Our Unlucky Stars

33

I shook my head no at them. "I'm tired of holding my tongue. I'm just saying, love, is a million things. Sometimes it feels good and sometimes it doesn't. The one thing I know is that Asher loves me no matter what. He'd fucking kill for me, and I'd kill for him. It feels good to know that there's one person in this whole fucked up world who has my back. You think I want this?"

"Mom you spend your whole marriage doing whatever it is dad tells you. I bet you can't even tell me the last time you did something because you wanted to. I don't want that life for me. I want to make my own choices and do my own thing. Fuck that company and fuck whatever else you two are trying to force on me!" I could feel the lump swell in my throat and the tears threaten to fall from my eyes but I refuse. My parents have gotten too many tears out of me these last few weeks. Not anymore.

My father drew my face a bare inch from his so that I could feel the words as well as hear them. "What did you just say?"

"Fuck the company." Those words didn't sit right with my father and I knew that the moment they left my lips.

Everything happens so fast and my brain is too slow to keep up. I just know that when my father's hand hit my cheek, it's more of a sound than a feeling: a pop like a distant hammer hitting a nail. I scrambled for balance, but my foot tripped over one another and my father let me fall, again. When the side of my body hit the ground the pain immediately hissed in my right shoulder.

"Pierre!" I could hear my mouth scream again.

"Oh, shut up," My father said, tired. "He was talking like a man. He can take a little hit."

I slowly tried to push myself off my hands and knees, but the aching pain in my shoulder was weighing me down. I held onto it hoping that soothed the pain but it was kinda hard to tell with my parents yelling at me while they stood over me like towers. The shouting seemed to only increase the pain, but everything quickly went silent when the front door of the house came crashing open. I didn't even have time to look back, everything happened way too fast.

"You brave enough to come in my house," My father growled.

"Shut the fuck up," Asher snarled, running past me and smashing a fist into the side of Pierre Claremont's face. I don't know who screamed first me or my mother, or maybe I thought it. I don't know.

I just know Asher picked me up from the ground and turned me to him, a worried expression on his face. "You okay?" He asked.

I nodded. "I'm fine."

And that was all the confirmation he needed before intertwining our hands and running out the house with me following right behind him. Everything felt warm. The kinda warm you feel when you're in the passenger seat during a rainy day, or when you finally take off uncomfortable shoes after hours of wearing them. I don't know the word for it, but the feeling made everything seem way better than it was, and as I and Asher ran towards his car outside the gate the feeling only started to grow inside me.

"Liam if you leave you better not ever come back! Do you hear me!" My father's voice sounded off from behind me and I stopped in my tracks. I turned around to see him leaning against one of the entranceway pillars. Hand to his jaw, my mother behind him tried to comfort his wound.

I try to take the image in thinking this may be the last time I see my parents because I wasted no time turning back around and running toward Asher's car outside the gate that he had managed to burst open.

I practically hopped in the passenger seat. The doors aren't even fully closed before I'm surprised to find myself hauled up to Asher's mouth and kissed him hungrily. It was like revisiting an old addiction. Strong and intense and I didn't want to pull away, but when we did Asher wasted no time starting the car and pulling off.