lost in my head, in the bottom of a bottle for longer than I care to admit. I hated Jae so much and the situation. I wasn’t someone to comfort you in the days following his death, I was someone who wanted to kill him all over again.”
“I can understand that, Mack. I don’t want to believe my father was capable of rape. But even me, his own daughter, I knew he had something dark inside him. Nevertheless, I needed you and it would’ve taken as little as an ‘I’m here’ in a text, Mack. I needed something.”
Mack lowers himself to the bed and bows his head. “You deserved that. I realized my mistake a long time ago.”
Silence fills the room and Mack stays frozen staring down at the ground. Everything about him appears the same as if five years of violence and fear hasn’t ravaged him as I feel it has me. But then again from what I know of his childhood, the past five years has probably been a walk in the park.
As I memorize each new scar on his hands while they flex through his short brown hair, I quietly admit to myself that I still love him. I never stopped. The hate I had built up—to keep him out if we ever crossed paths again—steadily recedes. Never had I imagined he had come back to me, and I’m not prepared to stop the flood of emotions, past and present. Do I want to stop those feelings? Years of wishing he had, and he did. It feels as if a tidal wave is building inside me, a gate opened, a bridge lowered, a yes which was forever a no. I want Mackson King and now I can allow myself to be okay with that.
What should I say? How do I ask him if he wants to rebuild what we thought was lost forever?
Mack stands and his stare takes hold of mine. His next words cause everything colorful around me to turn gray, every hopeful thought to fall flat and my heart to cease its skipping beats.
“But there’s no going back. I can’t forgive you for being with another man when I considered us together, in love. I need loyalty in my life, Lana, without it I can’t breathe. It’s essential to how I survive in this life.”
I don’t speak nor do I move as Mack watches me for one last long moment before he turns and leaves the room, shutting the door between us.
I slowly lower myself to the bed. My body stiff while a painful tightness takes hold of my throat. That’s it then, over before it could begin, again.
A little while later I’m staring out the window, sitting on a wooden chair, feet up and knees under my chin when Pacer walks into the room with a sandwich and bottle of water. He explains Slater will be home soon and then there will be a family meeting.
He waves his hand around the room and says, “Della has girly shit to do in here until then.” He leaves and I hear the familiar sound of a chair being pushed up under the door handle.
I used to play basketball with these boys, teach them how to write and spell over dinner in my family’s kitchen, and now they’re locking me in a room and stopping me from being able to leave.
I sigh and resume staring numbly out the window.
I hope the guys got Rex to their doctor for the bullet in his leg. He’s taken them in much worse places before, so I know he’ll be okay, most likely a few days on some crunches and then Rex will chuck them away and limp everywhere painfully in order to not look weak with crunches.
I huff out a laugh.
Some time later, I hear raised voices and what I think are quite a few heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. I place the book I was reading onto the desk and stand to face the door, assuming this will be Slater.
The door bursts open, but it’s not who I thought it would be. A slender brunette stands in the doorway, her mouth wide and her eyes rapidly blinking as if she’s hoping I’ll disappear with each blink.
“Oh my god,” she breathes.
Slater walks in past the woman, his eyes on me until he stops between us and looks to the brunette. “I had to make a split-second decision to get my brothers and I out alive.”