Page 341 of Releasing 10
My fucking heart buckled at the sight.
Feeling like my legs were made of lead, I debated remaining in the archway that led from our kitchen to our lounge before releasing a defeated sigh.
Where else was I supposed to go?
I couldn’t leave, could I?
This was my fucking home.
Tossing my swim bag on the floor, I reluctantly joined my mother, taking a seat on the coffee table in front of her rather than riskherbody touching mine.
Mam waited until I was sitting down before broaching the subject that I knew was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. “What happened, Hugh?”
My gaze flicked from my mother to Liz and then my sister before settling back on her.Always her. “What did she say happened?”
“Nothing,” Mam urged, tone laced with concern. “That’s the problem. I can’t make sense of a word the girl has been saying all night.”
Pain.
It fucking floored me.
Because I didn’t want this.
I didn’t want her to cry.
I didn’t want her to break down again, but I just…Icouldn’tbe the one to put her back together this time. “We broke up, Mam.”
“That much I’ve gathered,” Mam replied, stroking Liz’s cheek like she was her second daughter, and in a way, she always had been.
We’d spent our childhood in this house, in a fortress of love, security, and comfort that my mother had built around us. I knew that’s why Liz continued to return. Why she was here right now.
Hell, I didn’t even blame her. I’d been in her home. It was like experiencing the funeral on repeat in that house.
Sadness and tears.
Pain and anger playing on a loop like a broken record.
My home had become her reprieve, and breakup or not, I would never take that away from her.
I only hoped she could find in Claire whatever she had found in me because I couldn’t give it to her anymore.
“Care to tell me why?” Mam pushed when I made no move to delve deeper. “Something terrible must have happened.” Panic flared in her eyes as she put two and two together and came upwith five. “Hugh, I know you’re in fourth year now, and some of your friends are moving fast with girls, but Lizzie’s only in second year. Please tell me you didn’t—”
“What—no!” I snapped, cutting her off before she could go there. “That’s not me,” I bit out, pushing my hair off my face. “I wouldnever.”
“Okay.” Blowing out a relieved breath, Mam turned her attention back to the sleeping girl on her lap. “Thenwhathappened?”
“She decided this,” I heard myself admit, and Christ did I hate the way my voice cracked when the admission escaped my lips. “She doesn’t love me anymore, Mam.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” Mam argued gently. “Teenage girls don’t cry over boys like this when they’re not in love.”
That hit me hard.
Fucking gutted me.
Tore my heart to ribbons.
“Fuck.” Dropping my head in my hands, I gripped my hair so tight, I thought I might rip it from my scalp.
