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Nothing I can do about it from this far away except to give her a few moments to let my words sink in.
They do, quicker than I expected.
Her lip quivers as her eyes shift from angry to wary. “You love me?” she asks, like there is still some doubt.
“No question about it, Sin. Tonight, my Gramps gave me an ultimatum. Either marry the woman he’s chosen for me or lose everything. I chose the latter.” I laugh and correct myself. “Well, I won’t lose everything. I’ll have you. At least I hope so.”
At her shaky smile a sign of her unshakable trust, I hate myself for doing thingsbass ackwards. I should have told Sin about my predicament before I left, holding her in my arms as I answered every question she had and even gave her answers to those she didn’t ask, instead of convincing myself that Gramps would listen to reason.
I don’t hate Gramps for making me choose between my old life and Sin. I fucking respect him for it. He and I are alike in that we won’t give up on what is important to us.
“Will you forgive me for keeping my secret from you?”
She mirrors me, leaning forward so that her hair hangs on the sides of her gorgeous face. “As long as you start from the beginning and tell me the entire story. I want to know everything, Royce, even… even about you being abused.”
I feel my brain shut down as I’m transported back to my time in the hospital when I was thirteen. My chest grows tight and my balls drop to my knees. I feel so damn small. Ashamed. Fucking embarrassed.
“I-I-I…”
“Ssshh.” She says, two fingers on the screen in a position that I assume covers my lips. “Take your time, please. I’m here for you, in every way.”
We sit in silence for a few beats. I let the miracle of her support– something I never knew I needed, and so damn glad I have–give me strength.
After taking a few more moments to decide on where to begin, I start from my earliest memory of my father’s abuse.
“I had to have been about six. We were at the table and, according to him, I’d squirted too much ketchup on the fries we’d gotten from some take out place. He cuffed me on the head, told me I was worthless, and that I should have been the one that died instead of my mother.”
Shock, like she’s seen a terrible road accident, rides along with the sympathy in her expression.
If she only knew half of it.
I don’t dare tell her that besides my father hitting me, he’d upturned my plate onto the floor and made me eat the rest of my dinner where it lay, scattered in the dust and dirt.
“From there, the... ah, abuse got worse, until I fought back.”
She nods, ignoring the tears that run down her cheeks. “He was the one that put you in the hospital.”
I don’t even question her rhetorical statement. One day I’ll learn how she found out, but not now. I’m so drained after my adrenaline rush, it’s all I can do to stop my body from shaking like a leaf. Only through sheer will and determination can I remain in control. The control I learned in order to not let my father know how badly he’d hurt me.
“Yeah.” I hold her gaze that is full of hurt for me. “It was him.”
I gloss over the details of my injuries, and instead fill her in on how Gramps took over by moving me into his home and hiring people to nurse my body back to health through daily workouts and my mind by providing years of speech therapy to overcome my stutter.
I continue, telling her of the psychiatrists who made me see that the abuse I suffered wasn’t my fault, and the anger management coaches who helped me control the rages I’d feel when things didn’t go my way.
“Those coaches helped me deal with my anger issues everywhere except…”
“The bedroom,” she says simply.
I hang my head in shame.
“Royce, look at me.”
I lift my head to find her brown eyes boring into mine from hundreds of miles away. “You don’t ever have to hide yourself from me. I get you, and I never want to change you. I know you won’t ever take things too far in the bedroom, you aren’t like that, and if you were, I wouldn’t be with you.”
“I hurt you, Sin. In the shower that time...” I trail off as the memory closes my throat. How she’d slumped to the floor, the paleness of her skin. That was my darkest moment, mainly because I hurt the person I loved the most.
“Well...” Sin gives me that secret smile and then continues. “I wouldn’t want a repeat, but if I had told you my shoulder was hurting, you would have stopped. I didn’t because...Iwantedto feel the pain.”
