“Don’t,” I rasp.
Another sharp shake of her head. “It’s what you needed, and I needed to give you that.”
Fuck.
I don’t think about all the things that are wrong in this scenario, about all the fucked-up shit inside me. Not right then.
I just…react.
I wrap my arms around her and draw her flush against me.
“I didn’t need you to do that.” My words are like gravel, even as I can begin to understand her fucked-up logic, can appreciate that she was trying to protect me. Iunderstand. But I’m mad as hell and I want to shake her until she sees how wrong that was.
But…I need to hold her more.
So, I just draw her nearer, wrap my arms more tightly around her, and I listen as she gives me more of her fucked-up logic.
“You’ve already been through so much with your sister and I didn’t want you to have to revisit it and”—a shrug of herslender shoulders—“you didn’t even like me anyway, so it wouldn’t bother you.”
See?
Fucked up.
So much that the lid I keep slapped tight on all things Joey pops off and the truth I’ve wrestled with for so long slips out.
“I like you far too much, baby.”
She goes statue still.
And then she bursts into tears.
FIVE
Joey
This is pretty muchmy worst nightmare?—
Except, it’s not.
I’ve already lived through that.
But it’s a close second—crying in front of Damon—after being vulnerable with him not once but twice today.
I can’t.
I fuckingcan’t.
But the tears have built and they explode out of me without warning, without me having any hope of holding them back.
His arms were already around me, but now they move again, shifting and scooping me up. And then I’m being lifted, being held against his chest, being carried into the other room. I suck in breaths as he walks, trying to get control of myself, hating that I’m totally spiraling, loud, hiccupping sobs shaking my body.
He sinks down onto the couch with me still in his arms and I know I should pull away.
But I can’t get my breath back, can’t stop the tears from flowing, the sobs from hitching through my lungs.
It’s like now that the truth is exposed to this man, I can’t stop the memories of that night, from the weeks and months after, the guilt in discovering I wasn’t the only victim…they’re all flowing forward and swallowing me whole. It doesn’t matter that I’ve hashed this out in a therapist’s office, presumably made peace with my decision.
The bandage covering that deep, oozing wound inside me has been torn free and I’m just bleeding andbleeding.
