Needless to say I didn’t get what I needed from him, and thus began the period of my life I am most ashamed of. The period where I was too scared to lose the man I loved mind, body, and soul that I put my well-being, my girls’ well-beings, and my sanity on the line. Making the decision to allow Tobias the freedom to choose which family he spent his time with was risky. It was fraught with danger. But more than that, it left me in an unenviable position where I had to explain to my daughters, somehow, why their Dad was mysteriously absent all the time. I wasn’t proud of what I’d done. In fact I hated myself for it most days. But that the thing isn’t it? Not only did he make his bed and need to lie in it, so did I.
Knowing that I was at fault for causing Dakota, Avery, and to some degree Nevie’s pain and suffering almost destroyed me. No mother wants to see her children struggle, but it’s even worse knowing you were the one to cause it. There would come a time I would have to tell them the truth. I would have to confess to being the one that pushed their Dad out of their lives in a way that was unforgiveable. They needed him just as much as they needed me, and I was the one that took that from them. I took it, and I did it selfishly. I was consumed with thoughts centered on how my pain was eating me slowly from the inside out.
What scared me the most, was the reality that one day they might hate me for what I’d done. And if they did, they’d look at me with contempt and anger. What if they cut me out their lives like I had done to their father? I knew for a fact if that happened there’d be no coming back from that for me. I couldn’t live without my girls. Knowing there was a possibility I would have that fate to look forward to was almost too much to bear.
I might have continued to live with Tobias, and him with us, we may have for the girls’ sake appeared to be the same loving family unit, but that was only on the surface. It didn’t take but a small scratch to see that underneath there was a storm brewing. You could feel the tension, it was palpable, but especially Avery. She gravitated to her dad, holding on so tight as if she knew if she let go he would disappear. It didn’t take a child psychologist to see the signs of stress and anxiety in my middle child. A little girl that was once so happy and carefree, had turned into one that was nervous and unsure of everything around her.
If anyone tells you children are too young at three to know what’s going on, tell them they are full of shit. Avery picked up on every emotion Tobias and I projected. She felt every cutting look and scathing remark deeply. She could sense the turmoil surrounding us, and in her three-year old way she did all she could to try and help, to soften the anger that surrounded us. That didn’t change during the two years that followed. If anything, Avery adapted to our situation well beyond her years. She realized that her nervousness and quiet demeanor weren’t cutting it, so within the course of a few months she had travelled to the opposite end of the spectrum and channeled her energy into hyperactivity.
Before all that though, Avery was every bit the diva she still is today, only worse. She threw tantrums if Tobias tried to leave at night, followed him around like a shadow, and she made sure to position herself between us if there was ever a time we’d need to sit close. Avery was like our own tiny, personal bodyguard and Tobias and I both saw through what she was doing as soon as she started doing it.
At first it was cute, neither of us wanted to burst her bubble. She was doing something she thought would aid her family. But as the days wore into weeks, and the weeks to months, we agreed something needed to be done to deter her. She was becoming too wrapped up in what was going on with us that she was forgoing being a child. A normal, regular, happy child that played with dolls and blocks, drew with her Sister, and baked cookies with me. She didn’t need the stress of our marriage breaking down on her tiny shoulders, and she sure as hell didn’t need to take the responsibility of fixing it on herself. That was up to us, and even though to this point we’d fucked it up royally that didn’t mean I wanted my daughter stepping in where we had failed.
That was the first thing Tobias and I agreed on in months. Avery needed to be freed from the job she’d given herself somehow. How we made that happen without crushing her happy-go-lucky spirit we didn’t know. All we knew was it needed to be done, and soon.
Fingers clicking in front of my face brings me out of my thoughts and back to the present. Lexi is staring at me in awe, and I can only wonder what the hell I did to make her look at me that way.
“Wow,” she exclaims. “How the hell do you do that?”
“Huh?” What? How do I do what?
“You literally disappeared right in front of my eyes. You were completely off in your own world. I was sitting here snapping my fingers for more than five minutes trying to get you to come back to the land of the living.”
Oh, that. That’s normal for me. I’m surprised she hasn’t noticed before now actually. Shrugging I reply,
“Sorry. It happens all the time. I don’t even know I’m doing it most of the time.”
With an answering shrug she sighs settling back in to her spot.
“To answer your earlier question, how did I forgive Glock? It was simple really. I just had to decide if I could live without him or not.” Wrapping her arms around her belly she adds, “It wasn’t as easy as you think though, Tilly. Simple doesn’t equal easy, they’re two totally different things. It might have all boiled down to whether I could bear to live without him or not, but the journey to get to there wasn’t quite so straightforward.” Tell me about it. “The difference with me and Glock was that while we had interference from the outside world in the form of my Dad and his merry band of assholes, I didn’t have the competition you think you have.”
