Fated to Them (book 1+2) novel Chapter 41

Read Fated to Them by Jessica Hall Chapter 41 – When Maya is asleep, I climb out of her small bed before tucking the blanket around her. Walking out of her room I close her door before walking down stairs, much to alert with my mind churning with my thoughts.

Flicking the kitchen light on, I start putting the dishes away and tidying up. When I am finished I make myself coffee, just as Cyrus walks in.

“What do you want, Cyrus?”

“Nothing, just checking on you, you have been down here for a while. I heard you talking to Maya” He says sitting at the dining table.

“Where is Eli?”

“Asleep, well trying to sleep” He says. I hold the kettle up in question and he nods. I make him coffee before handing it to him.

“It will work, I have never known anyone to break compulsion before without the person who used it breaking it” He says. I didn’t understand much of what he was talking about and gave up trying to figure out how it worked.

“Is there a reason you want to go to Soya so badly?” I ask curious about why going there was important.

“We have our reasons and the main one being it would put your family at risk you staying here”

“How would it put my family at risk, we have lived here my entire life. Never once have we had as much drama going on then we do now since you came into my life” I tell him sipping my coffee.

“You will understand in time”

“I don’t want to understand in time. I want to understand now” I tell him sick of all the secrecy, so many secrets about my own family my friends have come to light and now I am starting to wonder if l was just blind to everything or if everyone was just lying to me. How did dad keep it from mum, or did she know and pretend not to? Sam knowing my father so was it a coincidence that we met or was that thought out too?

“Addie, I promise you won’t regret coming with us,” Cyrus says.

“Regret coming with you, I already do and we haven’t even left, regret you want to know what I regret?” Cyrus seems to think for a second.

“I regret ever getting in that goddamn elevator”

“You don’t mean that, you’re just upset. Everything will work out, you’ll see”

“No what I see is everyone always choosing for me, I never get a say in anything. You think I wanted to be a secretary, that I didn’t have dreams, that I wanted to raise my sister’s kid, that I would be stuck responsible for everything out of my control. Everything I have worked for was for nothing, because in a matter of days you have ripped the rug right out from under me. Everything I put on hold is now on hold again because of you and Eli” I tell him.

“You can still do whatever it is that you want, we will just be beside you for it”

“That’s just it Cyrus, all I have wanted was to be on my goddamn own, be responsible for no one else but myself, do what i want to do without having to plan around schedules and everyone else. Being with you doesn’t change that, just gives me one more person to answer to, to ask permission from”

“You will adjust, it’s that simple. We don’t always get what we want Addie you just adjust to it”

“Adjust, what the f**k do you think I have been doing. I have done nothing but adjust. Adjusted to working three jobs and going to school because my father died and we were going to lose everything, adjusted to having an extra mouth feed and someone else to raise when I was still a kid myself, adjusted to my sisters d**g addiction, everything is an adjustment, what’s one more right?”

Cyrus says nothing just lets me rant. My mother clearing her throat on the stairs having woken up from no doubt my raised voice calmed me instantly, guilt hitting me about wondering what it was she heard.

By the look on her face, she heard everything. “Mum, what are you doing up?” I ask, looking to the clock. it was 5am.

Cyrus straightens up sitting up and I hear Eli walk down the stairs behind her. I had managed to wake nearly the entire house, my emotions getting the better of me once again since meeting them.

“Go!” My mother says softly.

“What?”

“Go Addie, go to Soya. You’re right you have done enough, it was never your responsibility and somehow I lost sight of what it was you wanted, this was never you burden to carry”

“But mum, Maya”-My mother shakes her head.

“She was never yours Addeline, never meant to be your responsibility, and neither am I, you don’t have to keep putting your life on hold for us, you’re 24 years old and have done nothing but help us and stuck around out of fear of me being on my own, so I am helping you by making the decision for you, go. I can handle everything here.”

“But Ma Taylor?”

“No Addeline, she also isn’t your responsibility, I can manage. We will be fine, go and do something without having to worry about school runs and appointments and looking after me, we will be fine” She says.

I didn’t know what to say, the way she said it sounded like she thought they were a burden on me, and I didn’t want her to think that. I did everything along with her, we kept each other sane when everything was insane. Guilt kept me from walking away, but she was family, she raised me so I never saw it as a burden, just that it was necessary. Everything we have done, was for a reason whether it was keeping the house, making ends meet, or to help raise Maya. It was for the outcome of holding onto what was left, and now she is telling me to leave.