Not Finished Yet

Leah

Armadillo grimaced as he looked down at me. “I’m sorry, Phoenix, but I had to. You were miserable. I had to bring him back to you. You needed to figure this out with him, so maybe we could be happy together,” he told me as he cupped my face.

I cried out when he was ripped backward away from me, making me stumble forward a little. I fell against Brennan, who steadied me before going back down the stairs to kick at Armadillo, who instantly rolled away from him before jumping back to his feet. I stood frozen in place as Brennan swung his fists in rapid succession at Armadillo, causing my chest to grow tighter as I watched them pummel each other. When Armadillo kicked Brennan in the back of the knee to make his leg collapse and put him in a headlock, I rushed down the stairs, twisting my hands together anxiously as tears poured down my face.

“STOP! STOP! PLEASE! YOU’RE HURTING EACH OTHER!” I screamed.

Armadillo immediately let Brennan go and backed away from him. Brennan ran his eyes over my face, and I gasped when emotions that I had only seen in Will’s eyes before he beat me surfaced. My hands flew up to my throat as I took a step back. He pushed himself up off the ground, glaring at me. When he took a step toward me, I held my hand out in an attempt to ward him off.

“B- Brennan, please,” I whispered.

“You told him your name!” He accused me.

“What? N- no, I didn’t,” I denied.

His hands fisted at his side, making me gulp nervously. “YOU TOLD HIM YOUR NAME!” He yelled angrily. “I SHOULD BE THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS YOUR NAME!”

He spun around, immediately lunging at Armadillo again as I screamed. When they hit the ground, punching each other again, I rushed forward to tug at the back of Brennan’s shirt, still screaming for them to stop. Brennan drew his arm back, and I grabbed it, flying forward as he brought it down into Armadillo’s face. My head hit the ground so hard that it bounced off. I lay there, dazed for a moment, as a flurry of movement went on around me. I had a hard time making sense of the voices around me as I struggled to roll over onto my back. As I stared at the blurry sky above me, someone knelt beside my head before carefully stroking my hair off my forehead.

“It’s okay, Phoenix. Just stay still. I’m here,” Rosemary murmured above me.

“Rose…” I muttered as my eyes started to close.

“No, no, no, honey. You have to stay awake. Keep your eyes open. Keep talking to me,” she encouraged.

I turned my head to the side as drowsiness took over, making my eyes close fully. “I’m sorry…”

****

I grumbled as I pushed away the hands that were shaking me awake, yet again. “Go away.”

“No can do, Phoenix. We’ve gone over this: if you want to stay in Eden and not go to the hospital, we have to wake you every hour. Now, open your eyes, or I’m going to make Taco put you in the van,” Rosemary threatened.

I grumbled again as I let my eyes open to glare up at her. “Satisfied?!”

“Very.”

“Can I go back to sleep now?” I mumbled as I closed my eyes.

“Yep. See you in an hour.”

I grumbled a few choice words before rolling over to go back to sleep. I was almost asleep when Sugar started barking and leapt off the bed. I let my eyes flutter back open as I called her back to bed. A soft knock on my bedroom door had me pulling my blankets up to my chin as I stared at the door fearfully. Rosemary put her hand on my knee.

“Do you want me to see who that is?” She asked softly.

I nodded, and she immediately got up to go to the door. She had a quiet conversation with who I assumed was Taco before shutting the door. She came back over to the bed, sat next to me, and took my hand.

“Armadillo is here, Phoenix. He wanted to speak to you. He says he has some things to explain to you. I told Taco that I would ask you if you wanted to speak to him. If you don’t want to speak to him, that’s okay. I won’t force you to see him, and neither will Taco. All you have to do is say yes or no,” she told me softly as she squeezed my hand.

I sighed as I sat up, letting her hand go. “I’ll see him. I’d like to know why he went after R. H. M.”

“Alright, sweetie. Give me one second.”

She patted my hand once before getting up to slip outside the door. When she came back a minute later, Armadillo trailed behind her, and I gasped as I stared at his bruised and swollen face. I scrambled up out of bed to rush over to him. I reached up to grip his face, causing him to grimace. I immediately let him go.

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “Don’t be. It’s me that should be apologizing. When R. H. M. accused you of telling me your name, I might have let him believe it.”

