Burning Ruins

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty One

Axel

"Stormi you've been down all week what's going on?" I asked her as she sat on the couch sniffling.

"I lied to a dying woman because I wanted her to see the life that see needed to see for her own daughter Axel." she responded.

"What did you say to her?"

"She asked me my name and I told her Stormi, because you jackass made it stick to my head like fucking glue. She asked me to tell her my life because she wanted to have her daughter to have the same life I had, and that shit would be messed up if I told her my life. I could not sit there, tell her my mother was a drug addict, and killed herself because she couldn't take this fucking world anymore. I couldn't tell her that my father got drunk more and more each night because he missed her too fucking much. I couldn't tell her that I was raped and my boyfriend didn't even want to believe me. I couldn't tell her that I'd get felt up at bars and parties because I couldn't control my own addiction. I couldn't even tell her that my own boyfriend fucked up and cheated and I stayed every damn time. I couldn't let her see her daughter's world in my own eyes. I couldn't tell her the darkness that withheld me. I wanted her to see light through the nickname you gave me Axel. I told her the story of what should've been Stormi's not Delaney's." she faced away from me and looked at her book in her hands.

"Darkness is just the absence of light." I responded. "You always have light Delaney, you just are in a time in your life that your lights dimmed just enough where it seems like there's darkness. You've been through shit, we all have. Some worse than others, yours is worse." I paused and wanted to grab her hand to let her see how worth it she was. "Do you regret not telling her the truth?"

She shook her head. "No, I think I just wish I had the life I made up. Where I'd want to make my mother proud even after she passed away with cancer, I wish I could've fallen in love so many times. I wish I could wake up feeling like I could do the things everyone else can do. To walk like I'm in a dream, not afraid of the men I meet."

"Are you afraid of me?" I waited.

She smiled. "I could never be afraid of you Axel."

"Were you ever afraid of me?" I rephrase the question.

She paused. "Yes but not in the way I feared Hunter and Steve. I was afraid of you because you reminded me of myself."

"Explain."

"When you smiled you smiled the smile you show to your fans and that's what I did to my friends. I read you like I read myself. You pushed yourself, you tried not to let people see you care. You play pretend just like I do."

"Your afraid of yourself?" I asked realizing she did understand me.

"Sometimes. I stayed with Hunter for five years knowing he cheated." she paused before asking. "Why didn't you ask why I stayed so long even after knowing? That's what everyone asks me, why didn't you?"

"I never thought you needed to explain yourself. We all have reasons and if you wanted to stay with him that was you. I didn't want to make you feel worse than you already were feeling."

"Do you wanna know?" she raised her eyebrow at me.

"If you want me to know."

"I was afraid of being alone. He was there when my mom passed away and he stayed."

"What changed when you guys broke up?"

"I still was afraid. I thought I'd go back, I think part of me wanted too. He's been there but it was something you said to me. You gave me an option to leave. I was drunk but I remember you talking about me cooking for you."