I thought I was doing it for us, but I just, I steered myself wrong. And then it wasn’t aboutmysurvival anymore, it was about yours and you didn’t even know it. The Southbrook gang,” he starts to say, and I tremble.

I tremble so hard that there’s absolutely no hiding it now. The same gang that ruined my dad’s life. Max knew that, he knew the shit they blamed my dad for. He got locked up because of them, and then Max went and worked for the same fucking gang.

I bring my good hand up to my chest, taking a step back as my breath gets caught in my throat. My skin so hot it itches, and I want nothing more than to claw it all off. I want to be momentarily deaf, just so I won’t have to hear whatever it is he’s going to say next. I don’t know if I can handle it. The way his heavily lashed, turquoise eyes bore into mine. Setting me alight in every sense of the word as he flays me with his words.

“They were going to come afteryou, Lala. Because of me and instead of just telling you, I did what they wanted. I had to carry out a job for them, do as I was told, or it was you they were going to take. I was scared, so fucking scared because you are right, Princess. I am a fucking coward. I was and I am. I should have just admitted I was in over my head, but I thought I knew best. I should have asked your family for help sooner. I wanted to do it on my own, prove to them I could protect you, be independent. I wanted to fucking save you in every sense of the fucking word. But really the only person you needed saving from in the end wasme.And when I got back to you that night you were gone. I thought you were fucking dead, burned alive in that fucking warehouse, taken from me forever. And in a way you were taken from me, dead or alive you were gone, and it killed me. I died too.”

I drop my curtain of hair forward, letting it shield me from the room. Keeping me safe behind the sheet of silver as I process his words. This is not what I saw happening today, it’s Christmas Eve. We’re going out tonight, just my boys and me, well, and Maddox. I’m supposed to be happy, not whatever it is I’m feeling right now.

All I can picture now is a burning building. Firemen rushing around, thick cloying smoke heading towards the heavens, flashing blue and red lights and Max. Max just standing there, his brow creased, panic thudding through his chest. Tears in his eyes as he wonders what happened to me. My heart cramps, my shoulders hunch, I heave in a shuddery breath.

And all I say is, “you shouldn’t have touched me, Maddox. You shouldn’t have come to find me, you should have stayed gone, left me alone. You were doing such a good fucking job of it, you should have fucking let me be.”

My thoughts spiral as I travel back in time. Desperately trying to cling onto my anger from then because if what he says is true and he did come back, then what leg do I have to stand on? I don’t. I have no one to blame for my actions but myself. But I knew that, didn’t I. I knew everything that happened that night was my fault, at least partly. It wasn’t only Max who was to blame. We both played a part. I should have told him about my mum. He should have told me about the Southbrook gang. Maybe if we’d communicated none of this would be happening right now. I grip the roots of my hair, my fingers fisting tightly against my scalp, nails scratching at my skin.

“Lala, you don’t mean that.”

“I do!” I yell, tugging at my hair so hard strands snap free, tangled around my fingers. “I do mean it. I regret all of it, it ruined my life. Look at me! Look at me now, Maddox! Do you fucking see this? Look at what it’s all done to me!”

I throw my arm out by my side, gesturing to myself wildly. My thoughts start to morph together, the past and the present twisting viciously inside my head and I just need it to stop for a second. My breaths come out in short pants, my lungs desperately trying to fill.

“I can’t do this, not today,” I rasp.

My eyes squeezing shut, panic taking over me. Starting from my chest, radiating out, infecting my veins like fast acting poison.

“Lala.”

I feel him move closer.

I step back. He exhales sharply, frustration, I know it well. My lungs heave, nothing works. My eyelids hot, my throat scratchy.

“Lala,” he tries again, but it sounds further away.

My legs wobble as I bring my hand to my face, covering myself, trying to take a deep breath.

“Darlin’?”

My eyes ping open. I spin around so fast I almost faceplant the floor, but I catch myself. Huxley’s there, standing in the archway, arms full of shopping bags. He slowly lowers them to the floor. His coal eyes on mine, even as he bends low, untangling his fingers from the loops of fabric handles, his gaze never falters.

“Come to me, Darlin’. It’s okay,” his warm voice entices me, smooths over my anxiety, I take in a breath. “That’s it, Darlin’, come to me, I’ve got you.”

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