𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐁 [COMPLETED]

32: Best Thing

• • •

A month later..

Wednesday
June 14, 2017

12:33 p.m.

Bianca Hawthorn

I picked up around Briyelle's apartment listening to Ace talk in a baby tone to Jace as he fed him. I'd been staying with Briyelle since I'd gotten out of the hospital a month ago where I could rest and didn't have to be around Ace. I knew that I was probably tripping on him about the whole cheating thing but I just...I just wanted space to breathe. I'd never been away from him on my own since I'd moved in after he killed Neil. We weren't broken up. I just wanted time to myself until I was ready to go back to the mansion. If I'd ever be ready. I let him see Jace when he wanted but I told him if he tried discussing us then that visit would be cut short.

I stood in the kitchen looking across the room at him as he put Jace over his shoulder burping him. I watched my baby crack a half smile as he drifted off to sleep.

All I could do was watch because it was really starting to sink in that I had a baby. A baby that wasn't stripped from my arms and sent off to someone else. A baby that I didn't have to bury like we'd buried Skye who I missed dearly. Just staring at him in awe of how he was so loving and tender with our son made me want to go home. Our home. I just didn't want to go back if he was going to continue leaving me in that big house alone. I didn't want to go back if I had to always be the strong one. We were supposed to be a team meaning that he should've been the strong one for me sometimes. What about me? I'd been hurting too but put it to the side to make sure that he knew I'd be there for him always.

He stood up with Jace in his arms and caught me staring. It was too late to pretend that I wasn't so I just folded my arms and rocked back and forth on my heels.

"You mind if I go put him down? I don't wanna just walk through here without permission." He said. He always asked me this any time he came over.

"You know where it is." I said pretending to be looking around the kitchen for something so I wouldn't have to look at him. I knew those eyes of his were my weakness and if I looked into them I'd melt and decide to leave with him. I couldn't go back home with him. I needed to stay here and grieve and focus on myself and Jace. Briyelle was excited to have us here.

After being apart our teenage years we were so happy to finally be back together. I thought she'd died with our parents but she'd only been in hiding. Truth was right after I'd been sold before they'd died they'd sold her too. She'd managed to get away from the man she'd married when she was 18 and a friend of our family had been hiding her. They'd told me that she'd died because they didn't know if I was still with Neil who'd killed our parents. They didn't know if he was pushing me up to find her. They also didn't want Briyelle's husband to know where she was because he was after her.