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She laughs and it’s a bit hysterical as she grabs for her clothes. “You didn’t trust them to take care of your mother and yet you expect me to trust them with my problems? With my life?”
I flinch as if her words were a switchblade. “I’m asking you to trust me and I’ve already explained I am the club. I will not allow Kyle to continue to blackmail you.”
Breanna works under the sheet to get her bra back on and I use that time to shrug on my jeans. I’m so fucking pissed that when I shove my foot through, I rip the already frayed cuff. She slides out of the bed and she’s also brewing with enough ticked-off energy that it’s not long before, like me, her shirt and jeans are on, too. The silence is sharp enough that it could cut us. I roll my neck and try to fight the feeling she’s slipping away.
“In case you’re wondering.” A snap from her laces as she double knots. “None of this is your decision. It’s mine. I asked for your help, you tried and it didn’t work, so now I’m choosing to write his papers.”
“Is that what you want? Because it won’t stop there. It will never stop. Shit like this, Breanna, it’s not about the endgame of the fucking papers, it’s about control.”
“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I know this is about control? I’m the one under his thumb. I’m the puppet being played. I’m the one whose future is being decided by some guy who has to act dominant to make himself feel better.”
I stretch out my arms, desperate for her to understand. “Then let me help. Let me do what needs to be done.”
“Why? So you can be in control?”
“Are you comparing me to that bastard?”
“Yes. No. You and Kyle are two different people. Not just on the outside, but the inside, as well. You would never treat a girl like he’s treating me, but you guys do have one thing in common and that is control. You want to fix things, you want to protect people, you want to take the bullet, and I’m telling you, it’s not your choice to take the bullet on this.”
“When Kyle’s around, do you know what I see? Fear. And fuck me for not wanting the girl I love to be scared. Fear—that’s not you. You are one of the few people I know who is truly fearless.”
“You’ve made that girl up in your head! She doesn’t exist. At least she doesn’t exist in me, because all I am is scared. I’ve been scared for years! Scared someone will make fun of me. Scared someone will make me the butt of their jokes. Scared I’ll stick out too much. Scared that if I do too much or say too much or do too well, that I’m going to hurt the people around me, and I can’t take that burden, not anymore.”
She claws at her shirt as if she’s suffocating. “I don’t want to hurt people and I’m scared, but what terrifies me the most is that I will never be as free to be myself as I am with you. I’m terrified I’m going to be in this box forever and I have to be. I have to stay just as I am.”
Breanna’s chest rises and sinks too fast and my instincts flare. There’s more happening than Kyle. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” It falls out of her mouth as an automatic response and I’m not buying it.
“You’re talking like I’m an outsider. You act like I’m not involved with this.”
Breanna knots her hair at the base of her neck. “I am not your club! There is no in or out. This is my problem, not yours and it sure as hell isn’t the club’s problem, either. I’ll handle this my way because my way won’t end up with someone possibly being hurt.”
“So you’re going to do what you do at school? You’re going to hide?” A wave of anger and hurt ripples through me and it’s building into a tsunami.
Her eyes narrow into slits. “What happened to me being fearless?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I have it wrong, because the girl I love wouldn’t be asking me to butt out, but would keep me involved.”
“This isn’t about you! This is about me and I’m trying desperately to keep my world from falling apart. That picture can destroy what little I have left.”
“Are you ashamed of me?” I spit out. “Was I a piece to a puzzle for you and now that the puzzle isn’t working I’m being discarded?”
Shock and hurt cloud her face. “Why would you say that? I just did things with you that I have never done with anyone else. I have loved you like I have loved no one else. I’m standing here in your house, defying my family, hurting them because I love you!”
Pissed at myself, my entire body becomes a steamroller and I throw my fist into the wall. Breanna jumps and I press my hands over my face and scrub the skin as if that could erase the past few minutes.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m saying anymore. She’s leaving. After she walks out that door, I don’t know when I’ll see her again, if I’ll see her again, and she’s leaving with more problems than she had to begin with.
I’m hurt, she’s hurt and we’re only hurting each other more. As always, I’m cursed. She came searching for a memory and I’m sure as hell giving her one. Just the nightmare version everyone else in town also shares of me.
I take a deep breath and search for a semicoherent thought. “Breanna, I’m sorr—”
“Take me home.” She wraps her arms around herself and I curse when I spot the tears lining the bottom rim of her eyes.
“We can’t leave it like this between us.”
“I’m not ashamed of you.” Her voice cracks and that tears me up.
