Forged: A Devil's Spawn MC Novel (12 page)

“Women are like volcanoes. Both stay calm

for extended periods of time before exploding and killing everything

in their path. Then, they’re calm again.”

-
                    
Rotten eCard

A week later and I’m still struggling to comprehend everything that’s happened. Thankfully the little issue regarding whether I broke my hand or not was cleared up quickly with a trip to the emergency room and an x-ray. I’m pleased to report that although Stacey’s head is thick, it only caused a deep bone bruise but no breaks or fractures. It still hurts like a bitch, but the bruising is starting to fade and I’m getting mobility back in it, which is a plus.

What I am having trouble processing is that another card carrying member of womankind would do something as despicable as what Stacey tried to do, and almost pulled off mind you. But I suppose that only goes to show how many women I actually know. Apparently behavior like hers isn’t as uncommon as I’d thought according to Ade who helpfully filled me in on the species of women that pray on married men. Disgusting. The fact that there are more out there like her is truly frightening. If making a marriage work wasn’t hard enough, now we’ve got to contend with nasty pieces of shit like her too. I am totally agreeing with the statement, what is the world coming to right now if this is the sort of thing humankind are capable of.

I’ve spent the last week arguing with Tobias and ignoring my parents’ constant pleas for me to talk to them, which has now escalated past boiling point to full-blown meltdown as of half an hour ago. I am sick of being treated like a fragile china doll. I won’t break. I won’t shatter. And I have nothing to say. I wish they’d just accept that and leave me the hell alone. To be perfectly honest I don’t want to explain it all over again. I’m sure my Dad has filled my Mom in on what he saw and Tobias told him, so why rehash it. Also, I’m pretty sure Priss knows by now too. If her barrage of increasingly demanding text messages is anything to go by Dad definitely filled her in, probably as soon as I left.

What finally tipped me over the edge was Tobias refusing to give me a minute alone to collect my thoughts. He has been up my ass since he brought me home from Dad’s house a week ago, and I’m sick and tired of it. The funny thing is, he never paid this close attention to how I was feeling before, so for all of his tenderness this just feels a little contrite to me.

I understand he’s worried I’ll retreat into myself and in the beginning I was too, but there’s no fear of that happening now. I’ve made it through the hardest part, which was telling him and Dad. Now I just need some time to sort through it all. Hence me locking myself in our bedroom and ignoring him pounding at the door to let him in. Yeah, buddy, that’s not going to happen.

“Come on, Tilly. Open the door and let me in, babe.” If I didn’t know him better I’d say there is a distinctively petulant tone to his voice, and I’m betting he’s pulling off the best alpha male pout he can right about now.

Ignoring him, I go back to painting my toe nails. Considering how long it’s been, and it’s been ages, I think it’s high time I scheduled a pedicure with the girls sometime next week. Actually, it’s been so long I can’t even remember the last time we had a girls’ day out. They didn’t happen often, but we tried to get everyone together at least once every couple of months to catch up and revel in our child free status for an hour or so.

Footsteps on the stairs followed by hushed voices in the hall have me rolling my eyes. But just as I’m starting to think they’ll give up and go away and my third worst nightmare rears its head. My first you already know. The second would be my Dad. The third however, would be my very angry, very pushy, and altogether too nosy big sister.

“Open this fucking door right now, or I’m getting Tank to kick it in. He’s got to be useful for something other than knocking me up, so I won’t hesitate in using his alternate skillset if you don’t hurry the hell up.”

Pshh, does she really think that’s going to work? If she does she’s going to be in for a rude shock, because they can all fuck off for all I care. Worst case scenario Tank does actually kick the door in. All that will succeed in doing is pissing Tobias off because he’ll be the one having to fix it. So, have at it I say.

Focusing on painting inside the lines, which I royally suck at, I go back to what I was doing before I was so rudely interrupted. More whispers and a few minutes go by before I hear larger feet hitting the top steps making their way closer.

“Tilly? You in there, babe? Come open the door would you? They only wanna know you’re alright, and frankly, I’m fucking sick of hearing these two whine and bitch all day so can you open up? Please.”

Seriously, Glock! They called Glock over here. Albeit he was my best friend for years, we started growing apart right around the time he so callously tossed Lexi aside, so why they thought he’d be of use is beyond me. I thought I knew him but it became increasingly obvious over time that I didn’t, or not as well as I thought I had.

