Deception. Betrayal. Mistrust.
It seems the closer Rayne gets to the truth, the more she finds herself wanting to run away from it. It's complex and terrifying-more than she ever fathomed.
New family members, good and bad, pop out at her like a br...
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"𝗪hat are you doing in here?" a voice from the doorway startled her.
Blake spun around and placed a hand on her chest, only relaxing when she noticed her best friend gazing upon her with questioning, dark brown eyes. That was a fair deliberation – after all, she was standing in her ex-boyfriend's room, rummaging through some of the boxes he kept in the closet.
Taryn entered the room further as she waved her off and stretched on her tippy-toes to the shelf that lined the top of it again; this was the last place in here that she hadn't checked, so she was sure that it would be stuffed back here, considering this was where she hid all the shit she couldn't look at back when they first moved in here years ago.
"Okay, crazy-pregnant-lady, this is sad," Taryn scoffed, stepping around her.
Blake frowned and rolled her eyes, moving out of the way to allow her friend to grab the box she desired. While she was only two inches taller than herself, it seemed like having that height was a prerequisite to getting the damn thing.
"Here," she said, handing it to her.
"Thanks."
She happily plopped down on the edge of Mason's bed, getting tired on these sore ankles of hers, and blew off the collected dust on the top, popping open the lid. Her smile grew wide as she took in the plethora of memorabilia from her childhood that she forced herself to forget way back when because the happy memories were much harder to accept than the bad ones; mostly because they were almost always bad, so the good ones just felt like a delusion much too unrealistic to be real.
Carefully placing all of the old papers and scrap journals off to the side, she almost squealed out in glee when she noticed the bear at the bottom of her self-made chasm. Her fingers wrapped around it quickly, reeling the overwhelming feeling of childishness and naivety; the fur was still so soft, even after all of this neglectful time.
"What is that?" Taryn asked, crossing her arms.
"Mr. Harold," she beamed, holding it up.
Her friend gave it a once-over before tilting her eyebrow up in concern. Blake just rolled her eyes and ignored her silent judgment; as the days passed, she was beginning to believe that Mason was right. She could practically feel that the little life inside of her was going to a girl, and so, she wanted to make sure that her future daughter had something of an heirloom.
"Enough about this," she breathed, "How was your flight?"
Taryn's façade shattered at the sound of her question, as it usually did when reality comes crashing in on the fake performance created to distract oneself from it.
Isaac had flown out to New York with her to see his mother a few hours after everything with his father happened. He was reluctant at first, only because he didn't want to leave Rueben and Mason in a time like this, but when Emmet urged that he could come back whenever – even tomorrow (which is now today), he up and left, taking that fact to its most literal sense.
