Page 95 of Bound By Threads
Her frown deepens. “You’re not making any sense, Crew. Are you high?”
The question stings more than it should, and when she starts backing away, everything inside me fractures.
My knees give. I drop to the pavement, ignoring the sting in my knees and uncaring that this is in public, and reach out, hand gently curling around her ankle, not to hold her there, just to be near her.
She could shake me off in a second, but she doesn’t.
She just… freezes. Stares down at me like she’s seeing a ghost. Pity shadows her expression, but behind it, I think I catch something else.
“I’m not high,” I rasp. “I swear.”
She doesn’t move.
“Then what are you saying, Crew?” she asks, voice hoarse as she sinks to her knees in front of me.
I can’t stop the words.
They fall out of me like everything I’ve held in is finally collapsing.
“I lost everything when my parents died. They weren’t perfect… hell, they barely remembered I existed once the drugs kicked in. But they were still mind. And then they were gone.” I swallow hard. “Roman’s dad took me in. Gave me a place when no one else would. I thought I owed him everything.”
Her eyes soften slightly, confusion flickering across her face.
“One day you were just… there,” I continue. “Holding your dad’s hand, clutching that little seashell like it was sacred. Looking around Roman’s house like it was a whole new world.”
A smile ghosts across her face—small, distant.
It breaks me.
“I forgot my dad worked for his family for a while,” she murmurs, her eyes turning glassy. “I always thought that was why they left us alone for as long as they did.”
I shake my head. “He didn’t leave you alone. He used you. He made us hurt you because it was the easiest way to control your Dad and punish him.” My throat tightens. “You were a tool. A pawn just like we were… are.”
The hurt flashes across her face like lightning. “He made you?”
“You don’t think we wanted to hurt you, do you?” I scoff, too fast, too defensive.
She rears back, her expression hardening. “Of course I think that! You didn’t just follow orders, Crew. You followed me, tormented me. You soaked my clothes, called me names, made my life a waking hell… All of you.”
She takes a step back. Then another. Her spine straightens, and the weight of her words slams into my chest like a wrecking ball.
“I was already drowning,” she says, voice shaking. “We barely had electricity or food. And you three… boys, I used to think were my everything, decided I was entertainment. Ways of making themselves feel better. I was alone in every aspect, my world silenced by someone who thought they could steal my voice, and you three made it worse… You made sure I never got it back.”
Silence.
I can’t breathe because she’s right.
I could have filled the silence with my voice until she felt she could finally speak.
But instead, we destroyed her.
“I didn’t see it then. I didn’t understand,” I whisper. “I thought I owed him everything, but all I did was betray the one person who ever saw me when I was nothing but a drug addict’s kid. I let him tell me you were less, and I was so desperate to belong that I believed it.”
“We had no choice…” I try to make her understand, but she holds her hand up.
“You always have a choice, Crew.”
“I fucked up back then. I felt like I owed him. He could have left me to rot in foster care or on the streets, but he didn’t. He took me in, and I was a stupid kid who didn’t see how evil he really was…” I don’t rise. I crawl forward on my knees and take her hand—gently, like it might break. “I’m not that stupid kid anymore, Piglet. I’m just stupid for you. I’m choosing you. I’m not high. I’m no longer numb. I’m choosing you now. I saw you again, and it was like breathing for the first time…” I lower my head, rest my forehead against the warm skin of her hand. “You were running into another man’s arms, but you were alive—breathing, and all I could feel was peace.”