“Why?” I whispered. “Why did you go after him?”

He sighed as he nodded toward the bed. “Let’s sit down, and I’ll answer all of your questions.”

“Alright.”

I followed him over to the bed, where I sat beside him with my hands clasped between my knees.

“I am sorry that I lied to you about where I was going. I didn’t want to get your hopes up if I told you that I was going to speak to R. H. M. I didn’t mean any harm. It was killing me to see you so sad. As much as it killed me, I knew the only thing that would help you feel better was to make up with him. When I got to his brother’s house—umm, I think his name was Caleb—there was a woman there. Her name was Madison. Or at least I think it was. Everything happened so fast. She was so angry at him for whatever happened between the two of you. She was yelling at him and cursing him out.” He raised his hand to the back of his neck to massage it. “To be honest, if I never saw her again, it would be too soon. Her anger was terrifying. Anyway, while she was yelling at him, she called him”—he glanced at Rosemary before continuing—“Brennan and you Leah. When I decided to join the conversation, I might have used your real name and led him to believe that you told me. I shouldn’t have done that, but I wanted to piss him off enough to come home. I thought that if I could at least get him back to Eden, then you two could talk, and you could decide what you wanted to do.” He hesitantly took my hand. 

“I love you, Phoenix. I want to be with you. But I can’t move forward with you until you choose to close this chapter of your life. And if you decide to be with him, well, I would just have to deal with it. Either way you decide, I just want you to be happy. If it’s with me, great. If it’s not with me, then I will pray that he steps up for you and gives you everything that you deserve.”

I closed my fingers around his as I laid my head on his shoulder. “Who started the fight?”

“He did, but it was my fault. I would have hit me too,” he admitted, making me lift my head to eye him.

“Why? What did you do?” I inquired curiously.

“I might have told him that you kissed me. Then he asked me if we had been intimate beyond that, and I may have responded with, ‘And what if I did?’ Or something like that.”

I yanked my hand away from his. “You did what?”

“I’m sorry, Phoenix. I was only trying to infuriate him enough to come back to Eden. I swear. I did this to help you.”

I stood up as tears threatened to fall again. “I didn’t ask you for your help. You did this on your own. It sounds like all you wanted to do was ensure that he and I never got back together. It sounds like you wanted to drive a wedge further between me and him. YOU KNEW HOW I FELT ABOUT HIM! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!” I screamed.

He got to his feet, reaching for me. “Phoenix, I swear that I didn’t mean to make things worse.”

I shoved his hands away from me, and when he reached for me again, Rose stepped forward between us.

“It’s time to leave, Armadillo. I can’t have you upsetting my patient,” she told him, making him sigh.

“I’m sorry, Phoenix. I really didn’t mean to.”

“GET OUT! DON’T COME BACK! I DON’T WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!” I yelled.

He gave me a sad look before walking to the door, only to pause beside it to look back at me and say, “Believe it or not, my only goal was to get him back here so you could figure out what you wanted. I’m sorry that you got hurt. That was never my intention. I hope that one day you can forgive me and let me back into your life.”

“Just leave, Armadillo. You’ve done enough damage,” I told him.

He sighed before leaving the room. The door hadn’t even clicked shut behind him before I sank to my knees, burying my face in my hands as I started to sob. Rose sat in front of me, wrapped her arms around me, and started to rock me back and forth.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it is going to be okay. If you want, I will talk to R. H. M. and see if I can’t explain to him what happened. R. H. M. knows you. He knows that you are not a whore. He is just angry. I know it’s not an excuse, but love makes you do stupid things. And they both love you. Granted, they shouldn’t have fought over you like they did, but they both love and want you as their own. They just went about it in an ignorant manner,” she murmured softly as she stroked my hair.

I wrapped my arms around her as I sniffled. “I don’t know what to do, Rose. How can I trust either of them after what happened? R. H. M. scared me. I thought he was going to hit me. And Armadillo lied purposely to manipulate R. H. M. How can I trust that he isn’t doing that to me too?”

She sighed as she ran her hands down my back. “I know, Phoenix. Don’t worry about that now. Just focus on recovery from that nasty fall. When you’re feeling better, I’ll help you figure out what to do.”

I nuzzled into her. “Okay…”