“Don’t. Fucking. Call. Me. That.” My hands shove his chest between every word. My whole body feels weak as silent cries and rage tear through me.I’m exhausting myself.
Caleb never asked for this; to become the wall for my aggression,my trauma, but the way he takes it like he knows I need it is something admirable and promising.Maybe he does care about me, and not just because he had orders from my psychotic brother.
I step back, my hands coming to my knees as I slump over and try to catch my breath.
“I can’t keep this from your brother, Blaine,” he states very calmly.
I shoot upward, ready for round two. “You have to!” I screech, wanting to fucking hit him, but instead I turn to the wall beside us and drive my fist right through the thin plasterboard.
“Ugh, FUCK!” I pull it back, whimpering as I watch rivulets of scarlet trail down my frail wrists.
It hurts, but it’s nothing I’m not used to now.
Pain.
I’ve become accustomed to it.What’s a little more?
Caleb tries to snatch it up, to help me, only I stop him with my opposite hand to his chest. “Please don’t, Cay. Please,” I murmur weakly.
Caleb steps back, shaking his head, then he runs his trembling hand down the length of his handsome face.
“What happened?” he asks, trying again, clinging to a little hope that I’ll talk to him—maybe cut my wounds open and bleed out.
The damaged wall at my back takes my weight when I fall right into it. I’m tired,so fucking tired.
Broken.
Abused.
Soulless.
“Don’t burden yourself with my secrets, Caleb. They’ll fucking kill you.”
He throws his hands out toward my ankles, then he raises his voice. “Seeing that already did, B. So, you better start talking.”
I’m shaking my head, sucking my bottom lip back into my mouth as it begins to wobble. “Why do you fucking care?”
We just stare at each other.
His eyes locked on mine.
Mine on his.
He wants to help me, yet he has no fucking idea what he’s asking for,and before I can reel the words back in, they shoot out of me like bullets taking aim right at his target.
“I was kidnapped. I was raped. Sold over and over again.” My voice grows louder with each admission. “Tortured to within an inch of my life. Then I was dumped in a fucking lake, with concrete blocks and barbed wire tied around my ankles.” Tears roll down my cheeks, and then I start to laugh. It’s a sad, sorry sound. “Is that what you wanted to hear?” I toss my arms up when silence fills the space around us. “Huh?”
He remains deathly quiet. “Do you feel better now?” My feet shuffle over the carpet as I start to walk out of the room. “You can’t help me, Caleb. The damage is already fucking done.”
The chill in the hallway hits me like a wall of ice, though I know it’s not from the air; it’s from the truth I just spoke, the very one I had no intention of unleashing,especially like that.
That was all wrong.
A moment of weakness.
He doesn’t deserve that.
He has been nothing but kind to me,a friend.
