Page 110 of Collateral Love
My voice dropped. “I was wrong.”
Channy was quiet for a long time.
Then she said the one thing I knew was coming.
“The letters.”
My chest tightened.
“You kept them.”
I nodded slowly.
“At first I thought I was helping you.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“How?”
“I had Miles hack into medical records,” I said quietly.
Her head snapped up.
“What?”
“I knew about Xander,” I continued. “About the loss. About how broken you were when it happened.”
Channy’s breath caught.
“You went digging into my medical history?”
“I was trying to understand how to protect you.”
“By controlling me?”
“Yes,” I screamed. The word tasted like poison.
I forced myself to keep going.
“I thought if you and Xavier stayed apart, you’d heal. That loving someone safer would give you a quieter life.”
She shook her head slowly.
“And the letters?”
“I kept them.”
“Why?”
“Because part of me knew I was wrong.”
Her eyes softened just slightly.
“I couldn’t bring myself to destroy them,” I admitted. “I told myself one day, when I stopped trying to control your life, I would give them to you.”
Channy studied me. Then she asked the question I’d been waiting for.
“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
