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Six years.
Six fucking years she had been doing this to herself and no one had known? I knew if her parents had known she would have gotten help by now. Jesse and Layla wouldn’t have allowed this to continue. Her arm wouldn’t have been all scarred up…
But her arm hadn’t been scarred up when we’d gotten the matching ink. I’d never seen any marks on her body that would even suggest that she was self-harming. Not one little scratch.
“Where else, Lu?” I asked, still trying to keep my voice calm, but failing. Fuck, I was terrified. I couldn’t help her if I didn’t know all of it. “Where are the other scars?”
Slowly, she lifted her legs and when she showed me the bottom of her feet, I wasn’t able to hold the tears back a second longer. Dear God. All those little scars. Some on her heels, a few on the balls of her feet, but the majority were under her toes. Seeing those scars scared the living fuck out of me.
She could have really hurt herself. What if she’d killed herself? What if she’d gone too deep and hit something important and I had lost her? Fuck, what if the next time she did something like this, it took her away from me forever?
“I know I must disgust you,” she spoke in a voice choked with her own tears. “I’ve tried to stop so many times…but I can’t seem to help myself. Things get so intense and I have to. I-I understand if you don’t…if you can’t…” A sob broke free and she hung her head in shame. “I’d understand.”
I lifted my hands, cupping her face and forcing her to look at me. “Nothing would ever make me stop loving you,” I told her fiercely and a few tears spilled down my face. How could she not see that my love for her didn’t see the scars as anything but scary, because I could have been forced to live without her for the rest of my life if she’d gone too far? Nothing, not one damn thing, terrified me more than the thought of a life without her in it. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around it. Trying to block out all the pictures of what could have happened if you’d killed yourself while doing this.”
“I’d never…” She shook her head, her tears falling faster. “I’ve never wanted to kill myself, Harris. Never. The cutting has only ever been a way to help me cope.” She tried to lower her eyes again, but I refused to let her. “I know it’s wrong. I hate myself for doing it.”
“You need help, sweetness.”
“I know,” she whispered brokenly. “I know.”
I pulled her against me then, wrapping her so tightly against me that I knew she probably had trouble breathing, but I was unable to stop myself. My hands shook as I held on for dear life, terrified I would lose her if I didn’t. “Will you let me help you?”
I didn’t know how I would do it, but I had to try. I had to get her some help because I couldn’t live without her, and I knew even if she didn’t have a death wish, cutting was dangerous. She could mistakenly hit something vital and I’d lose her.
Her eyes widened in surprise. “You…You want to help me? I thought... I thought you wouldn’t want to be with me if you ever found out.”
“Never. You’re my everything, and I’m not ever letting you go. Nothing will ever stop me from being with you. Nothing.” Her tears started flowing faster. I caught one with my thumb and wiped it away. “I love you, Lucy. One day, I’m going to put a ring on your finger and make you my wife. I’ve always known that you were mine and that I was yours. Now, please, let me help you.”
“But what if I can’t be helped?” Genuine fear filled her dark eyes. “What if I’m…unfixable?”
“Then I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you don’t ever feel the need to hurt yourself again, Lu.” I pushed her hair back from her face and gave her a reassuring smile. “We’ll do this together, sweetness. You don’t have to face it alone. You’ll never have to face anything alone again.”
“H-Harris.” She sobbed and buried her face in my shirt, her hands balling the material into her fists as she held on to me for dear life. I held her like that for a long time, just letting her cry it all out, while I was trying to figure out the first steps we needed to take to get her on the road to the recovery she so desperately needed.
When the tears stopped, I still held her. I had the beginnings of a plan I hoped would set us in the right direction, but I knew it was going to be hard for her. As I stroked her curls and kept her safe in my arms, I started telling her about what I thought we should do.
Lucy didn’t say a word while I told her we needed to call her parents. She didn’t move when I told her I’d call Emmie and we could all sit down and make the right decisions that would be best for her. It was only after I’d finished speaking that she lifted her head and looked at me.
“Will you be there with me?” she asked with a trembling chin.
“I’ll be right here beside you the entire time, Lucy.” There was no way in hell I was leaving her now.
First Bass could burn to the ground for all I cared.
I was exactly where I needed to be.
Nothing else mattered.
Chapter 21
Lucy
He knew. Oh, gods, he knew.
He knew and he was still there.
Harris knew my deepest, darkest, most shameful secret and he was still right there beside me. Telling me that he loved me.
