Page 141 of Quiet Obsession
He picked the wrong major, I swear. He should be a shrink.
“You kissed Flora because you thought you were losing Millie and wanted to hurt her before she hurt you.”
“That’s not—”
“It is,” he cuts in. “You panicked. You thought she was slipping away, so you burned your own house down.”
The door opens without a knock. Hyde enters and every muscle in my body tightens. I straighten, my shoulders hiking up, body bracing for mayhem.
Dash is right behind him, closing the door with a soft click that feels like a guillotine. Hyde might hide his violent tendencies, but they’re there. Buried under a heap of control that’s about to snap like a dry twig.
His gaze lands on my split lip, moves to my wrapped knuckles, then to the bruise blooming on my cheek. “You good?” he asks, coming closer.
I flinch when he grabs my jaw, turning it left and right.
“Ice it.”
My brows pull together but it’s Dash who asks, “That’s it?”
Hyde turns on him, snatches a beer from the crate beside Noah and plops down onto the couch. He cracks the bottle open, taking a long pull, eyes still on me.
The suspense is killing me.
Confusion threads the adrenaline pumping through my veins. “You’re not going to say anything?”
“I just did,” he replies. “Ice it.”
“That’s not what he means,” Dash mutters.
Hyde’s gaze holds steady on me. “You want me to lose my shit? Beat you up? Yell?”
I don’t answer, because yeah. I expect nothing less. I expect him to swing first then tell me I’ve crossed an uncrossable line. That we’re fucking done. For real this time.
But he says nothing and before I find my tongue, thedoor bangs open, clapping against the wall hard enough to leave a mark.
Millie walks in, still wearing that denim dress, her eyes red, cheeks wet, fingers closed around a prescription bottle.
My heart kicks back against my ribs, punching the breath out of my lungs, and in my head I see her in that hospital bed. Ashen skin, bruises under her closed eyes, pale lips...
Hyde clocks the pills, too, his face blanching as he straightens, alert and scared. “Millie—”
“I didn’t take them,” she blurts, closing the door with more care than she used to open it.
Noah shifts in his seat, his brow furrowed, body angled toward Millie like he’s ready to jump forward if she tries downing the pills. I’m pretty sure we’re all ready to tackle her.
She comes closer, eyes sweeping over Dash and Noah, avoiding me entirely. Her fingers tremble around the bottle, but her chin lifts once she settles on Hyde.
“You keep blaming me for something I didn’t do,” she says. “You don’t get to act like I stole from you.”
“That’s not what I—”
“No,” she cuts in. “Don’t interrupt me. I listened. Now it’s your turn. I was a kid too, you know? I didn’t understand why I couldn’t stop throwing up, why I wasn’t allowed to go home, or why the nurses kept sticking needles in my arms.”
Hyde’s face loses what little color it had, his shoulderscaving in. Even Dash looks like he’s been struck in the face when Millie swats her tears away. I grab the armrests, fingers gouging in because that’s all I can do to stop myself pulling her into my arms.
“I didn’t understand why my hair was falling out,” she continues, her voice unsteady, but face determined. “Why Mom wouldn’t stop crying and Dad couldn’t look at me without his face breaking.”
She swallows hard, inhaling deeply.
