Conspicuous Secrets

Chapter Forty-Four

My brother carried me in the front door. "Holden, can you close the door?" I heard him ask. "Delilah, you need to calm down and breathe," he said as I sobbed into his chest.

I grabbed his cotton shirt in my fist and held it tight, shaking my head. "Kason hates me," I choked out. "He hates me."

"He doesn't hate you," he told me. "He will be back."

"He won't. He won't come back. I blew it—I ruined everything." Everything had been so delicate between us and I knew if one thing went wrong, I would lose him. And I did. I lost him.

My brother held me close to him. He sat me down on the couch then sat directly beside me so I could lean into him. I finally spotted the twins and Aria in the room. They just stared into space as my brother tried to calm me down.

"Will someone please tell me what in the world is going on?" Aria asked, staring at me. Personally, I ignored her question. Her knowing everything wasn't on my list of priorities right now. I heard the voices of my brother, Holden, and Marla as they started explaining everything to her, but I didn't pay attention at all.

After a few minutes, everyone else in the room was deep in a conversation about mine and Gavin's lives. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed Kason's number. It rang and rang. I tried over again, but after calling twice, my called weren't even going through anymore. He either turned off his phone or blocked me. Great.

He really didn't want to talk to me. Taking a deep breath, I wiped the tears from my eyes, even though they were soon replaced. I wasn't sobbing anymore, but still shedding tears. My gaze fell on the car keys on our coffee table. I could go after him. Not thinking twice, I jumped off the couch, grabbed the keys and bolted toward the front door.

Before I made it, however, my older brother's arms wrapped around me from behind and pulled me away from the exit. "Not so fast," he said. "It's not safe driving while you are like this."

"Gavin, let me go," I fought. "He needs me to explain."

"No," he said sternly. "Right now he needs time to think. He will be back around."

I didn't believe him. Kason had looked so broken. He wasn't coming back here. And he wasn't coming back to me.

We rejoined the others in the living room. "So, you're telling me that he knows where they are?" Aria asked the twins.

They nodded as we sat back down on the couch. "And he's already showed his face," I spoke up. "He walked up to me and Kason last night."

"Did he say anything?" she asked.

I shook my head. "He acted like he didn't know me," I explained. "He said he was looking for his two dogs that ran away."

Gavin raised his hand. "I'm pretty sure we are those dogs."

I elbowed him. "Shut up."

Holden looked at me. "So what happened with Kason? I thought you were going to wait to explain everything until you got here. We were going to tell him and Aria together," he reminded me.

"Yeah, well, that was my plan," I said looking down at my fingers. "But it seems that everything in our life never goes the way we want it to."

"What happened?" my brother asked.

"Miles showed up when we had to stop at Kason's house," I told them. He repeatedly called me 'Delilah' with Kason sitting right beside me. After Miles left, Kason asked questions and he knew I was lying when I came up with excuses...so I admitted everything." Tears welled back up in my eyes, but I quickly wiped them away, taking a deep breath. "Then, he told me to get out of his car...he begged me to leave."

"He will come around, Delilah," Marla assured me.

I nodded, but I didn't say anything, instead, I stood up. "I need a minute," I spoke softly before leaving the room.

Making my way into the bathroom, I closed the door and turned on the faucet. I splashed the cold water on my face before turning it back off. "You can get through this," I told myself. "You've got to get through this. We only moved here so we could survive...no attachments." I stared into the reflection in the mirror and looked for the girl that lived in Florida—the girl with the living mom and alcoholic father. I saw her in my baby-blue eyes. I still looked the same, but for some reason, everything felt different. "This is what happens when you break the rules. No more attachments," I told myself sternly. Why didn't I feel the same as the girl who used to stand up to her abusive father? I used to never back down in front of him. Now, I was freezing up on the sight of him and sobbing over teenage boys. That needed to change.

After drying the water off my face and taking a few silent minutes to breathe, I made my way back toward the living room where my friends and family were. "You need to leave. Like in the next few days," I heard Aria say.

"We don't want to," my brother replied.

"You are going to die if you don't."

I walked into view and saw Marla hugging Gavin tightly. He kissed the top of her head. "We can't leave you guys," he told her and the others. "And I know it's going to be impossible to get Delilah away from here before she fixes things with Kason."

"You have to, Gavin," Aria said. "Don't worry. We will keep in touch." My brother just sighed at her words.

"Yeah," Holden agreed. "You need to do this to save yourselves. And you can always come back to see us once all this finds justice."

Gavin finally nodded. "Okay. We can all go talk to Daniel in the morning. He will help us plan everything out."

I fought the lump forming in the back of my throat. "I am strong," I thought to myself. "I'm not weak."

The others finally noticed my presence and looked at me, wanting to know what I had to say. Though, I didn't have anything to say on the matter. "Do you guys want to stay the night?" I asked them. "I know the twins stayed last night, but—."

"We'd love to Delilah," Marla said instantly, smiling at Holden and Aria, who were both already nodding.

Taking a deep breath, I nodded. It was too late. I had already gotten attached to all of them. And now that it sounded like we would be moving again in the next few days, I knew it was going to be rough. I could tell Gavin didn't want to leave Marla. And we didn't want to leave anybody else. But we had to. In the end, it all came down to our survival.

***

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Thanks for reading:)

~Emily