UNSHAKABLE (Able Series Book 4) (13 page)

Silence
—it’s killing me. But I’m afraid there are no words that can undo what she’s heard. The noise created the ache, and the silence that exists between us is because of that noise.

Answers
—I only have one. I’m sorry . . . as sorry as I’ll ever be. But my answers are met by her silence.

SOPHIA

I’VE BEEN LOCKED UP FOR
lack of a better word in my room for the past five days. Five days. Not a word from him. Not a phone call. Not a text. Not a note. Nothing. While I’ve been surrounded by my dad’s minions, including Nicole, as they strategize how to erase the epic audio tape of Nicole and Damien fucking each other. The voices that brought the picture to life. Apparently, she taped them, and someone hacked her personal computer. Lovely, what a coincidence.

“If you don’t want me to pull this damn TV out of its socket, you better turn it off!” Dad’s angry eyes pin me where I sit.

“Honey please, nothing will be solved by yelling. Please.”

“Amanda, my patience is running thin.” His eyes soften as he looks at my mom. “She’s been locked in this room for days, watching this garbage over and over.” My dad takes a step toward me. His eyes throw angry darts at me. “Why, Soph? Why do you like hurting yourself? What’s the purpose?”

Do I say what I truly feel? Do I answer? I can’t because I don’t know what to say?

I know what I feel, though. I feel so betrayed . . . so angry . . . so disgusted. . . . so insecure . . . so insanely jealous. Jealous that she’s had what I’ve always wanted. I’m jealous that she got to feel his skin against hers. The image of him thrusting into her destroys me. . . . their moans, her calling out his name and him calling hers opens an avalanche of pain that buries me alive, painfully slowly. A cloak of insecurity covers me, knowing I can’t give that one thing she was able to, because he won’t let me. I find it hard to breathe thinking his lips, the very ones that kiss mine touched hers. I’m angry at who leaked it, and why she taped them. I’m disgusted that everyone has heard them fucking each other.

Loud unforgiving sobs want to escape, but I push them down as the memories flood my brain and shake my body to the core. Pain caused by severe jealousy, immeasurable ache because of repulsion from the sound that’s stuck in my brain, and deep anger lances through me because once again, I’m told to be quiet. I’m to stay quiet while others fight my fight, but really they fight their own.

“Why do I like hurting myself? Did I do this? Do you think I enjoy hearing it? Seeing it? But it’s out there! I’m being called every name in the book, and all I can say is ‘no comment’. While your Press Secretary takes her time explaining how her rights were violated because someone hacked her computer and aired her bullshit! She can say publicly how this is affecting her, how they were in a monogamous relationship and taping their love isn’t wrong. Yet, I have to stay quiet!”

“Do you think it’ll make a difference? If I called a damn press conference to explain myself for everything the media has said about me, I’d be doing it all day, every day! This kind of garbage doesn’t deserve airtime!”

“I don’t deserve to be called a slut or a damn third wheel in a threesome, or a desperate bitch in heat who’d screw every agent on my detail! But again, all I can say is ‘no comment’. You listen to your advisers, but you don’t listen to me! Joe tells you to hide me from the media, so you tell me to stay home. Nicole tells you for me to stop giving the media anything to talk about, so you tell me to say no comment. I watch the ‘garbage’ as you call it, so at least in my brain I can yell out what I want to say!”

“What do you think will happen once you set foot outside of the White House? Do you think they’ll relent? Do you think they won’t hound you? Do you think your detail could fend them off? Nicole is my Press Secretary; therefore, when she walks to that podium to speak, she speaks for you, to defend you primarily, and explaining what happened indirectly explains her side of the story as well.”

I brush my tears away angrily and stand in defiance. “What do you think happens when I stay quiet? My silence means
yes
to everything they’ve accused me of. . . . of everything they’ve called me! I can’t even condemn your precious Nicole for taping them! She said, ‘they were two consenting adults’. Damien didn’t want to be taped . . . he didn’t tell her to tape them. But I can’t say that, either! While my name is being ripped to shreds, she’s being consoled!”

