Post by DESTINY BACCARI on Apr 11, 2022 21:36:35 GMT
━ i'll stay awake at night with just my skin and bones ━
A TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. Short━long enough to experience the heat Virginia didn’t have this time of year, visit her parents’ graves, head to the prison, and then get home. They rented a place for a few days anyway, just in case, but Destiny didn’t want to be there long. She had to do this, and she wanted to do it with Grey. She went in alone, though, squeezing Grey’s hand, giving him a soft kiss and promising that she’d be okay. Destiny would be; she’d never been more okay in her life.
It was demeaning to be searched and patted down by the prison officers at one of the security checkpoints, but Destiny lived through that just as she had everything else. Hands swiped over her stomach, checking, prodding, less-than-delicate, and then she was allowed through. Sat at an assigned booth to wait.
Destiny almost threw up the moment she saw him. The face she’d once loved, young and soft and kissed by the Californian sun, looked so much older. Stress pulled at that same face, wrinkling around his lips, his green eyes, creating deep, dark bags under them. She remembered him being prettier. Maybe it was just a testament to how much she’d grown, changed. How far she’d come since she was the little girl who loved him. The side of her finger burned where his name was. Even under the glamour, she felt it. It had faded over a period of treatments, but Destiny hadn’t completed them. It was still there. Faint. His brands were still on her body, his name the least of them. She’d chosen to get this one, unlike the rest. Inked, unlike the rest.
His face lit up, shocked and happy, until his eyes fell to her belly. She was sure he’d get angry then, but instead, he paused, processed it, and his smile only grew. Destiny didn’t understand it until he picked up the phone and pure stupidity came, unfiltered, out of his mouth.
“Is it… mine?”
“Oh my God,” She had to laugh, though the sound was strained and more like a cackle. “I know math was never your strong suit, but seriously?” He looked as though he’d regretted saying it from the moment it left his mouth, words born of emotion and void of any logic.
“Yeah, whatever, I got confused and said… the wrong━” He was chewing on his words, maybe choking on his saliva. For a second, Destiny wanted to watch his face go blue. She wanted to reach through the partition and wrap that telephone cord around his throat. She wanted to see him fall backwards in his chair and crack his skull on the concrete floor.
One breath in… two, three, four. Hold. Out… two, three, four. She was okay.
“━I guess I just wish it was mine. Should’ve been.”
“Should’ve, but you got rid of that problem real quick, didn’t you?” Destiny glared, and that familiar expression slipped across his features, almost like a water balloon overfilling. Initial understanding, guilt, the fight to bury it, anger coming in its place, his face turning redder than a tomato. She used to cower under that look, but now she smirked, smug at the fact that it didn’t even make her flinch anymore. Her free hand slipped over her belly, swollen and growing with the right man’s baby. It would work this time because everything was perfect. “I didn’t come here to fight.” She said━in a level voice━before he had the chance to explode, and that seemed to only make him more furious.
“What the fuck did you come here for, then?!”
“To release you. I’m done.” She felt it everywhere━in her bones, even in their every response to one other. He hadn’t changed, but she’d outgrown him. The flower he’d starved and blackened, kept hidden from the sun unless he allowed it, had bloomed as soon as it was outside his hold. Destiny knew his every trick, every reaction before it came. She knew him like the back of her hand, but she’d never need to again. Yes, she’d keep the lessons she learned from Tanner to ensure she could pick up clues and red flags from others, but she’d never flinch when someone across the room motioned sharply, and she’d never let him control another second of her life. “I’m having a baby. I’m an adult now. I thought I loved you, I thought you loved me, and I continued thinking so until I felt what that’s really supposed to be like. You took everything from me, and while I’ve been learning and fixing everything you broke, because I’ve found the strength to do that, you’ll never get it. You’ll be stuck in here for the rest of your miserable existence. You’ll never know what it’s like to live a normal life, to have normal experiences, and even though I can’t take back the years you stole from me, you can’t steal them from anybody else ever again. And you have nobody but yourself to blame, Tanner. Nobody.”
His childhood hadn’t been anything special, either, what with a mother who barely seemed to acknowledge him and quickly grew irritated whenever he spoke over her television programs. Destiny had known love before he ever found her, a sense of family she wanted to pass on to her own child, but he’d lost any chance he had to try being a father. And though it’d caused her immeasurable pain, she was happy she’d never given him a kid. Putting a child into that situation, when she was practically one herself, would’ve been absolutely horrible. Destiny hadn’t even chosen to leave herself, what would that baby have had to go through? She used to think a baby would’ve changed him, that the glimpses he allowed━his initial excitement over her announcements━would become permanent. She was always stuck on the man she thought was buried underneath.
“That’s what you think that was? Destiny, I did love you. I swear I loved━love you. Still do. I didn’t want to take anything from you, everything just moved so fast and I didn’t wanna lose you. I can’t lose you.”
