Page 37 of Vicious Chaos

With Scarlett in my life, with her history and her future so wrapped up in my own, I know there’s no way that I can do that.

As soon as she slips under the covers, wearing nothing more than one of my shirts, I pull her onto my chest. I’ve never felt the need to be close to other people, even before my own family broke me.

I’d dated before, even thought I had been in love once or twice. I realize now how wrong I was.

I brush my lips over hers in a light as a feather kiss. She pouts up at me, not nearly happy enough with just the shadow of my affection. I grin and wrap my arms around her slender waist.

I never get tired of how soft she is in some places, but so hard in others from her rigorous training. She’s everything I never knew I needed. She wiggles against me and I groan as I harden against her.

“Pretty girl,” I warn.

She looks up at me through her eyelashes in mock innocence. I roll my eyes at her attempt. There’s not an innocent bone in her body.

“I’m not trying to make you talk about your feelings,” I tell her and chuckle as she immediately relaxes more into me. This brat. “No, it’s my turn for some confessions.”

A look of intrigue flashes over her features. She folds her arms under her chin and rests them against my chest so she can look in my eyes.

I struggle to think about where to start, but guess it’s best to just get to the very root of it. “I was engaged.” She rears back at that bit of information I’ve been holding back from her.

I study her carefully but there’s no anger or hurt in her expression. There is a lot of curiosity, and even a bit of jealousy, but no look of betrayal like I was worried about.

“She was my best friend,” I admit, a pang of grief hitting me in the chest as I let myself think about the very girl that Scarlett first reminded me of. I know she heard it, as concern drives away all of her other emotions. “She was also gay,” I say with a small smile.

Understanding dawns on her. “Your parents forced the engagement?”

I give her a sad nod. It wasn’t what either of us had ever wanted, but neither of our families had cared. Thinking about Madeline always fills me with a sense of sadness and failure. I failed her in so many fucking ways.

Scarlett brushes her fingers over my face and I lean into her touch. In awe of the way she easily is able to switch our normal roles and draw out the truths I hate to admit even to myself.

“The engagement was the start of Madeline’s downfall. She never wanted it and it destroyed her life,” I begin to tell the story that fills me with shame. “Her so-called friends turned their backs on her because one of them had been pursuing me for years. The girl Madeline was in love with broke up with her and moved away. Being kept a secret had been hard enough for her, but the engagement took any hope she had away.”

Resentment and bitterness fills me as I think about all the ways Madeline’s life fell apart because of me. Because I couldn’t convince my father to change his mind. “She withdrew more and more into herself. She had never been a strong girl. She was so soft, delicate. But so sweet, Scarlett. I know you would have loved her. Would have wanted to protect her. She wasn’t strong enough to survive everything life kept throwing at her.”

My voice wanes as my emotions get the best of me. “I tried to help her. Tried to keep her afloat, protect her from the girls’ nastiness. But her father got angrier and angrier with her for not being who he wanted her to be. He wanted her to be a socialite. He wanted to use her the same way he used his wife. A means to draw in more business.”

I let memories of the girl who was such a bright spot in my life flicker through my mind. We had been friends for as long as I could remember. I was one of the only people she had ever come out to. It was still such a taboo in our society. “No one knew she was gay,” I tell Scarlett. “But one day, she just finally snapped. Her father was pushing her, yelling about her not wanting to marry me, and she just snapped.” Grief weighs me down and I hesitate to even finish the story. It gets so much uglier than controlling parents and petty bullies.

Scarlett doesn’t rush me, she rests against my chest, her fingers gently brushing over my face as I try to build the courage to voice the one thing I’ve never put into words before. There’s never been anyone to tell. Nobody cared about what really happened to Madeline.

“As you can imagine, her father didn’t take the news well. He became convinced she just needed to realize what she was missing. They knew I would never hurt her though.” My chest seizes up and I close my eyes as if that will make the words easier.

“They figured it didn’t disrupt their honor if it was kept in the family. Because honor was the only thing they really cared about when discussing who should rape his daughter into being straight.” My tone is laced with heavy sarcasm. The horror my friend endured still as disgusting to me now as it was when I first learned of it.

“My father was the one who raped her,” I admit with a heavy sense of guilt. “He was a heinous man. The worst of the worst. He relished in hurting her. It broke her more than I can put into words. She never blamed me, but she could no longer look me in the eyes either. She saw too much of my father looking back at her. She was lost to me the moment he laid his fingers on her.”

Scarlett grips my face with her small hands, forcing me to look at her. “It wasn't your fault, Declan.”

I nod easily along with her. It’s something I’ve come to accept over the years. “I know, pretty girl. It wasn't my fault. But she lost her last source of comfort, of support. She drifted further and further away from me, even as she stood right by my side. I could no longer reach her. She killed herself two months later.”

My voice ends in a whisper. I know Scarlett doesn’t love these heavy conversations, that she struggles with how to respond and wars with herself on what to say or do. And yet, it’s always in these moments, I see her true brilliance shine. Where she heals and tames all of us without ever really trying. Where she pulls out greatness and healing in others without realizing she is.

Her fingers trace slow patterns over my cheeks, down my jawline, until her hands rest over my heart. She lets the weight of my words hang in the silence screaming between us. Giving Madeline’s tragedy all of the respect and pain it deserves. She doesn’t bother with platitudes.

Grief can be an ugly thing, but it doesn’t always have to be. I’ve done Madeline a disservice by burying what happened to her. By pushing it out of my mind so my own wounds wouldn’t hurt so much. I keep my eyes closed as Scarlett’s fingers stay steady on my chest, and for the first time in a long time just let myself mourn for my best friend. I let myself feel the heartache and shame and guilt that followed losing her. And most of all, I let myself miss her.

I can still picture how she would fit into this crazy life I made for myself. Scarlett and the guys would have immediately taken her under their wing of protection. She would have let them too. She was always the girl that sought protection, never too stubborn or too proud to ask for help.

She would have been the first to call dibs on being Rowan’s aunt and would have spent all of her spare time helping Charlene with the kids. She would have begged Mikey or Ronan to give her a tattoo. Probably a small rose like everyone else, just happy to have found a place to belong for the first time in her life. She also would have passed out the moment the needle touched her skin. We all would have laughed when she woke up, and Kade would hand her a fake tattoo and wet paper towel while making a joke about how she was one of us with or without the ink. She would have laughed, but she also would have cried, and we all would have laughed harder. Even me. Because laughing wouldn’t feel so strange and foreign to me. It never had before I lost her.

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