Page 138 of Quiet Obsession
“I spent two years of my life standing alone in hospital corridors while everyone cried over you,” he says. “I watched Mom and Dad pour everything into keeping you alive.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” I whisper.
“I know that! I know it wasn’t your fault, but I was there too!” His voice cracks, chest rising and falling as he takes a few sharp breaths, getting a hold of himself. “I was fuckingthere, Millie, and no one cared.”
God, we remember things so differently.
“Hyde—”
“Don’t,” he clips, moving to lean against my wardrobe, eyes jumping between me and the floor. “Just listen, Millie, okay? I tried to understand. You were sick. You weredying. Of course they focused on you.”
He laughs, but it’s the most devastating, hollow soundand my throat burns with unshed tears. I want to say something, but I can’t think of a single word that will help here.
“Once you got better, I thought that was it, that everything would go back to normal.” His jaw tightens and he swallows hard. “But nothing changed, sis. I was still invisible.”
My tears spill over. I don’t wipe them away. I just sit there, staring at my brother as he lays his heart out, cracking open a part of himself I didn’t know existed.
“And then I came here and I met Creed.” He smiles, his voice softening. “It was the first time since I was eleven that I was just Hyde. Not the brother of a miracle sister. Not the spare sibling no one fucking noticed. Hechoseme,” Hyde repeats. “Every day. He didn’t look through me. Didn’t compare me to you. He was there for me... until you showed up and he started looking at you like he couldn’tnotlook at you and it felt like being eleven again, watching everyone push past me to get to you.”
“I’m not trying to take him from you,” I whisper, wiping my sniffles with the back of my hand. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I know. But you did and I can’t go back to feeling invisible. I won’t stand here and watch my one thing become yours too.”
He straightens slowly, adjusts his pullover, picks off invisible lint as if he’s putting himself back together piece by piece.
“Whatever you were doing with him, it ends now,” he adds. “Stay away from my friends, Millie.”
My lips fall open but he doesn’t wait for a reply. He walks out, leaving me alone with the weight of his confession. I fall sideways on my bed, my heart splintering with every breath.
I don’t know what hurts more. My brother looking at me as if I’m taking up his space, or Creed dragging another girl against him and kissing her in front of me.
I trusted him, even though after Evan I promised myself I’d never let anyone close enough to hurt me... but then Creed looked at me like I wasn’t fragile, touched me like I wasn’t broken and I dropped my guard.
Curling into a ball, I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them. My stomach knots so tight I feel nauseous.
Creed made me feel solid, wanted,whole, and I fucking forgot how to be careful. Now, the image of his hand grasping Flora’s throat refuses to fade. His mouth moving against hers keeps flashing behind my eyelids and I press my face into the pillow as if I can force it out the back of my head.
A sob rips from my mouth, my tears falling harder.
My head won’t quit, flashing through every second I spent with Creed. It felt like war at first. We didn’t ease into each other. Every time we touched, it was an explosion of lust, heat, and desperation. I was losing myself in the way my mind quieted while our bodies clawed at each other...
I think Creed felt it too.
That’s why he’d pull me in so hard I forgot where I ended and he began. Then, when the moment passed, heshoved me away just as hard.
But lately... he stopped pushing me away.
He pulls me into his chest and keeps me there, his arm heavy over my waist, his fingers tracing idle patterns against my skin long after the heat between us fades.
We’ve started talking.
About nothing at first, then everything. His fights, my day, irrelevant things. Meaningful things. Dr. Quinn, his tattoos, Evan, Jeremiah...
Creed started peeling his layers back and showing me parts of him that aren’t sharp edges and clenched fists.
We lie there in the dark and he kisses my head when he thinks I’m asleep. He straightens my clothes after a breathless moment in an empty lecture hall, then kisses me slowly.
It’s not just bodies colliding anymore and for a while, it felt like something was building instead of detonating. I thought that meant there’d be more... until he wrapped his hand around another girl’s neck and pulled her in while pushing me away.
