Locking my jaw, I glance down at the red marks on my skin as the sting onmy neck pulses from his teeth. My eyes lift to his. “It’s nothing I haven’t done to you.” I crawl off the bed and move toward him, gesturing at his face. “You still have a scratch mark from the last time we—”
“This is different.”
“How is it different?”
“Because I’m becoming the person I tried to save you from, goddammit!” He grips his hair with both hands, mouth hanging open with disbelief. With pure agony. “Jesus…I’m so sorry.”
The bomb comes out of nowhere, exploding at my feet. Ice laces my blood as I leap off the bed. “No…” He can’t think that. Can’t believe it. “No. You’re not him. Not at all. Why would you say that?”
He collapses against the wall, hands covering his face like he’s hiding from his sins. “Don’t fucking do that.”
“Do what?” I demand, voice pitching with dread.
“Make excuses for the person who hurt you. I hated it then, and I hate it now.”
“You didn’t hurt me!” Tears leak from my eyes in rivers. “That was consensual sex between two people who love each other.”
“Is that what you told yourself with him?”
A dagger twists in my gut. Horror and shock. “I don’t care if you were rough with me. I liked it. I wanted it. You don’t scare me.”
“I scare me,” he says.
No.
God, no, he can’t do this. Not now. Not after everything.
He wants me to find the parallels. He wants me to hate him.
And I don’t understand.
“What happened tonight?” I whisper. “With your parents?”
His jaw tightens. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. Something happened. Something hurt you.”
“I hurt me. I hurt you, so I hurt me.” He stabs a finger at his chest. “I was barely there, zoned out, mind blank. I don’t know where I fucking went, but it wasn’t anywhere good.”
The words rattle through me.
Because I remember.
I remember the way he always holds my face, so steady, so careful, whispering“Stay with me, Annie. Look at me.”
How he keeps me anchored, how he makes sure I’m there with him in every kiss, every touch, every shiver.
Even when it’s quick and urgent, it’s always intentional.
But tonight, something slipped. Not out of cruelty.
Out of pain. Out of a storm I can’t see.
And that’s the part that terrifies him.
He sinks to the floor, spine hitting the wall with a thud, legs splayed like the weight of it all finally caved him in.
I approach him with a chest full of lead, falling to my knees between his legs. I don’t touch him. Don’t reach. Not yet. “Chase…”
