AllFreeNovel
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How could he say that? “It has everything to do with you,” I snap.
He tilts his head. “You told me to go and fuck someone else. Why?”
“Because you need to!”
“No! Because you fucking need me to!” He explodes from the chair, his entire body radiating anger as he jabs a finger in my direction. “You want me to confirm that you’re not good enough so that you can accept that bullshit. It’s easier to accept it than fight for this, isn’t it?”
He makes me feel like shit with a few sentences. My fragile heart cracks and bleeds, and I can feel the warm liquid seeping into every atom of my body, drowning them. I’m suffocating in this sea of hatred and self-loathing, and I have no idea how to save myself anymore. In many ways, my life was easier as a slave. I had no emotions, no purpose, no need to think or feel or do anything. Surviving was easy. This…living…it’s hard.
“What do you want from me?” I whisper.
He stands there, practically trembling with rage. “I want your trust.”
“You have it.”
He laughs humorlessly. “Oh, little warrior. I’ve never been so far from having it as I am right now.”
“I trust you.” I do trust him.
He moves closer and drops to a crouch right in front of me, his anger retreating. “You did. When I was your captor and you were owned. You trusted me. But now…”
“I do.” I choke on a sob because he looks so hurt, and I know it’s me hurting him. I reach out and stroke his cheek. “I do.”
“You have to trust me to know what you need.” He takes my hand and turns it over, brushing his lips over the inside of my wrist. “You need to trust that I love you.”
“I know you do.”
“Then trust me to fucking help you because, baby, you hate yourself, and it kills me.” I close my eyes and tears fall down my cheeks. I’m heartbroken and sad, for him, but more for myself. This man loves me, and he’s patient and so strong. I feel like the ghost of a girl, wading through the rubble of something that was once beautiful. And he’s there, holding out his hand, offering to pull me back to life. Only every time I go to take his hand, mine just passes through his.
“You can’t help me. I’m never going to be fixed, Rafe.” Why can’t he see this?
“Then break. I’ll be right here to put you back together again.”
Frustration and anger spike through my bloodstream. “There is no together! This is as good as it gets. I’m a whore—”
He’s standing in a flash—his fist pulling my hair so hard that he wrenches my head back. He closes his eyes, his jaw ticking erratically. “You are not a whore!”
I can feel myself spiraling, falling into an abyss and he’s trying to save me because that’s what he does. He loves me, and I can’t even bring myself to give him something that so many other men have had from me. “You’re right. I can’t even fuck you.”
He releases me and steps back, his anger now a visceral thing, filling the room until I can barely breathe. Up and down, round and round, this is what we do. My emotions playing havoc on us both, as he’s forced to follow me in this toxic dance. He drags his hands through his hair before he loses it and rams his fist into the wall. When he pulls it away, his hand is bleeding, his blood staining the wallpaper.
“You’re better than this, Anna,” he says through clenched teeth. Shaking his head, he looks at me with sad eyes, his anger mixing with his despair. “You never stepped out of the cage, but the door is still open.” He turns to me and holds out his hand. “Step outside.”
I stare at his hand, and it’s so much more than just a meaningless gesture. “I just have to trust you?”
“Completely. All in. Be free, avecita.” Be free. I am free technically, but I know he’s right. I’m not. I’m a prisoner of my own thoughts and fears. A slave to years of conditioning and self-loathing. But how can I escape that? I’ll always be sullied by what I am, by what I was. “Trust that I love you,” he says so quietly I barely hear it, but I feel it, to the very depths of my soul. It whispers to his, pleading with him to save it from its own torment. He loves me. I love him. And maybe he can love me enough for the both of us.
On a shaky breath, I lift my hand, hesitating before I place it in his. And he doesn’t pass through me. He grabs hold of me in a way that tells me he’ll never let go.