Gaping at her I sit in shock. Think? I don’t think I have competition, I know I do, which is what I tell her.
“There’s no think about it, Lexi, I do have competition. It’s not a game, but if it was, there’s no winners or losers. We’re all losing with things the way they are at the moment, but don’t doubt for one second that I still have plenty of competition for Saint.”
“No, you don’t,” she snaps. “You might have to share his time, but you’ve got absolutely no competition for his affection. He loves you, Tilly. You can see it in the way he looks at you. Every time he thinks you’re not looking, he stares at you. You can feel how much he adores you, not just see it for fuck’s sake. I hate to say this, but I think you need to hear it and you’re going to whether you like it or not. Forget everything you think you know, Tilly. Open your eyes and your heart so you can see and feel it, and do it before it’s too late.” Shaking her head sadly she finishes by saying, “You’re going to lose him if you don’t, Tilly. And I think if you search inside yourself hard enough you’ll soon work out that’s not what you want. I know you love him and he adores you, but if you can’t forgive him it’s time to let him go. For your sake, not his, because this is going to continue to eat you up until you do. You can’t live like this. You can’t live knowing your husband is going elsewhere to be with another woman, and you won’t be able to live with yourself for disrespecting yourself as a wife, mother, and a woman if you do. I love you, Tilly, but this has to stop and you know it. Forgive yourself first, and then work out whether you can do the same for him.”
That day, after coffee and one too many doughnuts, I went home and thought about everything Lexi said. I thought long and hard about whether I could live this way forever, knowing that if I didn’t do something to change it I would be living in a vicious cycle with no end. That night, lying in bed alone, I decided I couldn’t. I couldn’t live with myself if I taught my daughters it was okay to let yourself be anything less than your husbands’ number one priority. I couldn’t do it to myself anymore either. I may love him and want him in my life, but it wouldn’t be at the expense of my own self-worth and self-respect.
The next day I woke up with a much clearer perspective on how I was going to live my life. And that was, for me. I was going to go on with my life making the best decisions I could for me and
my girls, Tobias becoming a secondary consideration, not a primary one. I may have brought this on myself by allowing him to make the choice, but now that he had I was going to make the best of it. I would make this work because I didn’t have a choice not to. I would make sure I was the best mother I could be, and the best person I could be too. And succeed if it was the last thing I ever did. I promised myself I’d give it my all and when the time came to address my relationship with Tobias I would, and I’d do it as a stronger person.
Realizing I’d spaced out, again, I yell,
“I’m not hanging from the light fitting in the closet, so you can all go back to what you were doing before you came over here to annoy me.” I’m not of the opinion that’s going to deter my sister. Not in the slightest. But it should hopefully get the rest of them off my back. Wishful thinking on my part.
“Open the fucking door now, Tilly,” Saint growls.
“Go fuck yourself, Tobias.”
“Fine, have it your way.” Hmm, I don’t like the sound of that. Not one bit.
Seconds later a huge boot invades my line of sight where I’d just been starting at the perfectly painted, white door of my bedroom. This is closely followed by my husbands’ big, beautifully muscular body filling the door frame. Glancing over his shoulder quickly before returning his scowl to me he barks,
“Everyone out, now!”
“What the hell, Saint? No. I want to talk to her first,” my sister exclaims angrily.
“Babe, leave them to figure their shit out, yeah?” That comes from the voice of reason, Tank.
On a huff she yells over his shoulder pointing at me with one pink, polished nail.
“You better call me tomorrow, Tallulah. If you don’t I’m coming over here to kick your ass, pregnant or not.”
At that I can’t help but start laughing. Throwing myself back on the bed I begin to laugh hysterically at the vision of my seven month pregnant sister trying to lift her leg high enough to kick my ass. Not going to happen, no matter how much she’d like to. She’s huge and she’s still got weeks to go. But if it makes her feel better to threaten me, have at it.
“Sure, Priss. I’ll call, but only because I’d hate for you to get a cramp in your ass when you try to lift your leg higher than to put your shoe on.” I’m sure I hear a muttered, ‘bitch’ before Tank tugs her back down the stairs and out of the house.
“You’ll call me too, Tilly. Lexi’s worried about you, and the twins want to see their Aunt Tilly. I know you wouldn’t want to disappoint them, would you?” Glock says with a hint of a smirk in his voice.
Damn him. Although I know he’s manipulating me, he knows he’ll win this round, which does nothing but piss me off more. I would never disappoint my godson’s and he damn well knows it, hence adding that little sweetener to the end of his demand. Stupid men. Stupid, overbearing men I should say.
Snorting, I reply with just the right amount of sarcasm to show him just how annoying he is.
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.” Chuckling at me, he too makes his way down the stairs leaving me with only my husband, who by the looks of it is fuming mad. On hearing Glock’s bike start, I lift my head to face Tobias gasping at what I see.
