whisper.
“No one wants me anyway, because I’m a disaster. I ruin everything I touch.”
And just like that, the dam I’ve been trying to hold back rushes back to me in a torrent that takes me over and I start crying, but I bite my lip to keep the evidence from showing.
“Little Minx,” Julian whispers my name, the pain in his voice so damn obvious, it makes me cry harder. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
I believe it. It’s the truth.
“Don’t you know how incredible and rare you are?” he questions, the raw emotion in his voice breaking me apart. “Don’t you fucking know I can’t breathe without you?”
“Please don’t…”
“Fuck, you believe you’re ruinous, Little Minx?” he demands. “If you are, then I’m a fucking nightmare.”
“You wouldn’t want me in your…”
“Stop insulting both of us by saying that shit,” he growls, cutting me off. “If wanting you, needing you, being this pathetically desperate for you makes me a fucking psychotic maniac, who doesn’t know any better or can’t take the hint that you’ll still break me over and over again, then so be it.”
Oh God.
How can those words shatter me from the inside, breaking my barely steady resolve?
I know I should crumble for more, but right now, the loneliness that swallows me day after day, the nightmares that come after me, the self-loathing that makes my chest tighten until I’m in desperate need for release, has me breaking down.
I can’t speak as more tears run down my cheeks, tightening my throat until I can’t breathe properly. Sobs rack my body and for a moment, I try to keep them quiet as Nancy’s face flashes before my eyes, but I lose the battle.
“Mia, I didn’t know what John was doing, neither did Liam. I swear,” he says in a broken whisper. “Tell me you believe me, baby.”
Maybe it’s because I need something—him to be specific. Or maybe it’s because I can’t go another day feeling like this, or maybe it’s because I’ve been going out of my mind trying to make the fucked-up puzzle pieces to fit but they’re so mismatched and broken that for right now, I want to hold on to his words, to him, so I do.
I believe him, so I nod but then I realize he can’t see me.
“I believe you,” I croak and then hear his breath catch. I freeze.
“Are you crying?” he questions, his voice a low, angry growl.
Pain, sharp and hard, slams into my chest with that one question. How does he know that I’m so damn out of my mind right now, that I’m not the same anymore, that everything in my world right now is so dark and ugly?
And so red…
“Are you fucking crying, Mia?” he repeats, his voice now harder and louder.
“No,” I whisper but a sob escapes my lips before I clamp them shut. I hear his sharp intake of breath and next thing I know I hear someone else speaking and then…
“It’s okay to cry, baby,” he whispers.
“I can’t…” I croak, wanting to scream, but I can’t.
I can’t cry.
I can’t feel.
I can’t go on living like this.
“You can, baby.”
“No, Julian, you don’t get it. I’m stuck. I can’t…”
“Listen to my fucking voice, I can’t function either. I’m in a funk, Mia. I’m in a really bad place but I won’t let you fall, okay?”
“Julian.”
“Just hold on, baby. I’m coming for you and you can let go, okay?”
I’m silent, not wanting to hold on to something that doesn’t have a future. This doesn’t have a future. Whatever this is between Julian and I, not if what his mother said is the truth.
“Julian,” I croak. “Don’t come.”
“What?” It sounds more like an expletive than a question. I try to swallow past the ball in my throat, but it just sticks there, uncompromising and rigid.
“Let’s face it, Julian, you and I…” I trail off as everything Courtney said comes rushing back, flooding my mind.
“You and me what, Mia?” He grits out the words so low like he can barely say them, and I wince at the sound, barely able to breathe as I clutch the phone in my hand tighter.
“We don’t have a future. Nothing good will come of this.”
“Like hell we don’t,” he seethes. “I can feel your pain and I’m not going to let you suffer alone. Over my fucking rotting corpse.”
“But you’re…”
“I don’t want to hear it, Mia. I’m a whole second away from setting this damn world on fire. I’m so damn angry, I can hardly think straight,”