Molly McAdams - Needing Her

She blinked quickly and looked away for a second. “Yeah, I’m sor—­”

“I’m always hiding a part of me, there is only one person who has ever gotten all of me. My family gets a certain Maci, my friends get a certain Maci, and Bryce had a certain Maci. Connor had all of me . . . the good and the bad. For the first time I didn’t have to hide a part of my life or my personality, and it was so freeing. But he didn’t want me; I didn’t mean anything to him. And like everyone else, he told me to grow up. So I am. Can you please just be okay with that?” I wiped at my eyes and blinked back the wetness in them.

“Maci, I called—­”

The door swung open and my mom popped her head in. “Dinner is about done, you ready? You both look beautiful.”

“Thanks, Mom, we’re coming up.”

She focused on my eyes for a few seconds, but smiled and shut the door behind her as she left.

“What were you going to say?”

Amber chewed on her bottom lip and shifted her weight. “I’m sorry for what I’ve said to you. I just didn’t want you to change because of what Bryce said, and—­and I’m just sorry,” she said as she walked past me and opened the door again. “Be whoever you want, and date whomever you want; I’ll love you the same.”

My shoulders sagged when she walked out of my room, and I felt like such a bitch. Again. I really shouldn’t have said that to her, I was just so tired of everyone telling me how to live. Turning around, I walked into the hall and up the stairs. Everyone was already at the table when I got up there, and I was positive that if their wives hadn’t been there, Craig and Sam would be glaring at me just the same as Dakota and Dylan were.

Good to know we’re still not past the whole Bryce thing.

Dakota kept pulling my chair away from me every time I went to sit in it, and after a smack on the back of the head from my dad, he finally shoved it toward me hard enough that I fell into my sister-­in-­law Sarah’s lap.

“Dakota, that’s enough,” Dad chastised him, and I had the urge to put Dad between Kota and me.

No one said anything about Bryce, or my hidden relationship, throughout the rest of dinner. But just as I started to stand to help my mom and sisters-­in-­law clear the table, Dakota grabbed my arm and yanked me back down.

“Is there anyone else? Because you went a damn long time not telling us about Bryce; and that got serious enough that he’s still thinking he’s marrying you.”

“I’m not going to marry Bry—­”

“I know you’re not. You think we would let you?” he hissed in my ear. “I know you think we’ve been keeping you from having a relationship to be mean, but I promise you we’re just looking out for you. All we want to do is protect you from assholes like us, okay? We can’t do that if you’re keeping them from us.”

I yanked my arm from him and grabbed my plate, but lowered my head toward him before I stood. “Well you really haven’t given me another option, have you?”

“Maci, who else.” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand. But there was no point in telling them about Connor.

After grabbing his plate as well, I took a few steps past him, turned back around, and shook my head sadly. “You know the funny thing about what you just said, Dakota? You say that you all want is to protect me, and that you’re looking out for me; but I don’t feel like I can even come to you guys if I need protecting. You’re my brothers, I’m supposed to feel safe because of all of you; instead I just feel like I need to hide everything about myself from you because you won’t approve or won’t allow it. You four are the last ­people I would think to call if I was in trouble.”

I ignored the shocked looks everyone was giving me and rushed into the kitchen to put the dishes on the counter. I turned to leave, but my mom grabbed me in a hug from where she was standing at the sink.

“I’m sorry, my sweet girl. I’m so sorry you’re hurting.” Cupping my cheeks, she pulled back to look in my eyes, and smiled sadly. “There’s something else, Maci, I can see it. Maybe someday you’ll talk to me about what’s going on with you? It hurts me that you feel like you can’t.”

My chest started burning and my throat closed up as tears pricked the backs of my eyes. Tonight was definitely not one of my finest. Yelling at my best friend, telling my brothers that they pretty much suck at being brothers. My heart breaking for my mom because I’d kept myself so closed off and had kept everything from her. I needed to get out of there. I just needed to go.

I squeezed my mom’s hands and removed them from my face before running out of the kitchen and through the house toward the front door. Just as my hand reached it, I was turned around, and my body sagged in defeat against the door when I saw Sam.

“Where are you going?”

“I just need to go, I need to get out of here and get away from everything for a minute and just think.”

“We’re your family, don’t run away from us. Dakota and Dylan are being dicks. What’s new? They’ll get over it.”

I shook my head quickly and grabbed the knob behind me. “You don’t understand, Sam. There’s so much going on right now that you just don’t understand. I need to be alone for a while, okay?”

His mouth pulled up on one side as he thought, and then turned to look behind him where the sounds of our family could be heard. “If you’re going outside, then I’m going with you.” He grabbed the first jacket he touched on the coat rack and shrugged it on as he stepped up right next to me. Not giving me the option to go alone.

“Despite everything we’ve said and done, you can’t let us stop you from having relationships,” he said after we’d been walking for a handful of minutes. “And I don’t mean hiding them, I mean actually having them. Bringing the guy around to meet the family, that sort of thing.”

“You’re not,” I said automatically.

He laughed humorlessly and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I need to tell you something,” he mumbled and stared off at the dark sky as we continued to walk.

“Are you going to tell me, or are you just going to make me wonder what it is?”

“I know about Connor,” he said suddenly, and stopped walking, turning his body so he was facing me.

My heart skipped painful beats hearing someone else say his name, and it took a ­couple seconds for me to understand what he was saying. My eyes widened as I slowly turned to look up at him.

“We . . . shit. He came and talked to us the day before we left for Mammoth, he wanted us to know that you were together. Dylan and Dakota forced him to leave you. I’d sided with Connor, but when I saw you the next day, I knew he’d listened to them.”

The way Connor had been acting that night played through my mind, and I felt sick. Sick over losing him, and over the fact that he had tried to stand up to my family, and my brothers had convinced him to leave me. I would expect that from Bryce, but not Connor.

“Wait! You sided with Connor? Why?”

Sam shrugged and a huff left him. “Because he’s a good guy, and he . . . well, after all he said. I knew he wanted to be with you forever, not just to screw around with.”

“We fucked, Maci, that’s all we did.” I sniffed and rubbed at my frozen nose before crossing my arms under my chest. “Well you were wrong about that, and it doesn’t matter. If he’s going to let them keep us apart, then he’s not worth it.”

“I’m not buying that, and I can tell you don’t even believe the shit you’re saying.”

“I will one day,” I countered, and his face morphed into a sympathetic smile.

“Maci, I had no clue you were with him; but from what he said, and what I’m seeing these last ­couple of days from you, I don’t think you will. He is worth it: What guy has ever had the balls to talk to you after we’ve told them to back off for just looking at you, let alone actually confront three of us at once and tell us he’s with you and not leaving you? Dakota and Dylan . . . they said some pretty fucked-­up shit. They hit him low, and they hit him hard. I’m still pissed off at them for what they did, but they really left Connor with no choice.”