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My temper blackened. “I’m so sorry to be such an inconvenience to you.”
She reared back, hurt flaring in her pretty blue eyes. “Why are you being like this?”
I opened my mouth. I tried to explain the anxiety I was feeling. The awful pressure that we were out of balance, and if we didn’t fix it soon, something bad was going to happen. “It’s nothing,” I snapped, unable to be mad at her after everything she’d endured. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I worry, Aslan. I worry all the time.”
“Like I would know.”
“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you broke your promise.”
“What promise?”
“What promise?” I laughed blackly. “You know what promise.”
“All I know is...I came in here wanting to share the awesomeness of having a new friend. Honey seems special. She even feels the same nudges as I do.”
“Certainly seems like it.” I raked a hand through my hair, struggling to cool my anger, but failing. Dropping my arm, my chin tipped up and I clipped, “I wonder why she sensed you needed a friend, huh? Could it be because you’re hiding stuff? Could it be that you’re bottling up how you’re truly feeling and it’s starting to spill out into whatever emotional plane we all exist on? Because I have the same nudges, Neri. Nudges that tell me you aren’t being honest with me. You’re not talking to me. You’re letting what happened overshadow everything you do, and you promised me, fucking promised me, that you would talk to me. That you would let me try to help you, but instead, you think you can lie to my face all while I see how you aren’t sleeping, barely eating, and constantly looking over your shoulder. You’re worse now than the day it fucking happened, and I can’t take much more. I can’t last much longer if you don’t let me help—”
“You do help me.” Her eyes glistened with sudden tears. “You help me so much.”
“By fucking you.”
“By keeping me grounded! Whenever I’m in your arms, I can’t think about anything else.”
“So you’re using me to hide.” I stood in a rush and slapped my palm against the door. It swung shut with a slam. I winced, hoping Jack and Anna didn’t hear.
I’d wanted to keep it open so Jack and Anna wouldn’t start getting suspicious on the number of visits Neri paid me. Not that they showed any signs of suspecting.
Then again, it wasn’t unusual for Neri and I to be close. We’d spent almost six years in each other’s pockets. It wasn’t our togetherness or platonic touches that would alert them to our secrets...it would be this.
Us shouting at each other.
A fight that was so unusual it would raise questions.
“If you don’t want to talk to me, then you need to find someone else to talk to, Nerida. That is non-negotiable.” I marched into her and grabbed her cheeks. My fingertips burned from touching her. My heart kicked. My blood heated.
She licked her lips, unable to look away from me. “I just need to reclaim my body, that’s all. And you’re helping me do that. Every time you fill me, you’re reminding me that it’s my choice. My decision. I feel so safe when I’m with you. Is it so wrong to admit that I need you to keep fucking me...so I don’t become afraid of it?”
“Afraid of sex? Or afraid of me? Is that what you think will happen?” I strangled. “That if we stop tearing each other’s clothes off that you’ll suddenly not want it anymore?”
Tears welled on her bottom lashes. “What if...what if I lose that sense of safety in your arms? What if...what if all I can remember about sex is what he did and not what we have?” She didn’t give me a chance to reply, whispering, “I-I don’t know why I can’t stop thinking about it, Aslan. I fully believed I’d be able to snap my fingers and say it’s in the past. It was just sex. He didn’t even hurt me...not really.”
“Didn’t hurt you?” My fingers dug into her cheekbones. “Fuck, Neri, is that what you’re telling yourself? You think he didn’t hurt you?” Dropping my right hand, I cupped her breast, immediately finding her thundering heart beneath. “He hurt you right here, askim. He hurt you where no one can see. It’s a wound that has to be tended, just like the burns on your ankles and the bruises on your wrists. But unlike those bruises, you can’t hide these with make-up and concealer until they’re gone.”
She nodded weakly. “I know. I know you’re right. I’ve read online that it’s normal for the trauma to get worse the longer I don’t confront it. But...I don’t want to confront it. I don’t want him to take anymore from me than he already did.”
“But don’t you see, Neri? He’s taking bits of you every day that you pretend it didn’t happen.”