Not only does he look furious, he’s looks sad and resigned too. The events of the last week have worn on him, I can see it written all over him. The way his shoulders sag ever so slightly. His head hanging just an inch or two lower than usual, and the dark circles framing his beautiful eyes tell me all I need to know. What I reveled to my dad has hurt him just as much as it has me. My refusal to talk to him, to spend time with him, to trust him to take care of me, all of it is weighing heavily on him and I hate it. Hate it with a passion. But I don’t know what to do to ease that burden. He wanted it all. All my secrets, and now he has them. I knew it would do this to him, which is why they were just that, secrets.
I’d like nothing more than to erase his memory. Go back to before my confession. Before he found out about Demon and everything he’d done to me. Before he felt he had to protect me by being somewhere he obviously doesn’t want to be. I mean, how could he want to be here? I hid the truth from him for years. I handed him divorce papers. And I didn’t trust him enough to believe he’d never slept with Stacey, regardless of the fact he adamantly denied touching her. I wouldn’t want to be here either, which leads me to say,
“You can go you know. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave and never look back. What I did to you was unforgivable. I would totally understand if you walked out the door and never came back.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tobias
“Feeling sad? Feeling blue? Got the sniffles?
Well I know what will get you through. An orgasm cures everything.
Take two and thank me in the morning.”
- Rotten eCard
What she did was unforgivable? My mind races to catch up and work out what the fuck is she talking about? I can only assume she means not telling me about that sick fuck Demon. But knowing what I do now, what he did to her, and why she wanted to keep it from me there’s no way I’d be able to hold that against her. She should know me better than that, and I think if she was in her right mind, not scared out of it, she’d realize that I’m never leaving her again. Not even if she tries to force me to.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about how this is going to play out between us with Tilly ignoring me lately. I’ve gone over it in my head on repeat since finding out about Demon, and what Stacey did to me, along with the knowledge Tucker isn’t mine. That part hurts. As in, it fucking kills to think about. It shouldn’t, the boy isn’t my son and he never really was, but I helped raise him like he was my own so of course it’s going to burn when faced with the reality he isn’t. I loved him. Treated him the same as I do my girls. And I’m going to miss the shit out of the kid, but rationally I know he’s not mine to worry about. Not anymore anyway.
I’d be lying if I said a part of me didn’t want to curl up into a ball and cry when I found out I’d dedicated two years of my life to a boy that had no real connection to me other than the one his mother fabricated. And I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t going to hurt like hell seeing someone else be his dad.
I don’t think a day will go by that I don’t love that kid. Years from now he’ll still have a special place in my heart, one the shit his mother did can’t touch, but that’s all it’ll be, a place where the memories of him live. That’s something I’m going to have to learn to live with sooner rather than later too, because like it or not, Dagger is his Dad and he’s got every right to have a relationship with his son without me hanging around to confuse Tucker more. I can only hope he’s the one who tells Tucker he’s his real father, because letting Stacey tell him would be a huge fucking mistake. I don’t put anything past that bitch, and that includes fucking with her sons’ head if it means she’ll benefit from it some way.
Raking my eyes over my wife, I see the tears in her eyes, the despair on her gorgeous face, and the defensive position she’s curled herself into. Ass to the mattress, knees to her chest with her arms wrapped around them, and her head hung with her cheek to one of her knees. I’m not sure what she thinks she’s protecting herself from. It’s most probably me if I take into consideration what she just said, but I hope not. She’s got not one thing to be scared of when it comes to me, unless it’s the sheer amount of love I’ve got for and how overwhelming that can be sometimes.
The thing is, I’m not letting her out of having this long overdue conversation. Not this time. It might make me sound like an asshole, but I don’t care if we have it with tears streaming down her beautiful face and she spends most of it begging me to stop. I’ve got shit she needs to hear and she’s going to hear it whether she likes it or not. I’ve waited one long fucking week to do this and it’s now or never.
I turn around to lock the door and realize I’ve popped the locking mechanism when I used my foot to kick it in. Settling for propping it closed with the c
hair in the corner of the room for now, I take a step closer to her and use the most commanding voice I can muster without sounding like a drill sergeant.
“Look at me, Tilly.” She doesn’t move, so I repeat myself. “Fucking look at me, babe.” This time she shakes her head no before turning it to face the opposite wall. I’ll admit my patience isn’t the best right now, so it’s no surprise when I roar, “Fucking look at me goddamn it. You’re not getting out of this shit, so turn the fuck around and look at me.”
Snapping her head in my direction, Tilly stares at me in shock. I don’t raise my voice with her often, but I need her to be looking at me when I tell her this. Not the wall. Not her feet. And no fucking distractions. Taking advantage of her silence I go on to explain, hoping she’ll stay quiet long enough to hear me out.
Forged: A Devil's Spawn MC Novel Page 12
