Just hearing the words out of my own damn mouth makes me realize how psychotic that is.
“I’m on the shot. Wouldn’t want to get knocked up, you know? Nothing ruins a party like people staring at the pregnant girl snorting coke.” A humorless laugh rushes past my lips, but I know nothing about this is funny.
Tears begin to stream down my face, and I don’t speak for a long time. I weep with the phone to my ear. I cry for the eighteen-year-old girl who thought she had the world at her fingertips, only to find out there’s nothing in this world left but pain and misery and shame for all the things I’m not telling him.
“And I liked what you did here last time,” I confess once the sobs ebb. “How fucked up does that make me?”
“It makes you perfect.”
My heart stops at the sound of his voice, and I cling to the hope that he actually means what he’s saying.
“They made me this way.” The tears begin anew.
“If none of that bad shit had happened, and we’d met at a different place in our lives, I’d still do the exact same things to you, and you’d enjoy them. They didn’t make you. This is just who you are.”
I ignore his words. There’s no point in focusing on what could’ve been or arguing with him that he’s wrong. It’s the pain of what I’ve lost that guts me. For the last six years I’ve lived in misery, slowly distancing myself from family and friends who didn’t understand why I just couldn’t ‘get over it already.’
“I told myself I didn’t need you, that I didn’t want you. I was sure when I asked you to go that I wouldn’t miss you. I’m tired of lying to myself.” I take a deep breath before continuing, “I do miss you, and I fucking hate myself for it.”
I hang up the phone, my eyes burning from the tears I should never have cried in the first place.
My head jerks up at the first sound of knuckles on my door, but I don’t bother to get off my bed.
Why should I?
He has a key.Chapter 22TJ
I grin to myself when I have to pull out the key to unlock her door. At least she’s locking it now. I’ve been watching her apartment almost every single day, waiting, hoping, and praying she’d make this call. I’ve grown discouraged over time, but it hasn’t stopped me from parking my bike down the road and begging the devil to make tonight the night she actually reaches out.
She doesn’t say a word as I enter, relock the door, and strip out of my jacket and cut. They fall to the floor, and I don’t give a shit for even a split second about the disrespect I’m showing my club when I leave them where they land and cross the room.
“I—”
I press my fingers to her lips. “Shh.”
Her story gutted me, much like, I’m sure, my story did her. She pushed me away, not sure what to do with all the information I threw down in her lap, but I know what I needed in that moment and didn’t get from her. I was only bitter about it for a few days before I realized that what I needed wasn’t something she could give to me at the time.
“I’m sorry they hurt you.”
Her eyes slam shut, but it doesn’t hold the tears that continue to streak down her face. I pull her head against my chest and wrap my arms around her shoulders. She doesn’t fight me, but she’s not settling into my comfort either.
“I’m sorry they stole things from you.”
Her shoulders heave with her sobs, and her hot tears soak through my shirt.
“I’m sorry they took your power and your ability to say no.”
She pushes against my chest, and I allow it. Asserting dominance after what she’s confessed tonight just isn’t in me. She doesn’t go far, only pulls her head back so she can look up at me. Fuck me for loving the red rimming her eyes and the now silent tears as they cascade down her flushed cheeks.
“When was the last time someone pleasured you without pain?” She has to know I’m including our time together. My fingers have itched to smack her tits again. My teeth have ached with the need to bite her perfect fucking skin, but none of that is what either of us need right now.
“Never,” she whispers.
She attempts to hang her head, but I refuse to let her be ashamed of that. She’s not responsible for what those pieces of shit made her do, but she has to know she doesn’t have to be that person. Regaining control and power doesn’t have to be about accepting the abuse she puts her body through. She can be powerful and safe at the same time. She also has the right to like every form of sexual pleasure regardless if others deem it deviant.