Page 38 of Delirium
Her left eye twitched, the only proof that her mind was attuned to what I was talking about, that she was listening. So I continued.
“I’ve spent years trying to find out more about you, but no one knew who you were or where you went. Even the girl who was with you was nowhere to be found, and I’ve tried, Sunshine.” Her breath hitched as soon as my nickname for her rolled off of my tongue.
“You already know this, but when Logan sent us to get the infamous Ophelia Aster in exchange for Las Vegas, I had no idea it was you. Seeing you in that place, standing there with Kieran and the rest of them, I wanted to burn them all for mistreating you. I thought I was saving you, Sunshine, but you saved me. You woke me up from the deep slumber I was in. I didn’t exist before you, and I’m not going to exist after you.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?” she suddenly asked, her eyes firmly placed on my profile. “It’s too late, Storm. I can’t go on like this anymore. I can’t play these games. One moment you want me, then the next one you don’t. When you realize you’re losing me, you suddenly wake up and decide that you’re going to butter me up with sweet words that mean nothing.”
“I know.” I exhaled.
“Then why?” she exclaimed. “Don’t torture me like this, Storm. Please don’t torture me. If you ever cared about me, stop holding my heart hostage and let me be. Let me go if you’re not going to give this your all.”
“I’m trying to explain myself, Phee,” I murmured. “I’m trying to explain why I’m the way I am and why I did all these things.”
She kept looking at me, but she didn’t say a word after that. She was letting me talk, listening to every single word I said.
“My parents didn’t want me, Phee. They never wanted to have a child. I was just an accident, another burden they had to take care of. I found them after I joined Sons of Hades. My father was a shell of a man, dependent on his drugs, hollow, ready to die. My mom… My mom was already dead by then, overdosed a couple of years back.” I gripped the steering wheel of the car, remembering the face of my father, his frail body on the floor, his eyes hollow of emotion, but the recognition was there.
He recognized me as soon as I walked through that door. His eyes, the same color as mine, filled with tears, but I had no empathy for a man that sold me so easily.
“He begged me for money, Ophelia. He hated what he did to me, but he didn’t care enough at that point to stop himself from begging me for his next shot. The house I was born in was in ruins. No electricity, no food, bare walls, and a hollow soul living inside. I had no emotions toward the man who had destroyed my life. I told myself that I would never be like him. I told myself I would never hurt those I loved, but I did just that.” I glanced at her. “I hurt you.”
I hurt the one person I wanted to cherish, because I didn’t know how to let go of my past. I told myself over and over again that I was doing the right thing, that I was nothing like them, but my actions were the opposite of what I promised myself, and I would regret it for the rest of my life.
“I pushed you away because I don’t know how to show you my fear, Sunshine,” I whispered. “I was afraid you would see the weak man and you would never want me. I was afraid you would take one look at me and realize that I wasn’t what you wanted. My fear controlled me and I tried masking it with this anger that I still don’t know how to let go of.”
“You could’ve told me all of this before, Storm,” she mumbled. “Don’t you think I was afraid as well? I’d just stabbed the man I was supposed to marry a long time ago, thrown into your world, and all I wanted was for someone to see me, to truly love me, to show me that I wasn’t the monster they all made me out to be. That’s all I wanted.” She took a deep breath and turned toward the road again. “We all have our demons, Storm. Some are louder than the others, but we all have them. We all have fear. We all live with anger. We all carry pain deep inside our souls, and we all make mistakes. It’s up to us how we control those things. It is up to us how we decide to go forward.”
“I know,” I murmured.
“I don’t think you do,” she added. “I don’t think you truly understand what you did to me, to us.” She turned her face toward me. “I gave you so many chances, Storm. I stayed when I should have gone. I loved you with all my heart, hoping that you would wake up from this slumber, and that you would finally see me. I don’t need money, Storm. I have enough of that on my own. I don’t need someone to protect me because I can do that myself. I just wanted someone to hold me, to tell me things would be okay. That’s what I wanted, and I chose you. I would always choose you, Storm. But now there are two other little people who need me more than you do, and I can’t keep putting our needs above theirs.”
“I understand,” I rasped.
“Do you really?” she asked. “Because what you’re doing right now is trying to lure me back into your web of lies. You’re trying to be nice, but you’re only being nice when there are no other people around us. Indigo was choking me back in that cabin, and you just stood there, doing nothing. Why? Because your ego was hurt? Because you didn’t want to seem weak since I told you I was leaving?”
“No.” I shook my head. “That’s not why.”
“It doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?” She smiled hollowly. “Once we get back to the Club, I’ll be leaving. I don’t want to live like this,” she whispered. “I’ve had enough heartache and pain to last me a lifetime. The last thing I would want to have is a future where my happiness was something that depended on your mood. I will always be Ophelia Aster, and you will always be Storm Knoxx. Our worlds, they don’t play well with each other. My family did too much damage to yours, and people would always know. They would remember. I don’t want these kids to be looked at as enemies. I want them to be loved, cherished, and protected. I don’t want to live in the Club my entire life.”
“I get it,” I grunted. “You want more.”
“Yes, I want more. I’ve spent so many years running, hiding, fighting, killing… I’ve spilled so much blood, Storm, nothing could ever wash it off of my hands. But I want to have some peace, or at least something akin to peace. And you can’t give me that. You can’t promise me that you would never resent me for the things Nikolai did, because you would. Every time I do something that doesn’t align with your own beliefs, you look at me in the same way you looked at him. You might not want to believe it, but you still think I’m a monster. You still think I’m incapable of love, of trust, and it shows. It’s obvious that your members think the same.”
The air surrounding us was thick with emotion, suffocating both of us. She wanted a partner, an equal, and I failed to provide her with that. I thought I was going to be better at this than she was, but it was obvious that two people like us could never find common ground because of everything that had happened.
“I don’t want you to leave,” I murmured, the words leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. Just thinking about life without her squeezed my chest, the monstrous talons ripping through my skin, right through my heart. “I don’t want our kids to grow up with parents who are separated.”
“You gave me no choice, Storm. You told me that you’re giving me an out without even asking if that’s what I wanted.”
“I didn’t want to give you an out or to push you to do something you didn’t want to do. I’m terrible at this, Sunshine.” I looked at her. “Words don’t come easily to me, and I didn’t explain myself properly.” I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I wanted to tell you that if you wanted to leave, I wouldn’t stop you. I wanted to tell you that I didn’t want you to leave, but if that would make you happy, I would respect your wishes. I would respect anything you decide to do, but I want you with me. I want to grow old with you, to laugh and cry with you. I want to raise our kids together. That’s what I wanted to say, but instead, I pushed you away. My poor choice of words created a chasm between us, and I will regret it for the rest of my life.”
Silence ensued, holding us in its tight grip, and I had no idea what she was going to say. Did I lose her forever? Was she ever going to be able to get over the things I did in the last couple of months?
“I don’t know what to say, Storm,” she mumbled, pushing her hands between her legs. “The way you made me feel…” she trailed off. “It was too much. This constant push and pull between us, I just… I don’t know what to think.”
“Just… stay,” I pleaded. “Stay with me, Phee. We could figure this out. We could make it work.”
She shook her head, avoiding my eyes. “I can’t. My heart is telling me to stay, but my mind… My mind is telling me to go, to get away from you, at least for a little while. We need time, Storm. Time to figure out what we really want.”
