Page 92 of Tell Me When It's Over

My eyelids close. My brain says, don’t tell him but my heart tells me differently. “When she did a lot of things. Or didn’t. She’d lose jobs because she wouldn’t leave her room. Sometimes she’d disappear for days at a time and come back looking…weird. But I asked her to go when she hit me.”

A sharp inhale. Then, “How often?” His voice is suddenly dark, growly, a sound I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him make before.

I say nothing.

“How. Many. Times?” His tone gives me no room to avoid the conversation.

“Three or four max. I don’t know.” I won’t give him the specific dates, even though I knew each one by heart. They’re branded into my brain because each are significant—they represent four separate occurrences when I realized I’m not enough. Not enough to stick with the medicine or therapy. Being slapped by your mother tends to be something you remember for life, even when you shove it into the back of your mind and hope to forget it because you know she’s sick. But another part of me, the one that doubts the diagnosis even though a thorough Google search told me it was plausible, wondered if it was truly accurate. What if she was just a bad person? Sometimes there didn’t need to be a reason for somebody to do bad things. The more I think about it, the more I realize that it could be the likelier reason.

The silence is suffocating, so I crack my eyes open and see that his are closed. His chest rises and falls slowly, methodically. He’s angry.

Really angry.

“She was sick,” I repeat, not sure if I’m trying to convince myself of that or him. “The last time she…” Don’t think about it. I wouldn’t. What does it matter now when the last time she laid a hand on me was? “Look, she wasn’t the best mom out there, but she was mine. I loved her. Love her. I always will.” I can tell he doesn’t approve, but he’s smart enough not to voice that.

We sit in silence for a while, his hold on my chin loosening until it’s more of a comforting caress across my lower face. His thumb brushes the underside of my jaw lightly, causing me to close my eyes and take a few calming breaths.

“It’s over,” I whisper, leaning into his palm, expelling a long breath.

His hand twitches. “What is?”

There’s a pregnant pause. “You told me to tell you when it’s over,” I remind him, jaw quivering when I see him watching me with pinched brows. “I’m not shutting you out anymore, Ky. It’s over. I’m done.”

The breath he releases is heavy, relieved, and his hands apply more pressure on my face as he leans his forehead against mine. His warmth radiates into me, his breath tickling my nose, and I close my eyes and absorb the moment.

He ate macaroni and cheese for me.

He listened to me even though he was willing to let it go.

Flutters fill my stomach as his fingertips twitch again on my skin. Neither of us move from the position we’re in. My hands lift and rest on his chest, palms flat against his muscular pecs. One of them shifts until it cups the space over his heart, feeling the thumping beat against me.

I tilt my head up so, so slowly, enough to feel his labored breath ghost over my lips. His head moves downward, our noses grazing each other’s, our breathing picking up, but neither of us closing the microscopic gap between our lips. It’s the silence between us that asks, do we or don’t we? Because I want to. I want to angle my head enough to brush my lips against his, to seek his comfort in new ways, and I want him to return the gentle kiss with one of understanding and yearning.

Just as I make my choice, a choice I’ve accepted that I’d have to heed the outcome of no matter what, my phone rings from the coffee table, breaking the moment in an instant. Our eyes go to the screen where Chase’s name flashes before Kyler pulls back, Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Thank you,” he says.

I’m not sure for what.

All I can do is nod.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Kyler / Present Day

The paparazzi surround me as soon as I walk out of the store, blinding me with their cameras, and deafening me with their onslaught of questions. I raise a hand and curse to myself, remembering why Gordy told me to stay in today while gently elbowing my way through the crowd to get to my car. I should have known when I was picking up a few things in produce and saw cell phones raising that the sharks would arrive next.

“Kyler, should we expect a new album?” one of the paps calls after me.

Another yells, “Are the rumors of a collaboration between you and Garrick Matthews true?”

“When is the next single dropping?”

Fumbling with my keys, I unlock my door and climb in. It doesn’t stop them from rattling off questions that will go unanswered, shouting into the windows and trying to get the best shot through the windshield.

“Fuck me,” I mutter, turning the ignition on and waiting for the idiots to clear. The last thing I want is to be charged with a hit and run because they’re not smart enough to move.

When the radio comes on, it’s my song coming through the speakers. You’d think I’d be used to hearing my vocals blasting, but I never will. Especially not lately, when I favor premade playlists from my phone that never have Single Division or my solo shit on it.

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