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My fingers brushed against the raised red marks on my neck. The faint throbbing that came with them was welcome. Only it wasn’t enough. I needed more.
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
I stared at the dark figure that had appeared behind me in the mirror, the fury from those three words tearing through my skin, poisoning my blood. His eyes were focused on the red marks on my neck, his face strained with regret and pain.
That look hit me. Took the breath out of me. For a moment, at least.
I yanked my shirt on, pulling at the collar to cover the angry red skin. My penchant for revealing clothes meant my attempt was pretty futile.
“I’m not doin’ that to you again,” Karson grated out. “I can’t continue to hurt you like that.”
My heart was roaring in my chest, screaming at me to go to him, to try to be compassionate, light like I was before. To soothe the pain in his voice.
I stayed rooted to my spot, despite the urge to walk toward him, to behave like my old self. Instead, I laughed dismissively, staring at him in the mirror, making sure to avoid his eyes. “You think this hurts me?” I asked, my tone flat. “We both know that this is nothing.”
Karson stepped forward, as if to touch me, but stopped abruptly as my entire body stiffened, realizing what he was about to do.
He couldn’t touch me now. Not under the bright bathroom lights. Not now that my need had receded like the tide and reality had washed over us.
No, I made the rules here. I was the one in control. He only got to touch me in the darkness, only when night was at its thickest and my need was inescapable. He only got to touch me the way I wanted. The only way I could survive. There was no talking. No sweet nothings. None of the alpha male ‘you are mine, give me your eyes’ bullshit. No. There was just him fucking me, brutally. Just his hands around my neck. Tight. Reminding me that death was just one squeeze away.
“It’s something,” he protested quietly. “It’s something that you’re inviting in. A darkness that doesn’t belong in you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Really? A darkness that doesn’t belong?” I scoffed. “So I have to be the light and the airy Wren you fell in love with now?” My skin was tingling with furor. With the need to explode.
His mouth was a thin line. “No, you can be whoever you want to be, and I’ll love you regardless.” His voice was impossibly kind, and I hated him for it. “But fuck, darlin’. Let me carry some of this. Let me do something other than hurt you.”
There was a plea in his voice that broke me. Literally caused me to ache physically. But I didn’t give in to sorrow or pain. No, anger was much more inviting.
“Don’t you get it?” I screamed. “I have to carry it with me. I have to carry it with me everywhere. That loss. Our loss.”
I was shaking now, I needed to stop. But I couldn’t.
“It is sewn into my fucking bones,” I hissed. “Injected into the marrow of them. Every step I take is a decision. A battle. I feel tired just from breathing. From the effort of fucking living. I have two choices. Every day. Only two. I get up or I don’t. And I have to get up or else I’ll die.” I stopped speaking abruptly, my breath hitching as all of the fury, adrenaline or whatever left my body.
“Some days I want to die,” I whispered, looking to the floor. “Very much.”
I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t. But I had to get it all out. This had to end. “I didn’t even want to be a mother,” I groaned. “I never had that maternal yearning. Never gave it much thought. Even when I found out…” My breath stuck in my throat, so I blew out a breath, hoping to steady it. “When I found out, I was scared. Uncertain. I didn’t have a wave of love or whatever the fuck it is a normal woman feels when she finds out she’s pregnant. I seriously considered abortion.”
The words soured in the air as I said them, having never admitted them out loud, not even to my therapist. The one that Zoe and Yasmin had urged me to see enough times that I finally broke down. In the end, they’d held a mini intervention, and it was either the therapist or some kind of rehab center.
I chose the therapist.
I didn’t say much to her, not really. I went to appease them. Because, on some level, I knew that I couldn’t continue like this forever. But if this conversation was any indication, therapy wasn’t really helping. I wasn’t helping myself.
“I’ve already had one,” I admitted, my mouth suddenly dry. Still, I didn’t look at Karson. I couldn’t. Instead, I jutted my chin upward, staring at the wall just above his head. “I’m not ashamed of it. Not one bit. I was sixteen, I wasn’t ready for a child, and I don’t owe anyone an explanation. It’s my body. My choice, and I don’t regret it one bit.”
My voice was firm and the words true. I didn’t regret it. Not one bit. The decision didn’t haunt me, I barely thought about it. Well, until lately.
I wasn’t looking at Karson directly, but his dark form hadn’t moved a centimeter. He was as still as a statue. I didn’t need to look directly at him to know that. That was Karson. To everyone else, to the outside world, he was marble. Expressionless, unfeeling, unyielding.
But he wasn’t with me.
Or he hadn’t been.
“But ultimately, I chose her,” I whispered. “No, not her. I chose you. I chose us. The little fairy tale life that I’d imagined for us. That I had the luxury to imagine for us because I had faith. Because I have lived a blessed life. One where I was allowed the indulgence of faith. It’s easy to believe everything happens for a reason and the universe works in mysterious ways when you’ve grown up rich, white and without any serious trauma to speak of. So I had faith. Hope.”
I spat out the word, suddenly angry. Suddenly fucking furious. Not at Karson, not at the universe, at myself, mostly. But there was no way for me to direct that anger inward without seriously damaging myself, so I directed it at the one man who was used to taking hits.
