It was a very long walk back to my house. It would have been bad enough had I been properly dressed. I walked across people's lawns as much as possible but it was not enough. Any time I had to cross a street or resort to the sidewalk, the grit of the road scraped my feet. I was just glad the temperature was at least in the high single digits and not the deep freeze it had been when Bran entered my life.
When I reached a field and could leave the pavement behind, the walk was good. The air was good. My brain needed everything open and free, everything that was not Bran. I could just touch the feeling that there were no real concerns, no matters of life and death for me to fix. I could just be. I breathed deeply.
When I got home, the house was silent. I walked down the hall and looked in on my mother's room. She was asleep. I could hear the soft gargle of her snoring. Riley was on the bed stretched next to her, his snoring harmonizing with hers. Michael must have brought him home.
I ached inside and out. There was not a single part of me that was not worn out or longing in some way. I went back to my room and closed the door. I let my head fall back against it as I tried to make sense of it all. With a sigh, I pushed off from the door and slid into the bed. I buried my face in my pillow. My hand touched something cold and plastic. It was my phone.
The notification light was blinking. There were 17 messages from Bran. I didn't read them. There was one message from Michael.
Told your mom you had breakfast at my place then went to the mall with Bran.
It was that Michael had covered for me that made me push out of bed and get dressed properly.
I wasn't surprised when he didn't answer the door right away. But threatening to stay camped out on his step again seemed to do the trick.
"Go home, Lu," he said. He sounded so tired, so drained, like the Michael I had known was dying.
"Can it, Michael. I know why you are doing this and we need to talk. Specifically about all the people making choices for me without consulting me."
His jaw tensed and his cheeks went red but he stepped aside to let me in.
"Where do you get off not telling me about this and trying to cut yourself out of my life?" I demanded as I pushed past him and into the kitchen. Even with proper shoes on, my feet had been too abused and protested every step. I ignored them. My anger needed appeasing.
He seemed to be concentrating on breathing. "Do you remember how many lifetimes?"
I blinked. "What?"
"How many lifetimes we have lived since this all started."
"I don't see what..."
"Thirty eight," he said evenly. "I spent days with that stone remembering every detail and emotion it would give me of thirty eight lives. Thirty eight lives in which I found you and loved you and had to keep you safe. Thirty eight lives in which you begged me to help you stay away from him even as you wanted nothing more than to be with him. I spent thirty eight lives sacrificing everything to help you but it never works. Nothing ever comes of it. I have had to say good-bye thirty eight times. I have died for you thirty eight times. There is only one way to end this and you refuse to take it. You say you love me too much to choose him over me but you apparently don't love me enough to see what you do to me every lifetime, the hell you put me through as I fight for you and struggle for you. This time, I realized the choice wasn't only yours. This time, I could choose too. I chose to bow out." His face hardened. "So don't you dare lecture me about making choices for others."
"I... didn't..."
"You did, Lu. You still do. You refuse to face your own problems and ask everyone else to fix them for you and for some reason, no one can resist you when you ask. Alistair, me, Bran, we're all a bunch of idiots falling all over ourselves for a girl."
And in the hatred in his tone lay the qualifier "unworthy." I swallowed hard. I didn't want to cry. I wanted to pretend it didn't hurt but he might as well have gutted me and been shoving my intestines in my face.
The air around us had become too toxic. His eyes were too full of anger. And again I felt too stupid to argue. I walked from the house and did not slow until back in my room with the door closed. I collapsed into bed and begged for death to take me in my sleep.