9. Della

CHAPTER 9

Della

E verything inside of me aches to the bone. To my core, I'm exhausted and delirious. I haven't slept, yet I can't get up. Learning I might not be my father's daughter is the worst thing that could happen to me. I know there's a threat with this Sean Smith person, but I'd rather face that man and whatever he has planned than Carter O'Neill again.

My entire life feels like a lie. It's betrayal in its worst form, and I can't breathe. My ability to read people, to feel their turmoil, has been taken over by my own emotions, and I'm struggling to come to grips with the sheer amount of pain I'm in.

"Della?" Odette's sweet voice breaks through the fog, but only briefly. I feel her weight sitting on my bed, and I can see her, but it's like tunnel vision. She's there, but my consciousness refuses to acknowledge her presence.

Malice hovers near the door, facing away from us, speaking to someone hidden by the wall, likely Carter. "You haven't eaten in days, Del. You need to have some water, at least?" Odette is one of the sweetest people I know. All the Cavanaugh girls are, so ignoring her isn't easy, but I can't find it in me to care. "Please, Della." There are tears in her eyes, and a rush of sadness hits me so hard that I gasp loudly, drawing the attention of everyone.

Tears immediately flow when I realize it's Odette I'm feeling. I'm doing this to her. As she crawls into bed with me, lying so our fronts face each other, I close my eyes at the feel of her palm on my cheek.

"Talk to me, Del." Her voice is whisper-quiet.

"What if he doesn't want me?" I finally release my genuine fear.

"Who?" She pushes in so our heads rest together.

"Holy." Saying his name hurts my entire body. I haven't heard from him since he left, and now I know that not only my biological mother didn't want me, but it's likely my birth father didn't, either. It's a suffocating feeling.

"That's not true," Odette is quick to reassure. I wish I could believe her.

"Dammit, Della, I do fucking want you. You are my daughter no matter what DNA says." Carter's outburst startles me as he storms into the room. His anger and concern scream like a siren.

"Too much," I hiss as I attempt to cover my ears.

"Fuck." He turns right back around. It's not the first time he's witnessed this happen to me, so he knows what I'm going through. Malice follows him out and shuts the door so it's just us girls.

"You know that Carter loves you more than life, right?" I nod. I do know that. I never doubted it. "You know it's his love and concern for you that keeps him from going anywhere near Cece, too."

"I told him to pursue her," I croak out, my throat incredibly dry. Odette reaches behind herself for the water she brought in and hands it to me. After chugging the whole bottle, I feel a little better. "I want them to be together." Thinking about their problems is easier than dealing with my own.

"I know, but he won't until he knows you're okay and taken care of." I wish that weren't the case. I know Holy is interested in me now, but eventually, it'll wear off. Having someone around who always knows what you're feeling and thinking after a simple kiss will wear a person down.

Rolling onto my back, we lay in silence for a while. I want to be normal, to be able to accept that a man like Holy could love me forever, but I'm also a realist. I don't believe for a second that he won't tire of me. Not when I get tired of myself so often. I don't like knowing what people feel when I walk into a room, nearly hearing their thoughts from a simple touch. Never knowing if that touch will heal them instead of offering a comforting hand.

The first time I ever healed a person was when I was five, and a girl in my kindergarten class fell off the monkey bars and broke her leg. I offered to hold her hand while we waited for the teacher, but instead, her bone fixed itself, and all the agony of the injury transferred to me.

I screamed for hours until I passed out, and my father had to keep me home for a week after that. I hadn't even wanted to go back to school. I didn't have answers to any of the questions I was asked, and soon, I was cast aside, even by the few friends I had.

Understanding it at five was difficult, but it's downright terrifying as an adult because I know so much more now.

"You know he's not easily scared off, right?" Odette says quietly.

"If you knew what he now knows, you would be, and I can't even blame him." Tears force my eyes shut because I'm so tired of crying. I'm tired of feeling like I'm about to combust from the emotions. "I'd really like to be alone now, please." Rolling away from Odette, I face the wall and bury my head in my pillow.

It's a few minutes before I feel her hand on my hip as she gets up to leave, the door closing quietly behind her.

My chest tightens with the sobs I've been holding back, and when they finally bust free, I feel myself breaking down into a million shattered pieces of glass. I can't catch my breath, and my ears ring, making it impossible to form a coherent thought.

Being down in the trenches of uncertainty and despair is the only thing that shuts down my empathic abilities. There's always a buzzing in my head around the house from the people employed by my father, but when I'm so doused in my own hurt and anger, I get an ironic sort of relief.

It's both terrifying and numbing because it truly means I am alone in the world. When I don't feel others' emotions, I can hardly process my own. I don't know if what I feel is real or imagined, and the brutal truth is, I don't know how to be me without the world tiptoeing inside my head.

Being so sensitive and exposed, I can feel my body shutting down. Shivering as if I've just climbed a snowcapped mountain in the nude, I slip from bed and head for the shower. I'm cold to the bone and need immediate heat, or I'm going to pass out and work myself into an illness that will only worry my father, and I don't want that for him.

With my head pounding, I keep the lights low and flick on the water before stripping and crawling into the glass-enclosed shower. Steam quickly fills the stall before billowing out into the rest of the room. Sitting on the bench with a cloth covering my eyes, the warmth is quick to take away the isolated chill assailing my body.

Agony has encompassed me in a cold-hearted hug, and it feels as though every bone in my body is slowly snapping in half. Every hurt I've healed, each agonizing emotion I've soothed, invades me and inevitably makes it harder to breathe. My heart pounds so rapidly that I'm almost certain it's bruising my chest.

Anxiety and panic aren't new friends; we're old pals with the understanding that this can only happen when I'm alone. The problem is, I don't think they will obey the rules this time. Usually, it lasts minutes, this time feels like forever.

The water cools, and the shivering returns, but I still can't find it in me to move. I don't want to allow the world back into my body and head.