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Over the years, I’d become so skilled at hiding, most of the time I forgot why part of me was always sad and twisted. I couldn’t recall why I would sometimes wake with pain in my heart or my head full of storms and screams.
I’d become a master at repression, and it fucking killed me to watch Neri learn the same skill.
For most of December, I let her work through her trauma her way. I didn’t believe I had any magic to fix her and did the only thing I could by being there for her when she wanted me.
I let her use me.
I let her confuse me.
I let her frustrate me.
But when her nightmares started tainting her days...that was when I started getting angry.
The first time she flinched, her mother had wrapped her arms around her from behind on the deck after we’d eaten.
I’d frozen solid.
That was huge.
That was terrifying.
That was a direct admission that Nerida Taylor—Nerida Avci—was hiding something right beneath her parents’ noses.
Well, two things, actually...but I could wait.
I planned on telling them right.
I’d even bought a ring.
A ring that cost more than I’d ever spent before.
A ring that I’d snuck into town and trawled every jewellery shop searching for.
I’d almost given up, but just like the necklace with a girl swimming with a sea lion had proven to be designed especially for Neri, a ring had jumped out that was made exactly for my perfect siren.
I couldn’t wait to give it to her.
I had it tightly trapped in a velvet box, buried in my sock drawer.
I wanted to get on bended knee in front of Anna and Jack, and propose to her all over again, showing with actions, not words, just how much I adored their daughter. And when Jack and Anna accepted my vow, then and only then, would I tell them we were already married in the only way we could.
I could never make Neri my wife here. She would never wear my last name in this country, but I hoped they’d see that no other man would love her the way I did. No other man would happily kill for her, kneel for her, go out of his fucking mind for her.
But the idea of proposing popped into a nasty bubble as Anna stiffened the moment her daughter flinched. She’d looked at Neri carefully, her loving gaze full of questions. I waited for Neri to break and tell her mother everything. But she made up a lie about seeing a spider and expected us all to believe she was suddenly afraid of Australia’s creatures when she’d spent her entire lifetime protecting them.
The second time she spooked, it caught Jack unaware. Their close relationship from when she was little still spilled over into her almost adulthood. Just because she was closer to eighteen instead of eight, it didn’t stop him from snatching her around the middle and dumping her in the pool whenever he felt like it.
Before Ethan, she’d squeal and fight back. Happily entering into a splashing war and clambering all over her father’s slippery shoulders.
After Ethan, she forced a laugh and swam away. Her splashes were half-hearted and she blamed the stress of exams on her lack of willingness to play.
Jack had caught my eyes as he clambered sadly out of the pool. The pain etching his familiar face had almost had me blurting out what’d happened. If I couldn’t help Neri, perhaps he could. I wanted to tell him that his little girl had been abused, and I’d done all I could to make it right. I’d fucking shot the bastard. I’d hit him until he’d cried. I’d cut off his fingers and thrown him overboard.
But I couldn’t tell.
It wasn’t my secret to spill.
So I kept watching as Neri slowly became afraid of loud noises and innocent touches. I kept silent as she learned to school her reaction so she didn’t twitch as badly, smothering her pain ever deeper. Any deeper and it would slice through the very same heart I was trying to protect. It would make her bleed far worse than she already did. And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could wait. How much more I could take before I dragged her to a fucking therapist and forced her to talk to someone.
Before it was too late.
I bit my tongue for as long as I could. I used that tongue to kiss her, terrified that she kept demanding me to be rougher, crueller, wilder, all because she was seeking an outlet, an escapism. The days I let her goad me into being ruthlessly hard, I’d choke on shame for leaving bruises on her gorgeous skin, always where her parents wouldn’t see.
She’d drive me to breaking point, not leaving me alone until I sucked her nipples so deeply her breasts bloomed red beneath my mouth. Teeth marks would mar her delicate flesh, and I’d die a little inside for causing them.
