Page 78 of When Sinners Rise
“Don’t say that.” She shakes her head at me and steps back.
“Why not? It’s the truth,” I say, my anger growing, fuelled by my frustrations.
“You cannot love that man!” she shouts at me.
“Who are you to tell me that after you left me and ran off with a near stranger?”
“I was doing what I thought was best for you,” she repeats.
“And I was trying to help you. I didn’t look for this – I didn’t ask for it.”
“All the more reason to leave. Put everything behind and start again.”
“Running away isn’t the answer to everything, Naja.”
“We’re not running, we’re going home.”
“It’s not my home anymore!” It’s my turn to shout, waving my hands out to the side. The anger makes me move and pace, which reminds me of Shaw when he was making a decision. But I take a minute and feel my breathing calm. “Maybe we need to consider the idea that our lives aren’t in the same place anymore.”
“Don’t–”
“No, listen. I’m not the same. You’re not the same. That’s okay.” I smile. “It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I do. But we’re not in a place where our lives are on the same path. And I want to see where mine might lead, here. You know I’ll be safe. We both will be. I was going away to university anyway. Maybe you just need to think about it like that?”
Her eyes shine with unshed tears, and the anger between us dissolves with the realisation that our future might not be one where we’re together. “Don’t be sad, Naja. This is good. And if you don’t want to leave, you don’t have to. But I won’t let anyone force me to do something I don’t want to. Not even you.”
She nods. “I can respect that. I’m sorry. I guess I was hoping things would…”
“So was I.” It’s my turn to feel the sting of tears.
She opens her arms, and we embrace, perhaps for the first time in all of this, without animosity between us.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you, too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY - NINE
SHAW
I’ve been wandering around like a dick with no home for the last seven days. The ironic misery of that thought isn’t lost on me. I turn another corner and keep my head down. My shoulders are just as hunched, like I’ve done something wrong, and I’m trying to hide myself. Which is plainly fucking ridiculous because everyone knows who I am around here. Maybe I’m hoping they find me rather than me facing up to them at the house. I mean, I went back to my own damn home and waited for them to come. I sat there for three days and three nights and, when I wasn’t sleeping or eating, I stared at the door – waiting. Not one of them has bothered coming to find me.
Hearing nothing from Miri or Logan, or even Samuel, hasn’t helped my dejected mood. I don’t know what I expected, and Miri wouldn’t know how to contact me even if she wanted to, but something would have been cool. Anything. Wouldn’t even have minded a call from Logan to tell me he was coming for my ass if it meant I’d found out she was home and safe.
But nothing. That stings more than the family I’m still hoping for under my anger because it feels like I really did do it all for nothing if I can’t even get that intel.
Turning the key, I let myself into my own space and stare at the state of it. Yeah, it’s modern and high-end and everything a single guy needs, but it feels empty as hell and undeserved. I don’t know why. It never used to. Maybe that’s just my life back here now I’ve broken it – empty and pointless.
Thoughts start coming into my brain like they have done for the last few days of waiting. They’re thoughts of me just packing my shit up and going somewhere, anywhere. I could. There’s still cash in my accounts – I’ve checked. And the car’s still out there waiting for me to use it. I could just close this place up and run again, this time on my own. I’d set up a new life somewhere that isn’t here, find a purpose. I lean my head back on the couch and stare at the wall. Purpose? What does someone like me do if he’s not killing something or beating on it?
Unfortunately, and despite my trying to think of ways around it, I’m still desperate to see them all. I’ve got things to say even if they don’t want to hear them. And I’ve got this feeling building, this need to explain and have them fucking hear it for once in their lives instead of dismissing me as irrelevant to their plans.
They must fucking hate me.
I don’t like that thought, regardless of causing the hatred.
Tired of my own damn indecision, I get up and snatch my keys off the table. If they’re not coming for me, I’ll go to them.
The engine revs hard as I peel out of the drive and head for Terrell Hills. I’d like to say it was speed. It isn’t, though. It’s my boot being too damn heavy for my own thoughts, and the hesitancy keeps easing me off and then forcing me on again. Before I know it, I’m pulling up to the gates and still thinkingabout just getting the hell out of here and hitting the roads for a long ass time.
