"Wait, what do you mean you were fuming at the time?..." While shaking her head slightly, Sade's gaze grew wary upon me. "Sade..."
"The doctor told me, the day of the accident, that the severity of your injuries were from domestic violence as well as the accident. And from there, I'd just sort of known that Micah was behind it," she grimaced, then frowned as my hands slid from hers.
"So...this entire time, you knew?... When I told you that about him the night he died...you knew??"
She stood and sat beside me, laying a hand under my chin so I'd look at her. "Would you rather I'd tell you, and take away from you telling me when you were ready?" At a loss for words, and as tears brimmed my eyes, I shook my head. "Honeybee, I'm sorry. I just didn't want to make you uncomfortable or make you talk about such a sensitive subject before you were ready... I never meant to hurt you..."
"I just feel stupid now," I whispered, though my voice cracked anyway. Sade instantly scooted closer to hold me. "That whole time during recovery, I was so scared to tell you- thinking you'd see me differently, just for you to have known the entire time..."
"Baby no, don't feel stupid or embarrassed. Even if I'd known, that still doesn't take away from you telling me when you did... In a way, I wasn't being completely honest with you like I should've been, and for that I'm really sorry. It wasn't fair to you to keep that from you Lauren.... I'm sorry, I should've told you..."
"It's okay..."
She grabbed my hand, and dipped her head in front of my face so I'd meet eyes with her,
"Don't say that if it's really not. Just because I apologized doesn't mean all's forgiven for you, and sometimes an apology isn't enough. So whatever I need to do to really make it okay, just tell me baby and I'll do it..."
Peering into her eyes, I couldn't help but let my face soften as my bottom lip poked out. Bringing our hands into my chest, I kissed her knuckles before gazing hopelessly at her again.
"Really, it's okay Emerald... I promise..." Now grinning at me, she twisted her lips both anxiously and emotionally. "However, I do still have one question."
"Ask away..."
"What exactly were you two doing??"
Sade shook her head regretfully, then sighed. "Well personally, I wanted to hire someone to torture the shit out of his ass-"
"Sade!" I couldn't help but laugh surprisingly with widened eyes.
"Well, that was just what I immediately thought of when finding out that he laid even a finger on you- but I settled on putting him in jail instead," she rolled her eyes as if the first option was still better, and it made me chuckle. "As for Troy, he claimed he had a few connections to where he could make it happen. And apparently the asshole had more dirt on his name than we realized, so he'd contact me to tell me about the information he constantly was finding."
"Pretty sure he was doing enough to get life in prison-"
"And was," she shook her head, rolling her eyes again. "And it was just oh so convenient how just when Troy was about to turn him in, the son of a bitch turns up dead."
My eyebrows rose. "So that's why Troy..."
"He's not buying it, yeah," she sighed. "But when Micah died, I told Troy I no longer wanted anything to do with it.... You were finally free of him, and at the end of the day, that's all I really wanted. I didn't care too much of how he died or what all resulted in it, I was just glad he was gone- no offense, I'm sorry-"
Chapter 81
Start from the beginning
