Page 26 of Dirty Little Secret
Anxiety crawls its way up my spine before settling in the pit of my stomach, because I think that she’s pissed with us. Either that, or maybe something happened.
Kale’s eyes are fixated on his bag, and I put two and two together. Whatever she’s found in there isn't good.
Reign must have had the same thoughts as I had, and rises to his feet, snatching up the bag, and when his face blanks and his shoulders hunch, everything around me stills.
His eyes meet Savannah’s, and I know that shit is about to hit the fan.
“Was this a game to you three?” she spits out, her eyes welling with tears, and I don’t miss it when her voice cracks. Seeing her like this, looking at us like we’ve betrayed her, spears me right in the fucking chest.
Kale and I both stand, and so does she, and I can feel her pulling away from us. Reign doesn’t move, the dufflebag forgotten as he gazes down at her pleadingly. The look on his face is one I’ve never seen him wear before.
He’s in pain.
The thought of losing her right now is too fucking much, and the love of my life, my best friend, is hurting.
I reach for her, but she backs up a step, shaking her head, dismissing me. She wipes away the tears now falling down her face, and I feel like my knees could give out at any moment. I'm one fucking sob away from begging her to stay with us. Begging for her to give us a moment to explain things.
I can’t believe this is happening.
She knows that the strangers behind the masks are us, and it fucking breaks something inside me that she found out this way in front of her parents.
“You were so much more than a game to us, Savannah. You were always the prize,” Kale says, his voice breaking as the weight of this moment sinks in. We never meant to hurt her, and we especially didn’t mean to deceive her.
“What the hell is going on here?” Kalvin snaps, but we all ignore him. Now is not the time for him to pretend like he gives a fuck about any of us. He only cares about how we make him look, and while thatused to matter to me, I am theirs, not his, and they need me right now.
“You fucking lied to me! You used me and…you tricked me.” My chest cracks when tears begin to roll down her cheeks. We didn’t mean to betray her trust, and I can’t fucking stand the way she is looking at us. Worse than she ever looked at Blake.
“It was the only way?—”
“Shut up!” she screams, cutting Reign off before he can even finish. “You could have told me. At any time, you could have told me that you were them. But you made me believe you were…”
“Someone else?” Kale says, his tone short and dejected. He steps around me and stops a foot away from her to stand with Reign. Kale gazes down at our girl, his heart in his throat. “You can lie to the fucking world, baby, but you can’t lie to us.”
“Baby?” Kalvin hisses, but no one pays him or Savannah’s mother any attention.
“You wanted it to be us. You wanted us, Savy, but you were too afraid to come and get us. The truth is, we wanted you, too. Always have, and always will, and we’ve spent years waiting for the right time to make you ours. Don't let this be the end, Little Viper.” The pained look on Reign’s face is unfamiliar to me, and my heartbreaks at how cut open and raw he is. This is a first, and since being with our girl, he’s grown more open with his feelings. The sad part about leaving yourself open like this is you’re vulnerable to getting hurt, and I worry that if this goes bad, he’ll never let anybody in again, and I don’t know what that will mean for the three of us.
For him and me.
“The worst part isn't even the fact that you all lied to me, it's that I mattered so little to you all that you thought I deserved the lie in the first place.”
Suddenly, I think I get it.
Grief.
She's grieving the loss of the three faceless men, because they weren't just characters in a stupid fucking game to her. They were real. And by finding out that it was actually us behind them, she feels like she’s lost them forever.
It’s written all over her face.
She feels betrayed because we made her fall in love with men that no longer exist, and she found out in the worst possible way imaginable.
“You haven't lost us, baby. We were alwaysusbeneath those masks. But, baby, there isn't a single reality where we don't end up together, and you know it. We know you, the real you, and we were always yours. No matter where we are,who we are, or what we’re doing, you're buried so deep under our skin that you've rewired our fucking veins, baby.Fuck,we were yours from the moment you first stepped foot in this house, and you're ours now, Savannah.” My throat is hoarse, torn open by the weight of the words I just let fall from my lips. But it's the truth, and that's all I can give her.
“Someone better start fucking explaining what the hell is going on here before I lose my cool completely,” Kalvin roars, and all our gazes finally fall to him. He's insignificant in all of this, and whatever happens next, I'm not so sure any of us cares. Our only focus and concern right now is Savannah, and how she’s handling this whole situation. We need her to try to understand where we are coming from, otherwise we risk losing her forever.
Savy turns and faces Kalvin, focusing the brunt of her anger on him.
Thank the Lord for small miracles.
