Page 103 of Six Years
I get up and leave the apartment like I’ve never been there in the first place.
I never understood the bond Lily and Colin have because to me it always seemed strange. To have bonded during a time when she was one foot in the grave and he was about to lose his sister to cancer. Up until a year into their relationship, I was making bets with myself that they’d break up any day. I loved that they were happy, and after a year I slowly started to understand. Though it wasn’t until I let Luan in that I finally realized why they work as good as they do.
They’re each other’s anchor. They hold each other in place. Whatever one lacks, the other fills in, levels it out.
On my way back up to the roof my own words keep playing in my head like I didn’t even mean to say them to Lily but to myself.
Thieves don’t break into empty houses.
I don’t get it. It didn’t even fit Lily’s problem, did it? But it doesn’t fit mine either. Or does it?
My problem is my father and the fact that he’d never accept my relationship with Luan, that he’ll disown me once he finds out Luan and I are actually dating.
It’s not that my dad is trying to steal from me… unless he is. Because threatening me to disown me if I love who I want to love, if I let him decide over me like that, he’s stealing my life away from me. I wouldn’t be living my life, I’d be living the one he wants me to live.
But if there’s nothing left he can take from me, when I just stop giving any fucks about what he thinks, how he’d react, he can’t steal my life from me anymore.
I don’t live off his money any longer. I stopped using my trust fund years ago.
The roof over my head is no longer his, and I pay for it myself, too.
I am slowly regaining my happiness ever since he cut me off three years ago.
Now that I no longer give him the chance to control me, he can’t steal from me any longer.
Wow, and it took Lily’s panic attack for me to figure that shit out? I used to think I was smart, apparently not.
“Is everything okay down there?” Aaron asks when I reach the rooftop. “Sofia said something’s up with Lily. I swear, Grey, if you don’t tell me—”
“She’s fine. Colin’s with her.”
“Yes, I know. ButIshould be there. That’s my sister.”
I roll my eyes. Aaron cares about Lily, clearly, and I do believe he’s glad she’s with someone like Colin, and yet he still has to learn that Aaron isn’t the person she wants to talk to when she’s upset. I’ll throw a party the day he realizes it.
“Your sister is with herfiancé, Aaron. Herverysoon-to-be husband. He’s who she needs right now, not you.” I look over Aaron’s shoulder, seeing Luan standing off to the side with Miles, Sofia, and Emory, laughing. I like that they’re getting along. “She had a panic attack. If that happened to Sofia, you’d want to be with her and not share that vulnerable moment with her brother, so give Lily some time with the guy she loves before you storm down there to check on her.”
Aaron turns his head, now looking at Sofia. The second his eyes lay on her, he smiles and his face lights up a little with all the love he has for her. “We got married, you know?”
I lay my hand on his shoulder. “Oh,weknow. You guys aren’t very secretive about it. And now, if I hear you say that toanyoneelse today, I will murder you for Lily and Colin because it’s rude to make such an announcement on their special day. Okay, Marsh?”
Aaron holds up three fingers. “Scouts honor.”
I don’t think he’s ever even been a scout.
Walking away from Aaron, I make my way over to my boyfriend, and when I reach him, the first thing I do is wrap my arms around his neck from behind and plant a kiss right to his neck.
Emory groans at that. “Grey in love is so disgusting.”
I flip her off, but Luan slaps my hand as if to tell me to stop. I don’t. “Imagine what I felt like having to watch you and Miles make out while I was on the couch with the both of you.”
Emory shudders at the thought. They barely paid attention to me, but I stuck around because it was hilarious whenever they were all grinding up on one another, forgetting I was there and then at some point I just started talking and both of them flinched.
It used to be the highlight of my days, now my highlight of the day is picking up my phone to talk to Luan. It’s crazy how much I anticipate those calls when we’re miles apart.
I both hate and love that we barely get to spend time together in person. I hate it because, well, we’re so far away from one another, that it’d take us at least six hours to get to the other’s home, and on top of that all the waiting for aplaneand finding time to spare a few days far away from home. But I also love it because every night, I get to listen to Luan tell me all about his day in so much detail just because he wants me to feel like I was there with him. I don’t think he’d do that anymore when we live together, not in such detail as he does now.
Still, I’d take coming home to Luan over his detailed day descriptions.
