The Protective Heart ✔️

28. Protecting her from wrong conclusions

A/N: I hope you all had a great weekend! I know I did! 😜🍾

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"Crystal, come on in." I cringed at my own name, feeling like beetles had crawled under my skin.

"Don't call me that." I said before my brain processed it.

"You told me to." He responded and I immediately felt like an idiot. Trying to pretend like nothing happened, I walked past him and into his house. I heard the door click shut behind me as I took in my surroundings. I had been here more times than I could count but for some reason, it felt so foreign now.

He walked past me and I followed him into the kitchen. I sat down at the table awkwardly. The image of Declan and Nikki kissing flashed through my mind. I closed my eyes tightly, trying to recover from the nasty memory. I opened my eyes slowly and looked up at him. My hands started to shake as I thought about having to confront him.

"Can I get you something to drink?" He asked and I shook my head. He sat down across from me and our eyes locked on each other.

"Tell me what really happened. All of it." I said, feeling my confidence return.

"Are sure you're ready for this?"

"No, but I need to hear it and I need to hear it now."

"Ok...I guess I'll start with the very beginning. I lied to you when I said that I didn't know why your dad showed up. He wanted to tell you that Nikki is on drugs. She's be-"

"Wait, what?!" I felt my throat close up and tears threaten my eyes.

"When your mom passed, she went out of control. She met...a girl and started doing crack."

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, feeling my voice quiver.

"I was trying to protect you. I thought that if I helped Nikki get her life together, then you wouldn't have to know about it. You've already been through so much this last month, I was worried about you."

"That girl that she's living with, is she the one that's dealing to her?"

"Yes...and she's also my ex-girlfriend." My eyes went wide and my breath caught in my throat.

"What?"

"Kate found out that I was dating someone and she got jealous, I'm assuming, and decided to move back here. She met Nikki at a bar and started putting the pieces together and figured out that she was your sister. She manipulated Nikki into starting drugs and then persuaded her to try to take me away from you." He took a deep breath and I watched him, unable to speak anymore. "Yesterday, when you came over, she was trying to make me break up with you but when I told her I would never do that, she got angry. As a last ditch effort, she leaned over and kissed me...that's when you walked in."

"Why didn't you pull away?" This question, out of all of the ones rushing through my mind, was the one that had been killing me.

"I was in shock. I didn't even realize what was happening until it was too late...I'm sorry, Crystal. I'm so sorry." I clenched my sweaty hands into fists.

"I have to go." I whispered and then stood up. My legs wobbled underneath me and the room started spinning. My body collapsed underneath of me but something caught me instead of hitting the ground. I looked up to see Declan's mismatched eyes looking down at me before vision became darker and darker until my whole world went black.

*~*

'Crystal, Nikki, I will be back soon, alright?'