“Stop!” He takes a step, sandwiching my mom between us. “Stop using words that don’t mean anything. She’s not ‘my precious’! You cannot destroy from within! And you cannot certainly attack without the right ammo to use! Do you think I like this? Do you think for one second that I don’t want all the evidence I need to drop the hammer on whoever is doing this? Do you think every hurtful word thrown your way doesn’t hurt me?”

I stand back, my eyes softening while my dad’s eyes are cloaked by hurt. “You will never understand the hard choices involved in everything I do. What may seem to be a brush off in the end will not be, Sophia. I love you,” he says with conviction so resolute my tears fall. “It hurts that you question it, but it hurts more that you’re uncertain of its strength.”

His eyes go to my mom and unspoken words are silently understood then he leaves without glancing my way. I wish I could have that. I desire to have that. However, all I have at this moment from Damien is nothing. Granted I’m giving him the cold shoulder, but isn’t the onus of it all on him?

“Oh, Sophia. If only I could take this pain away from you, I would. It’s hard I know. I know it hurts to see the man you love be with someone else in the most intimate of ways, but let the anger out, allow the pain to surface because keeping it all in will kill you. It’ll kill your spirit. Cry, get angry, curse at the world, throw something, do anything, just allow yourself to feel.”

I look into my mother’s eyes. Tears of pain for me, her only child, simmer at their edge, and the avalanche of emotions I’ve tried to keep from everyone comes roaring down. A loud wail, maybe a howl, purges out from the deepest part of me where all the hurt and pain are buried.

“Why? He betrayed me!”

“The why’s no one knows. Don’t question, for the answer you seek may not be what your ears want to hear. He didn’t betray you. He was betrayed himself, by the person he trusted enough to go to bed with.”

“Why does it h-hurt so mu-ch.”

I feel her lips on my forehead. “It hurts because you love him. It hurts because accepting its existence means recognizing it’s true. But when that hurt turns into acceptance and forgiveness is given, it’ll only be a memory. A painful memory, I know, but in time its sting won’t be accompanied with anguish.”

Shaking my head I spew out, “I hate her! I hate her!” More sobs powered by anger this time makes my chest clench in pain.

“Shh. . . . until we can be sure that she’s the leak of both the pictures and the audio tape, don’t concern yourself with her.” Pulling me off her chest, she looks at me. “I need you to be strong, stronger now more than ever. People out there are unforgiving. Destroying is their game, and I don’t want you to fall into that.”

“I’m tired of being strong.”

Pulling me back into her arms she says, “Hmm, you can never be tired of being strong because your source of strength is never too tired to give it. Seek His face, then maybe the shame that you feel will go away, the jealousy that eats you up will be replaced with trust in him, and the memory, well, you can never forget but you can let it go.”

I sit up wiping my face while I force myself to take a deep breath. “How can I move past this alone?”

“You’re never alone.”

Hearing his voice, my entire body locks up. My eyes search my mother’s, conveying to her to tell him to leave. I don’t want him here. My mother shakes her head in response, and the click of the door cements her departure. My heart thuds like the beat of a drum not prepared to face the man that obliterated my heart, but still occupies its shattered form.

The moment I feel his presence, my eyes close.

Cause
—one action caused my heart to bleed.

Effect
—perfect love’s effect wipes away the hurt enough for it to heal.

DAMIEN

“Can . . . can I touch you,” my pained voice echoes in the quiet.

I wait for her answer while I take pleasure in her presence. Five days without seeing her has been pure torture—torture my heart can’t withstand. As it was with us when my main goal in life was to protect her, I stand still.

My heart fights it, so I step closer. Slowly with confidence, I reach out to touch her. The tips of my fingers graze hers while her eyes follow my every move. I weave my fingers with her soft ones without resistance. The moment my palm hits hers, her head falls into my chest and my arms are instantly around her.

