Chapter 19

19

Angry didn't touch the emotion I was feeling.

Hell, I wasn't even feeling it. I was breathing fire. Every inhale burned. Every exhale felt like it scorched my throat.

She saw .

Sophie fucking saw. She saw him, the house, my neglect.

Fuck .

The drive home from my father's was silent.

I was positive that was a mistake, an even bigger one than not taking her back to her apartment and dropping her off. I needed to end this. And now I was going to have to do it at my house where she had no car instead of at hers where I could leave right after.

As soon as I shut the front door I ripped my own heart out, doing it fast.

"This needs to end. "

Sophie tossed her purse on the coffee table next to her laptop and slowly turned to face me.

"Why?"

"You're not seriously asking me that after what you saw."

Since the very first day in the grocery store she couldn't hide her thoughts from me. Not the immediate attraction, not her interest, not her embarrassment that bled into the shyness that had made her flee. And every time she'd looked at me since then her eyes spoke before she did. And right then they were flashing with anger.

Her pissed off, I could deal with.

"I asked, so yeah, I'm seriously asking," she said.

"My father's a drunk who lives in a pit," I pointed out the obvious.

Calmly she moved around the table, putting more distance between us. My insides withered at the implication; Sophie always moved toward me, never away. She liked to be close and I liked her there where I could touch her, feel her body curled into mine, soak in all her goodness and use it to kill the pain.

"Not to be callous but I don't see what that has to do with you. Or me. Or us. Or why you're ending us."

"That's not the first time I've walked into that house and seen him like that and it won't be the last."

For the first time since I'd met her I detested her gaze on me. She saw too much. She always did and what had once been precious and cherished and brought me peace now felt like a noose. Either she was going to do it or I was, but I was under no illusion that by the time this conversation was over, I'd be the one hanging.

I'd be the one ruined.

She was it for me. The woman I'd never wanted. The one who I knew I should've walked away from immediately. The one who if I wasn't broken I'd spend my life with. Who I'd love and adore for the rest of my life. The one who would bring me to my knees.

I was a selfish asshole but I wasn't cruel. I'd tighten the damn rope around my throat myself if it meant she walked away unscathed. I had to cut her loose before she was in too deep. Before she fell in love. Before she wasted any more time on a jackass who wasn't worth it.

"I suspect as much."

Fucking hell .

"Then you know I'm a shit son. A total piece of shit who leaves his father to live in that."

Sophie tilted her head ever so slightly, kept her expression neutral, and like we weren't talking about my alcoholic father and the squalor he lived in, asked, "Is that what you think?"

"No, I don't think that. I fucking know it."

She nodded.

I was dangerously close to losing my shit. Her unemotional tone and gestures which contradicted the fire in her eyes pissed me right the hell off. I needed her to yell at me, tell me what a motherfucker I was. Ask me what kind of heartless dick leaves his father to rot away.

I needed it .

I needed her righteous fury.

I needed her to hate me.

"What exactly do you think you should be doing?"

Was she fucking crazy?

"I don't know, Sophie," I spat. "I suspect a son who wasn't such an asshole would figure it out. But, I'm not that son. I'm an asshole who allows his father to sleep in his own vomit."

"Does it make you feel better to call yourself horrible names?"

Fuck this.

Fuck it .

If she was too blind to see what was right in front of her then I'd force her to see it. I'd shove it down her throat until she had no other choice but to run away so she could breathe.

"I hate him, Sophie. Every day he wakes up and spits on my mother's memory. On Vivi. On the family we once had. Every day he puts that bottle to his lips he disrespects what we had and we had a good family. I had a great mom. A sweet sister. A beautiful life. The kind you see on TV. Nice house in a nice neighborhood. Clean, good food on the table, birthday parties in the backyard. You saw it now, what he's done, how he's desecrated the home he shared with his family. With his wife. The mother of his children. The mother who took me to baseball and football practice. The woman who shared his bed. Who took Vivi to ice skating and soccer. Who kept his home and loved him. Kissed him every morning before he left for work. Held his hand often. Sat next to him at my games, at Vivi's. I lost them, too.

"One day my perfect family, in a nice neighborhood, in a nice, clean house, with two parents who I knew loved me and a sister who idolized me, a family I loved, was gone. Vanished. Two of them dead. One of them forcing me to watch him slowly kill himself. And the fuck of it is, I understand him. I get it. The way he loved my mother. He didn't hide it. She came alive when she was with him, but he breathed for her. He loved me and my sister but he adored my mother. If it had been me and Vivi who died, he would've been able to go on. But not her. I wasn't worth it to him. I wasn't then and I'm not now.

"But that's not why I hate him. Why there are times like today when I see him, when I see what he's done to my home, to the memory of our family, when I don't wonder why God took my mother instead of him. I hate that I think that, so I hate him more. I hate he took the father I loved away from me. I hate he's making me watch him slowly kill himself. I hate that no matter how hard I've tried to get him help in the past it never sticks. I fucking hate I'm not worth it to him to get sober and stay that way so I can at least have my father in everything I lost."

I felt every millisecond of the breath I sucked in. It seemed frozen in my chest in direct contrast to the fire pumping through my body.

Hideous, toxic memories assaulted me like they always did. Hatred and guilt fueled me to push on and give her the rest.

"I can't do this with you. I tried. I thought I could do it. But I've spent the last twenty-seven years of my life promising myself I'd never be like him. And all it took was you looking at me and I got lost in something I can't allow. I can't be him, sitting on that couch, day in and day out staring at a picture of the woman he lost drinking away the pain. This has to end before I lose myself completely. Before you get hurt."

The anger had leaked out of Sophie's gaze, but that wasn't to say she wasn't angry. I saw her hands shaking. Her body stiff and perfectly still.

I was so close to getting what I needed, the repulsion was leaking in. The silence was deafening—blood roared in my ears, my gut clenched, and the pieces of my heart that weren't already broken shattered.

As soul crushing as it was, I was doing the right thing.

I had to let her go. She had to be free. Sophie Huxley was a one-in-million woman, the kind who needed a good man who'd love her completely. And that was exactly what she was going to get.

"I'm not worth it," she whispered. "That's what you're saying."

Jesus fucking Christ.

"No, Sophie!" I shouted. "What I'm saying is you are worth it. You're worth everything. You deserve a man who isn't?— "

"Call yourself a name again, Valentine Malone, and see what happens," she snapped indignantly.

Why wasn't she leaving?

"Fuck this," I snarled.

If she wouldn't leave I would.

I didn't bother looking at her when I got to the door.

"Don't be here when I get back."

"I'm not leaving," she warned.

Without fully turning I craned my neck to look at Sophie.

She'd never been more beautiful, with her pretty eyes boldly holding me captive.

"I don't want you here," I lied.

I watched her flinch before she rallied.

"I wish with all my heart your mom and sister were still with you. My heart hurts for you and I wish I could stop your pain but I can't. The only thing I can do is stand my ground and prove to you, you are worth it. You're worth everything. You're worth my dignity. You're worth the pain you just inflicted. You're worth my anger. You're just plain worth it. So you might not want me here, but I'm staying. I'm going to fight for this until I have nothing left. I'm going to fight for you even if I have to fight you to get it. You do what you need to do but know when you get back I'll be here. So come prepared to battle, Valentine. I won't give you up."

Fuck .

Her aim was true.

So when I walked out my front door I did it bleeding.