I look toward Maddox, still sprawled with the girl across the bed, breathing heavily. He feels my gaze weighing heavy on him. “Need something?” It comes out like a question, but it’s not. He knows. I nod in response, unable to find the words. “Think it will help?”
“It has to,” I croak, closing my eyes tightly.
Hours later, he pulls me back against his chest, his hand tight around my throat. Buried deep insideme, he drops his forehead to his shoulder. “I’m going to hell for doing this to you,” he growls.
“We’ve been in hell,” I breathe. “We’re sloughing through the depths together. I’m fucking tired of hell.”
“Maybe you should start looking for Heaven.”
“Heaven has done nothing but break me down.”
Our grunts and pants fill the space as we find our release. We practically collapse onto the bed after the hours-long marathon. Laying there in the silence, the weight in my chest returns. I squeeze my eyes shut as I realize, this time, there won’t be any reprieve. I can’t shove it down and bottle it up. It’s out and won’t beheld.
But I refuse to let it be what it wants to be. I refuse to bleed.
I rub at my chest, the ache that wants to be acknowledged. “You know I love you. Right, Mads?” I finally ask to dispel the quiet.
“I know you do,” he admits.
“Then why isn’t it enough?” I nearly yell. “Why can’t we be enough for each other?”
“Because we’re not in love, Ry. We never have been. We are codependent as fuck, but we’re not in love. You love Heaven. You have for years. It’s not going away because you deny it.”
I scrub my hands over my face like it will scrub the truth away. I’ve always said I don’t feel at all, but I do. It’s just the things I feel are hard. It’s all pain. Pain that could easily cripple me, kill me, if I let it. Pain fueled by anger. Anger fueled by hate. Hate fueled by love.
Love I don’t want. Love that has done nothing but disappoint and hurt me. Because everyone I have ever loved has left me. Except Maddox and my grandfather.
I tried so hard to make him be enough, but he’s not. I still feel hollow and empty no matter how tightly I latch on to him. I feel it to the depths of my soul.
“I hate her, Mads,” I whisper. “I hate her so much.”
“But you love her too.”
“How the hell do I reconcile that? She took whatever bit of good I had left with her. There’s nothing left of me but darkness and anger and pain. But goddammit I do still fucking love her.” I jump to my feet, going in search of my clothes that are in the other room. Fuck it, no one here cares if my dick is hanging out. Maddox follows me, probably for his clothes as well. “First, I think she aborted my baby. Now I find out she kept him from me. How the hell can I still love her?”
“Love isn’t rational, Ry. Remember what Angel said. It’s easier to hate than to hurt.”
“That’s bloody bullshit. The hate does hurt. And I want her to hurt like I have. Like I am, but I also don’t want her to hurt. I want to keep her from ever feeling like this.”
“What makes you think she isn’t hurting just like you are?”
“Because she hasn’t been lied to for nearly a decade. She has never lived missing a child. Thinking everything was taken from her without a thought. She hasn’t felt this hollow darkness consume her soul, growing a little more every day.” I thump my chest as tears form. “She has no idea what it feels like to feel completely unwanted and unworthy.”
“I do,” he tells me softly.
“I know, Mads. It’s why I know I’ll always have you. Fucking hell, I wish it were enough.”
“I know, Ryder. I do too. Then maybe I’d be over Zoey.”
I shake my head in wonder. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“Yeah, you do,” he tells me morosely, making me wince.
“You’re going off the deep end.” I have to say it. It won’t change anything, but he needs to hear it. He needs to hear it from me.
“I went off the deep end a long time ago, but I’m still treading water.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
