Page 173 of Tied to You

There are a million words I want to say, and yet, I can’t write them all on this paper.

Dean should be safe now. Please don’t be mad with him, it was my choice to leave like this. Seeing you would have been too hard.

The decision with the baby is the right one for both of us. Now I’m no longer tied to you, both of us can have what we always wanted; the freedom to makeour own decisions, to live our lives doing what we love. So spend yours doing what you love most, Travis, because I’m going to. I won’t waste my life thinking about you, so don’t waste a second of yours thinking about me. What we had was great while it lasted. But that’s all it could have ever been.

I guess our chaos was just too much for both of us.

Mollie

I knew I’d seen heaven. I felt the beauty of it every time I looked at Mollie’s face. The place I find myself in now, though, it isn’t there. It isn’t even hell. It’s worse. So much worse.

It burns harder than the bullet I took. The white-hot rage emanates from within me. What did she meanthe decision with the baby?She won’t waste a second of her life thinking about me?

A blinding darkness collides with my reason as I grab for my phone, dialling Dean without any hesitation.

“Did you find her?” he asks, beating me to asking him what happened.

“I found a note. What the fuck happened with Mollie? The truth. I need all of it.” My teeth crash together, my mind spinning. Did she lose the baby? My heart gives up on me as I knew it would if this day ever came.

He speaks fast. “I came by yours after I called her, asking after you. She wasn’t there and neither was the gear.”

“How did she find it?” My head swings toward the bedroom. If she found the gear, she also saw the ring I bought her. Is it still there? I’m up, making my way to our room and dropping to my knees once I’m by the foot of the bed. The box is still there. She would have seen.

“I don’t know. But I saw the box under the bed, figured that’s where it was. I knew she’d go in your absence.”

I scoff. “And? What the fuck, Dean?” She’s gone, and I still don’t fucking know what the fuck really happened to the baby.

Mybaby.

Fuck.

“I called Rocco and he came with me. We found her,” he swallows harshly, “with Matthew.”

“What?” I bark, standing to my feet in a rush. “Did he hurt her?”

“Yeah, brother. But not like you think.”

I breathe the smallest breath of relief that he didn’t violate her.

“She was on the floor, high, coke covering her face. She couldn’t breathe.”

My fist crashes against the door, slamming it back, my hand instantly spitting blood. That motherfucker hurt her again.

“We got her to the hospital after the fucker paid with his life, and she…”

“Fucking what? She did what, Dean?” I shake my hand, storming to the kitchen and grabbing my keys. I’m grateful he dealt with Matthew, but that should have been my job. My responsibility. It’s my fucking duty to take her pain away.

“She was okay. Apart from her broken wrist, that was it. Rocco messaged me telling me she was pregnant, but everything was okay.”

Fuck. I hear what he’s saying. That means the baby was okay when she arrived. She had an abortion? Ended the life inside her. Is that on me? Because I made her think she should before I went? I made her choose. I thought she chose the babyoverme. I never thought she would do this, not really. I never thought she’d have it in her.

Frantic, I head to my bike, running, needing to ride, needing to find her. Needing to find some fucking calm. Anything. I have to ask her for myself. Was it an accident? Did she kill my baby? I have no right to feel any anger towards that idea, but I can’t help how it’s growing inside me, dulling me of my senses, dissolving any peace I have left.

“Are you still there?” I hear Dean ask.

Swinging a leg over my bike, I start her up, no fucks given for needing my helmet. “Just.”

“Mollie said she couldn’t forgive you. That the baby was gone?”