“To you,” I say, reaching out for her, but she steps away from my touch.
“No, you’re here because of what he did to us. This isn’t about me. This is about you,” she repeats, each word like an accusation.
I stagger a step back. Is that really what she thinks? Is she right?
“No. Sweetheart, you’re wrong.”
She sighs, “I’m right, Xavier. And you know it. You’re here because of some fucked up vendetta you have against your own ego. Because of some pent-up feelings of inadequacy, about not being able to protect me.”
“He wouldn’t have done it if I’d been here, Malynda.”
“Maybe, maybe not. We’ll never know, Xavier. What we do know, is that… you’re not much fucking better.”
“What?”
“I saw you. I saw you, Xavier. You were out of control! If I hadn’t stopped you… you, you were probably going to kill him. And that scares me more than anything any stranger could do to me. I don’t even know who you are. I don’t know who you’ve become. I might’ve changed my name, but you changed who you are.”
Her eyes lift to mine, and they’re wet but I can see my reflection in them. And worse, I can see how she sees me. A violent monster. Worse than her actual attacker. A stranger.
“Oh, Malynda…”
“I’ve gotta go. I… I can’t be here. I have to go.”
Her front teeth dig into her bottom lip, stopping it from trembling, and she holds my look for one more second before she turns and walks away.
I want to run after her.
I want to tell her, she’s wrong. It was for her, everything, it was always for her.
I want to tell her I’m the same Xavier she knew and loved back then.
But my feet won’t move. My lungs can barely drag in air.
Maybe it was all for nothing. The moment she left on that bus to come to New York, it ended then, and I’ve been chasing a dream ever since.
“Xave?” I hear Kaine’s voice say, low and quiet.
“She’s gone. She left.”
“Go.” I hear him say quietly, and I feel Ram push past me and then out the door.
“Ram will take care of her, don’t worry,” he says, and I feel his hand, warm but firm on my shoulder.
“She’s gone,” I say again.
“I know. Come on. We need to get out of here.” His hand squeezes.
I turn, looking back up the staircase. “I need to…”
“No, that’s done.”
“I’m not done, Kaine. He’s still…”
He cuts me off. “It’s done. You heard him, he won’t be bothering her again.”
“But he…”
“I know. She told me.”
“Everything?” I search his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Then how can I leave? When he can still walk out of here.”
He sighs and shrugs. “Because it’s what she wants. You’re going to have to live with that.”
I shake my head. “She doesn’t know what she wants. She’s terrified of him.”
“And yet she came here. To stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life.”
“And now she’s terrified of me.”
He doesn’t lie and say she doesn’t. He wouldn’t. “You can change that.”
“Maybe it’s too late.”
“Maybe. And you’ll have to learn to live with that as well.”
“No, I don’t, Kaine.” I brush his hand off and walk out the door.
I don’t have to learn to live at all.
***
“Xavier, what are you doing here?” my mom asks when I show up at her door three hours and a bottle of scotch later.
“I… I came to check up on you, your knee,” I say, swaying down the hallway and collapsing on the couch.
“You mean my ankle?”
“Yup, that too.”
She hobbles over to me, “You’ve been drinking again?”
“Yup. You want some?” I drag myself up off the couch and over to the small drinks bar.
“No thanks. I’m fine.”
“Good, more for me.”
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing, mom. Just same old same old.”
I stagger into the guest room and fall into the dark.
Her
It’s quiet in the building when Ram follows me up the elevator and into my office. The world outside has quieted with the setting of the sun, and the darkness has drawn a cloak around my mood. The ride back to the city was done in complete silence. I couldn’t even tell you if I breathed, except that I’m still here, alive.
Replaying the scene over and over in my brain, watching Xavier pummel Damien, the way he pulled his leg back, ready to slam into his head.
In my mind, in some of the replays, he follows through.
Sometimes I want him to. Sometimes I don’t.
The times I want to watch his foot smash Damien’s head in two, I want him to, for me.
The times he stops, I want him to, for him.
It’s not something I want him reliving, realizing what he’s done, once he’s out of his revenge trance. Even though I said that he was doing it for him and not for me, I don’t truly believe it. I said it because it’s what I thought would shake him back into himself, wake him up, because that man, that vicious, violent, angry man, is not Xavier.
I won’t have him make a mistake that could ruin his life because of me. Not twelve years ago, not now.
There’s a soft light at the end of the hallway, from Cameron’s office, and I check the time on my watch.
Almost seven p. m. What’s he still doing here?
“Isabella?” he calls out.
“Yeah,” I answer quietly, turning into my office. I don’t want to see him right now, don’t want to see anyone. Ram stops and pulls back into the shadows, but I know he won’t be going anywhere. I wonder if Xavier knows that even though he felt he’d lost me, the friends he gained are worth more to him than I ever should.