But is it too late?

“I’m sorry,” I say brokenly. “Say something. . . . scream at me . . . hit me, but please don’t ever say you don’t love me.”

“I don’t hate you,” she whispers as she pulls away from me.

“But do you still love me?” My eyes search hers for answers.

“I do. I love you so much, that’s why it hurts too much. . . . help me to forget.”

“Not the way you want me to.” She looks away, but I pull her back pushing her chin up for her eyes to meet mine. “Let me heal this first,” I murmur as I kiss her chest above her heart. “Let me mute everything these have heard.” My lips touch her left ear then her right. “Let me erase everything these have seen.” I kiss both her eyes. “Finally. . . .” I stop and hold her face. “. . . . I want to change every negative idea this has thought of about me.” My lips rest on her forehead.

“How? No one can wipe it out of my memory.” The pain in her voice destroys me.

“Love, baby. Trust me, it can wipe out any hurt. Just allow me . . . let me . . . give me the chance to love you while you’re learning to forgive me. Just don’t ever forget to love me back.”

“Will the hurt ever go away?” Tears trickle down her face, and as hard as I try not to drown in them, I do. I’m sinking—sinking in my own pain caused by my own actions.

“In time it will. The moment you forgive me.”

“It’s her I can’t forgive, but it’s your voice I can’t forget.”

The band that’s holding my control snaps. My lips finally meet hers, cautious one minute and reckless the next. It slowly morphs into tender nips and loving kisses. I tuck her face into my neck and whisper, “It’s this voice that you’ll hear tell you every day how much I love you. . . . and it’s this mouth that will prove it.”

“I love you.”

Hearing her say those words restores everything that has died inside me.

“God, you don’t know how much I’ve wanted to hear those words from your mouth. There’s no other but you. No other. She means nothing to me, okay? She was available, easy. She was a means to an end, understand?”

“I get that but . . . she. . . . her lips touched . . .”

“You enjoy torturing yourself? Because I don’t.” I step back, needing her to see how upset it makes me when she allows this shit to fester and take root in her brain. We need to talk about it though, and ripping it like a band aid is the only way to go. “So, her lips touched mine. They didn’t consume me. Your lips, they consume me. Every inch of me.”

“You were inside of her, loving her!”

“I was inside her, but she was never inside of my heart where it matters. I wasn’t loving her. I was fucking her. Look, I’m not a virgin, nor am I innocent, alright? She was available, so was I, and it happened. Do I like what’s happening? Absolutely, not. Did I know I was being taped? Fuck no! But I promise you, I’ll find out who leaked it.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s out now!” She takes a step toward me, confident in her anger. “You don’t know how I feel because I see her every day, and every day I die just a little knowing she’s had you! She’s in my head the moment I open my eyes! My brain is filled with you and her in bed! Our truth is muddled because of your truth with her!”

“That’s the problem right there. You put her there! Ask me who’s occupying my brain every single day. Ask me!”

I’m so frustrated I can’t even think straight. Do I have the right to be? Yes! She’s giving too much power to someone who shouldn’t have it.

Stubbornly she defies me. “Fine, I’ll tell you. You!” I point at her as I inch closer to her. “You are the first thing I think of when I open my eyes. It’s your face I see. It’s your kisses I remember. It’s your voice I hear. So, do me a favor and put me right there, too, instead of her!”

She just stands and stares at me. Thankfully without tears on her face. While it gives my heart a reprieve, I know we’re at a crossroad. It’s either she learns to accept this nightmare and we move on, or we don’t. One thing I know is that we can’t continue on like this.

“Look, it’s either we get pass this or we don’t. I’ll fight for us because I want you—only you. Anyone that has come before you isn’t between us and certainly not in my brain space because I won’t put them there. Anyone before me isn’t here either. I refuse to give any man in your past the power to control me because what we have going on here is only between you and me. I’m not the one who’s going to give up here, Sophia. You’re the one who’s going to have to walk away.”