Was that what this was? Did he sit in his cot in the evenings and think about how he still had a leash around her? Did that keep him going?
“My mom died.”
Destiny rolled her eyes as a knee-jerk reaction and then sighed. His mom was pleasant enough that time she visited. Her house was filled with smoke and she didn’t seem to change out of her faded nightdress and slippers, but still. “I’m sorry for your loss.” She puffed, knowing what he was looking for but finding it impossible to be void of all sympathy. She’d loved this man once, and she’d nearly given that woman a grandchild.
But she hadn’t, and she wasn’t going to. Petyr wasn’t Tanner’s. Drawing in another breath, Destiny lifted her gaze, finding his eyes and the strength to hold contact with them. “I don’t feel bad for you; I want to make that clear.”
She wasn’t done, but he interrupted anyway. “Why are you being such a fucking bitch━”
Destiny didn’t stop speaking despite his desperate attempts. “━I’m not here to give you sympathy or fall into your traps again. This is the first and last time I’ll visit you, Tanner. It comforts me to know you’re gonna rot in here.”
He snapped at that, slamming the phone against the plastic divider. He screamed and slapped his free hand on the table, throwing a tantrum that━at one time━would’ve had her nearly pissing herself with fear. Even without the barrier between them, she wouldn’t be scared. She knew how to defend herself, and, with three sacrifices under her belt, she had enough power to heal herself from whatever he might do. Now, he only reminded her of a child. Destiny grinned as she watched, seeing the nearby prison guard rush over to shout back and settle him. It felt so fucking good to watch Tanner still under someone else’s commands. He’d lose his privilege to talk if he didn’t calm down, and Destiny wasn’t done with him yet. God, she felt good. Offering a gentle smile to the giant, uniformed man, Destiny nodded to communicate that she was fine, too━hoping it would aid in giving Tanner another chance. She just needed a few more minutes.
Finally, he settled back in his seat, looking at her with his eyes shining, tears highlighting the green under fluorescent lights. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” He sobbed, “I know I was shitty to you. You didn’t deserve that, I just━of course I don’t wanna hear it, Des. I loved you; I was just all fucked up at that time. I’m better now. Don’t leave again.” She wondered if Deren still visited━it wasn’t likely that he came around often, especially not with how Tanner was begging her now, like all he needed was someone to talk to. “I know I hurt you━”
“You almost took this away from me.” She snapped, unable to listen to the bullshit anymore. He hadn’t hurt her, he’d repeatedly suffocated her so she’d stay exactly where he wanted, and he’d almost killed her and her chances to have a family. He stilled for once, and Destiny’s voice softened. “You almost took this away from me.” She repeated, “I didn’t think I could have a baby anymore, but look at this.” She almost whispered, amazed, staring down at her belly while one hand moved over it in circles. “He’s a miracle. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted, and so is his dad. And you’ll never be able to take that from me.” Destiny swiped a tear from her cheek. “All I wanted was to be enough for you. I grew up thinking I had to mould myself to what you wanted, be who you needed me to be, and I could never understand why I wasn’t enough. But I was wrong. Nothing will ever be good enough for you, Tanner, but I’m good enough for myself. And I’m good enough for him, too. I’m not with him because I feel like I need him, I want to be with him. I love him.” The words slipped out easily, so much so that Destiny surprised herself. Her eyes went wide, and Tanner’s followed in a twin reaction of shock. She was smiling soon after, though━of course.
Suddenly, everything evaporated. Destiny didn’t feel a need to be here anymore; all she wanted was to leave and be back in Grey’s arms again. “We’re gonna have a baby, and we’ll be a family. My baby and I are gonna be safe, happy, loved, and I’ll forget about the man who tried to ruin my life. I’ll never think of you again.” She didn’t notice her tears until they tickled the edges of her mouth. Destiny smiled, relief evident in her words and the final breath she released━like she was breathing out the last of him. “Bye, Tanner.”
Destiny could hear the beginnings of her name, a desperate call through the phone, but she didn’t even look at him as she stood and put it on the receiver. She left, leaving Tanner behind, and when Grey arrived to take her back to their temporary home, she greeted him with the strongest hug she could manage.
It wasn’t easy to leave as fast as she’d wanted. The rented bungalow, nestled in a sweet, quiet suburban area, was perfect for a handful of days. She had a taste of the future she’d imagined with Grey, what she wanted for the three of them, peaceful and free of any outside forces that wanted to drag them down.
Destiny settled there, in Grey’s arms for the majority of their remaining time in California, breathing through the realization that she’d defeated her biggest demon. Now, only Grey’s demons were left, and she’d support him through their removal as he’d supported her. Petyr would bring a new life for them, a fresh start, and they’d go into it without anything dragging them behind.