“If this is how you treat me when you love me,” I repeated, taking another step back. “I’d dread to see what you’d do if you hated me.”
“Alannah,” he said, softly. “Please don’t walk away from me.”
The pain in my chest hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt before.
“Please,” he begged. “Don’t leave me.”
“I can’t be near any of you right now,” I said. “I don't trust any of you, just like none of you trust me.”
“We do trust you, Alannah,” Nico pleaded. “We do.”
“But not enough to be honest with me?”
Silence.
“Exactly,” I said with a shake of my head. “You can all say it was to protect me, but it was only to protect yourselves and the monsters you are for not only committin’ such acts, lads, but you girls for standin’ by them and knowin’ what they’ve done, too.”
“Alannah—”
“I’m goin’ into me bedroom, and I’m lockin’ the door. I’m goin’ to force meself to go to sleep, and when I wake up, every one of you better be gone, and Damien, I mean that. I’ll call the guards otherwise, and you never know what I might say, ye’know, since I’m so untrustworthy.”
Damien grabbed me when I turned my back and began to walk away.
“You have to let us explain,” he begged. “You have to let me explain.”
“Right now, I can’t,” I said, fighting back tears. “I just need to be on me own. If I want you to explain, I will ask you all to explain, but for God’s sake, let me have time to process this.”
“If I let you go, you won’t come back to me. I know you won’t.”
“That’s a risk you’re goin’ to have to take because one way or the other, I’m puttin’ space between all of you and me. I don’t want to be near any of you. If you don’t respect me as a person to trust me with your secrets, then at least respect me decision to not want to be around you.”
“I’ll tell you everything,” Damien said, kissing the side of my face, drawing a small cry from me. “When you want an explanation, I’ll tell your everything. I swear.”
He hugged me so tight, I thought I felt my bones crunch.
“I love you, freckles.”
The sad thing about all of this wasn’t that he told me he loved me after I found out such horror about his family; it was sad because even though I knew what horrendous acts were committed and how he lied to my face, I loved Damien, too. Despite all of that, I loved him with every fibre of my being … and if that wasn’t a travesty, then I didn’t know what was.
Two weeks later…
“Alannah?”
I looked at my ma.
“Yeah?”
“Bear, I’ve called your name three times.”
I blinked. “Sorry, Ma, I just have a lot on me mind.”
A hell of a lot.
“What is goin’ on?” she asked me, gently. “Please don’t tell me nothin’ because I know it’s somethin’, baby.”
I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from crying.
“I just had a big fallin’ out with Damien and the others.”
“Even Bronagh?”
I grunted. “Yeah, even Bronagh.”
“Oh, my God,” Da said from my right. “It must have been a hell of a fight for you and Bee to fall out.”
“You’re tellin’ me.”
“D’ye want to talk about it?” Ma asked, resting her hand on my shoulder. “We’ll listen.”
“Honestly, I just need time away from all of them,” I admitted. “I’m okay, I promise; it’s just somethin’ I have to work through meself, ye’know?”
“Yeah, love,” Da said from my left. “We know.”
I glanced at him and smiled when he winked. I looked from him to my ma, and though I was still scared for her future, of waiting for her to start radiation for her cancer, and then waiting to find out if worked, I was prepared for it. We would fight her illness together as a family, no matter what came our way, no matter what it took, we'd tackle it together.
Things between us had gotten so much better since that day in the hospital after my ma got her surgery. A few days ago, they got even better after my parents sat me down, and my ma admitted to knowing that da was cheating on her. He had planned to wait until she finished radiation to speak to her about it, but he felt so guilty that he told her one night when they were lying in bed, and she replied with three words, “I already know.”
I was blown away, and my instinct was to react with anger at her for sticking around when she knew my da was breaking their vows, their trust, but my ma explained to me that she knew that my da knew it was all a mistake before he even realised it himself. She told me that people make mistakes and hurt those we love, and that is what makes us human. The ability to be less than perfect.