WOUNDED

CHAPTER 60

AZ
Song: Flame - Tinashe

"Yeah well it's not going to be easy for me when I break up with you either."

"You're insatiable"

"I can't keep sharing you with the rest of the world"

"The more time you waste, the less hope there is for our relationship"

Kacely has grown tired of me, just like everyone else. This is why I didn't want a relationship, I didn't want this scary ass level of vulnerability I feel right now. I didn't want to depend on someone like this. That's the problem with me, I give it all. I lean in completely when someone shows me attention and love.

Why am I such a fuck up? Why am I such a burden? Such a pain? Such a parasite? Why do I always hurt people? Why do I always hurt myself?

I think about it and start crying again. I thought there was a limit to tears, but there isn't. My eyes are sore yet tears keep flowing and flowing.
I have cried so much, just once before and it's the day Lautner left. Since that day, I toughened up and never went back. I did cry when I left Zoe behind in Australia and every year on my birthday, I would shed a few tears, but the way I've cried these last few days is too much. Kacely has made me cry, but I made Kacely make me cry... Because I am such a fuck up.

My phone rings and it's Gramps. I ignore it and moments later, Shura calls too. I swipe up the control bar and tap on the airplane icon, switching the mode.

I spend the rest of the day in my safehouse while my car is still near that bar. I pace the room for an uncountable number of times, eating my nails in the process. I can't even think about drinking now, I can't even eat.

I should probably end things with Kacely. That way, things won't be completely ruined between us. It's either that or I tell him the truth about Lautner.

No, that has been buried for years. Nobody knows about it, not a soul. It's dark, it's low, it's disgusting. I will rather let Kacely go.

Will I? Will I really?

Sliding down the wall slowly, I think of what I will do with my life if that happens. My past is dark, hidden and Kacely is the only light peaking through the cracks. He is my saviour, the only thing that makes me leave my room these days. He is the only thing that makes me lower the concrete walls I took years building.  Before he left for Edea, it was perfect. Why the fuck did I go over to that Supermarket? Why the fuck did I go upstairs with him? Why couldn't I stop myself when he touched me?

Now's not the time for regrets over the past, it's time to make decisions about the present... About the potential future.

I'm not letting Kacely go. I won't. I can't!
But I can't tell him about Lautner either. He might see me like some damaged human being, like a hopeless case. Telling him about it won't stop my lack of satiety, it'll just expose it and I'm afraid of how he'll react to that. I'll beg him a while longer, I'll do anything to see if he can forgive me without necessarily knowing about Lautner.

...

Within the past two days, I've left Kacely a total of eighty three messages alongside ninety eight calls. None of which he replied. He is online and his phone does ring.
I wish he blocked me all together so that it won't ring at all but it does ring and he doesn't pick.

I went back for my car the evening after our big fight and went home. Gramps had come back from his honeymoon the previous day, he talked and talked and whined and whined and he scolded me for not picking his calls for two days and getting him all worked up but I didn't flinch. Even when he grounded me for a week, I didn't care.
Honestly, if he had been a better grandparent to me, all this wouldn't have happened. So it's on him too.
Shura begged him to uplift the punishment but he didn't budge.