Chapter 171
I’m walking up the stairs when I see her. 2
Sierra freezes when she sees me and my chest tightens before I can stop it. Two weeks. Two long, quiet weeks of pretending she isn’t a constant ache beneath my skin. Pretending that seeing her, hearing her laugh, smelling her perfume doesn’t pull me, doesn’t do things to me that I don’t want to admit.
She doesn’t know it, but just because I have been avoiding her doesn’t mean I haven’t been watching. Doesn’t mean I haven’t been observing.
My eyes trace the line of her shoulders and the careful way she balances herself. My hands clench the railing, using it as a physical anchor against the emotions that surge inside me, threatening to uncoil inside me. I shouldn’t feel this way. I shouldn’t feel anything. I cannot. Not with her. Not with Chloe’s memory still pressed so painfully between us.
Chloe. Even thinking her name brings the weight back of everything I lost. Every flower I left on her grave, every empty corner of this house that still smells like her. Every wish that she was still alive. And then there is Sierra, breathing life into a home I promised I’d keep sacred. I should turn away. I should keep climbing. But for some fucking reason I don’t.
Her eyes narrow at me and something flickers in them. Anger, irritation, maybe curiosity. She doesn’t move, as if her legs are glued to the floor, so instead, I do. I take one step at a time until I’m standing one step below her.
My throat goes dry as I force words out casually. “How have you been? Is everything to your liking p>
Her folds her arms across her chest, glaring at me with fire burning behind her eyes. “You’d know if you hadn’t been avoiding me p>
I feel every syllable like a jab, but it’s the truth. She’s right. Two weeks, and I’ve barely breathed the same air as her. Avoidance was supposed to keep me sane, to keep my emotions in check, but it’s only made her absence heavier.
I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to reconnect what is happening. I should hate her, yet I jumped on the opportunity to help. I shouldn’t care, yet here I am hosting her. Protecting her.
The guilt of seeing her in mine and Chloe’s home is crushing. I hate her. I’ve hated her for years, not only because of what she did to me, but also because of what she did to Chloe, yet I can’t bring myself to kick her out. 5
It should be easy. It’s as simple as telling her to leave, yet something stops me. Something beyond my feelings. Beyond our past. Beyond my understanding.
I stay silent, my jaw working, because what the fuck can I tell her?
“Don’t to do that” she breathes, breaking the silence.
I lift my gaze, “Do what p>
“The silence” she replies. “You always did that. Stay silent instead of just coming out and saying it. Would it kill you to say something, Noah p>
I pull my eyes from her, focusing on something above her head.
The question hangs in the air like smoke. I can’t meet her eyes now. I clear my throat, glancing at the stairs beneath us.
“It’s… complicated,” I murmur, but even to my own ears, it’s hollow.
“Complicated? How?” she asks. “I’m not asking for much, but can you at least stop behaving like I’m the fucking plague or something? You even avoid dinner with your own kids because you’re avoiding me. What the fuck,
Noah p>
I clench my jaw because she’s right. I don’t remember how many dinners I’ve missed with the kids because I was trying to stay away from her.
“This is your home. It should be your safe space or some shit like that. Not a place where you lock yourself in your study just because I am around.” 1
There was a time things weren’t bad between us. A time where I didn’t despise her presence… But that was a long time ago. Things changed.
The tension thickens, pressing down on my chest till I feel suffocated. Fuck! I feel like a kid being scolded.
Just as I was going to say something. The silence shatters.
Brook appears her boots hit the stairs like small thunderclaps. I turn toward the sound and see her storming down, fists clenched, eyes wild.
“He should kick you out!” she snaps, her voice tinged in pure fury “You tried to push me down the stairs, you fucking maniac p>