I bulldozed past him and began to tear apart the room. I looked in every drawer, under the bed, everywhere for something. Anything. My clothes. My underwear. My possessions. Some sign of my old life.
Where was it?
“Fuuuuuuck!” I screamed until my voice cracked, and I pulled at my hair, squeezing my eyes closed, trying to see nothing. My lungs were raw, my voice hoarse. "I don’t want this! I want my stuff! My life! I want out of here!”
I threw the Teddy Bear on the floor, fists balled as it looked back up at me with those big blue eyes and red felt tongue sticking out.
I smashed the heel of my bare foot into his fluffy nose.
Guilt smacked at my cheeks. That bear was the closest thing to a perfect gift I’d ever received. All the times I read AMITAH on Reddit came streaming back.
Am I the asshole for throwing a giant, soft, cuddly, perfect life-sized teddy bear on the floor and stomping on its face because I don’t like the new wardrobe the sexiest man alive that I’m secretly in love with just bought me?
"None of your own things are gone," he said calmly, ignoring my tantrum. "They're just put away for now."
"And what gives you that right?"
“You did. You promised, Kat. You promised you would trust me and do things my way. That is what this means. Now, stop it, right now, or you’re going to be punished.”
I glared. I stamped my foot. And then I stuck out my tongue and enunciated slowly in my broken voice: "Fuck. You."
"Kat... This isn't how we deal with our anger."
"I said." I drew a deep breath, balling my fists by my sides. "Fuck. You."
I hurtled toward the mountain of muscle and intensity with everything I could muster. As I pummeled his chest with my fists, he stood completely still for a few seconds, taking everything I had.
Then with catlike reflexes, he grabbed my wrists in one giant vice-like grip, spun me around and held my hands behind my back, bending me over slightly and sending lightning bolts of pain into my shoulders.
“Letgo!” My voice was all I had under his might. The hold he had on me with one hand was impossible to shake. He positioned me perfectly so that there was nothing I could do to fight back. If I tried to kick, I would fall down. My fists were immobilized by his grip and he pushed me over toward the bed.
“This is not you, Kat. Try to remember who you are. Stop reacting and start feeling. Now, stop it, right now.”
His voice was a low rumble behind me, infused with restrained power. In the midst of my anger, a fierce ember waslit in my belly. My eyes danced all over the thick, flexing muscle in Jesse’s arms as he held my hands behind my back.
The subtle movements of his lips, his jaw, the blink of his dark eyes, the glint of his straight white teeth. He gave the smallest of grimaces as he held a crazed badger, fighting against the very person who was trying to save her.
“Fucking let me go you fucking asshole jarhead! What do you care anyway, Jesse? Kent’s dead and I'm not your problem! You're not my brother!” I hurled my words like poison daggers because my voice was all I had.
I knew I was hurting him and I didn’t care. I could never have him the way I wanted, so it was better if I just got out of here and never looked back. When I was fourteen, and it was just Kent, Jesse and me, we all made a pact. We lived together like brothers and sisters, and we swore to always be family.
Now I was using that against him. Denying that bond because I couldn't dare to let him in.
Because if I let Jesse into my heart, I was setting myself up to have that heart broken. There was no way he would ever want me the way I wanted him.
His voice was a deep rumble. “I’m the only family you have, little girl. I'm sorry. I wish it was different, but it isn't. You and me, we're it.”
I was almost out of breath from the fight and the way he was holding me pinned, bent in half, pulling my hands up behind my back. Trouble was, being in this position, so helpless and at his mercy, only made me think of other things. Things a sister should never imagine doing with her brother.
And sure, we weren't actually family. We weren't even step-siblings. Not really. But he had always been there, and the way I felt about him was wrong.
I could see him in the mirror, his eyes aflame and the tendons in his neck standing out like coils of steel cable. If I wereanother guy, he would have knocked me out and left me laying in my own drool. Why was he spending so much effort on me? I had not done anything in the last few years to earn his protection or his loyalty.
“Kent never trusted you, Jesse. Not after what you did… Whatwedid. He said he hated you for it.”
A silence like a nuclear explosion filled the room and my heart seized for a moment. I had crossed a line. There were things in the past that should stay there, never to be unearthed again.
But the words were out, like fifty lashes with a wire whip, and Jesse’s eyes told me just how he felt.