The Glock I knew loved Lexi to the ends of the Earth and would never have hurt her the way he did. The Glock I was introduced to during the few months they were barely acknowledging each other was so cold and distant it was hard to envision him ever being the funny, carefree man we all knew and loved. But as things tend to go with these guys, he pulled his head out of his ass, begged for forgiveness, (he won’t admit that so don’t bother asking him if he did), and they moved in together not long after.

I had trouble forgiving him as easily as Lexi, and I know it wasn’t me he did it to and all, but there was something about how quickly he was willing to give up on what they had that unsettled me to my very core. It ate away at me for weeks before I approached Lexi about it. My concern was if he was able to do it once, he’d easily be able to do it again. The last thing Lexi needed was to have her heart broken the same way I had, and being her friend it worried me to no end that’s exactly what would happen.

There’s nothing worse than loving someone with every fiber of your being, unconditionally, and in a way you know it will never end, only to find out they don’t share the same depth of emotion for you. Because at the end of the day, that has the capability to shatter your world and have you questioning everything you once believed to be true.

Looking at me curiously Lexi tucks her legs under her, finding a more comfortable position on the couch.

“What’s on your mind, Tilly? You’ve been sitting there staring out the window for the last ten minutes lost in your head. Are you okay? Is something wrong with the girls?”

She’s right. I have been sitting here absentmindedly gazing out the window. Not at anything in particular, I’ve just been lost in thought. But there is something I want to ask her, I’m having trouble working out how though. Deciding it’s best to bite the bullet and spit it out I look at her, her growing baby belly and sigh.

“How did you do it?”

“Do what,” she asks scrunching her eyebrows together, wrinkling her nose.

“Forgive, Glock. How did you do it so easily?”

I expected any number of reactions to my question but not the bubble of laughter she let slip from her mouth. Seeing Lexi so happy, her face radiating with joy, causes a twinge of jealousy to creep in. I used to be that happy. I used to laugh like that all the time. Well, I did until I found out my husband had been cheating on me for months with some slutty bitch at the club and hiding it. I was positive we’d be together for eternity until I was told by said slutty bitch she was pregnant with my husbands’ child. Still, I was naïve and hopeful everything would eventually work out. That was until he accepted my offer to live his double life without putting up much of a fight, efficiently ending my short period of hope turning it to into silent resignation.

I suppose that’s what rankled me the most. In everything, except that, Tobias fought for what he wanted. He was determined, passionate and dedicated to making sure whatever he had his heart set on he achieved. It devastated me that I obviously wasn’t one of those things. I had been so sure, so positive, it had been me he desired most, that I’d gotten comfortable in that knowledge. Knowledge that wrapped around me like a warm blanket making me feel safe and secure. But clearly I got too comfortable, because like I said, what I thought was true couldn’t have been further from the truth.

When I told Tobias he would have to live with the consequences of his actions, that his punishment would be living the double life he’d inadvertently created for himself, I thought he would rally against my decision. I stupidly assumed he would tell me I was being ridiculous, that it wouldn’t be happening, but he didn’t. He took to his new circumstances like a duck takes to water. If it affected him I couldn’t see it, or he’d become phenomenally good at hiding it.

Tobias was so closed off about his son and Stacey. Everything that had anything to do with that part of his life I was frozen out of. We never talked about it. Tucker didn’t visit with his half-sisters. And we didn’t plan how to adapt our lives to fit the changes it caused. Nothing. We discussed nothing. Tobias just did what Tobias does best, took control of the issue and dealt with it how he saw fit. He’d always been like that though. Controlling, single-minded, and focused when he had an end goal in sight, and this time was no different. We had gotten accustomed to the way he was, and truth be told it was one of the things I like most about him. It took the pressure off me when it came to making all the decisions.

I’d like to tell you my demand was selfless and had been delivered giving thought to what would be best for Tucker too, but it wasn’t. It was a purely selfish move, which had the dual purpose of being a test of sorts. I wanted, no that’s wrong. I needed to know he was willing to put us first. Me first. I needed to hear him tell me he would work it out. That he was staying with us, and us alone. I needed to hear him say it was a mistake, that she was a mistake. Not Tucker, that little boy was a gift just like each of our girls are, but I needed him to tell me she wasn’t anywhere close to as important as we were to him. It may sound juvenile, but until you’re put in the position where your heart is being torn in two, so badly that the constant ache in your chest is nothing but a constant reminder of the pain, you don’t get to judge.

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.