Page 77 of A Voice In Chains
“Feel this? Feel how it beats? How it races. I’m terrified, Arkin.” My voice chokes on the last sentence. “You don’t have to leave. I’ll talk to him. I’ll fix it. Better yet, we can leave together. We’re eighteen. We can make it work.”
“Zachary,” my father says at the top of the stairs.
I refuse to look at him. He doesn’t matter. The only thing I care about is the broken man in front of me. His demons can’thide from me for once, swaying to a haunted tune in the depths of his guarded gaze.
My own want to join his. We’re both scared.
“Zachary!” my dad says sternly.
I look past Arkin. “Fuck you!”
I don’t know what to do. What do I do?
Arkin stares at his hand on my chest, his brows crashing together in a small, pained frown.
“Please,” I whisper.
His eyes lift to mine.
Pain stares back at me.
Regret.
Without another word, he shifts me out of the way and enters the room. Numb, I stand in the doorway, watching him haul his backpack from beneath the bed.
Before I fully process what’s happening, he has finished packing and is walking toward me with the bag slung over his hunched shoulder.
“Arkin?” I ask, but he won’t look at me. I try to block his way out of my room, not surprised when my eyes blur with tears.
How did we end up here? Minutes ago, we made love on the stairs, and now he’s walking out of my life as though he didn’t crash into it like a twister set on uprooting my heart.
I never stood a chance and was caught up in him before I could protect myself, and now he’s spitting me out and leaving me broken and bleeding in a field.
“What about the abbey? Our safe place?”
His throat rolls; he looks miserable.
Good. He should.
“Zachary!” my father barks, losing his patience.
The sudden outburst makes Arkin flinch, and before I can shout at my dad for scaring him, he pushes past me. Then disappears down the hallway.
My dad observes me like he’s never seen me before—perhaps because I’m sobbing. “How long?” he asks.
Wiping my cheeks, I debate running after Arkin—I’ll beg on my knees if I have to—but I’m too weak. I slide down the wall, feeling very much like the shattered pieces of a plate someone threw in a rage. “What does it matter?” I ask tiredly.
I should shout at my dad. Anger should be at the forefront now, but I don’t feel much of anything. Maybe I’m broken after all?
All I know is I feel nothing toward the man who raised me. And with the way he’s looking at me now, like I’m faulty somehow, he could be a stranger in the street for all I care.
Fuck him.
“He’s a vulnerable young man, Zachary,” Dad reasons. “Did you ever stop to think about that?”
My chin wobbles pathetically. My face is an open book. I flex my jaw.
I need him to leave so I can stop holding myself together by a thin thread.
