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Thank God she’s finally here.
“Drew,” she says, her hand snuggling on my bare chest, the lines of her tendons standing out as she moves. “They broke me. Ripped me apart – literally.” Her thighs shift and my shoulders tighten.
“I know.”
“When I woke up, it was like I’d been turned inside out. I was nothing but pain. The physical pain subsided, eventually. But in some ways that was worse. Not having my body hurt.”
Oh, man. I know where she’s going with this.
Because I’ve been there.
Only she doesn’t know that.
“Because then all that was left was the pain in my mind. And that was a different kind of agony. Worse.”
I squeeze her gently. I have to. If I don’t hold on, I’ll fall off the edge of the world.
She’s giving words to my pain. My madness. Four years ago, she wasn’t the only one those assholes destroyed, but she doesn’t know that.
And I can’t tell her.
My skin erupts into a furious tingle, as if my blood’s trying to escape but hits the wall of skin and can’t. That same mind that contains all the insanity of being brutalized is the one that manages to love her, too. I’m ten thousand Drews inside a single body right now.
And only one of me can listen to her.
“Nothing I thought about stopped the intrusions,” she whispers. Her breathing is even, and she’s resting against me, skin to skin. Trust. She’s trusting me. Lindsay is opening herself to me. She just gave me her body. Invited me to share it. Welcomed me into her so we could find pieces of ourselves we lost four years ago.
Now she’s inviting me into her heart. Into her mind.
Into that inner space where we protect our core.
I don’t take this lightly.
I am honored.
“Nothing.”
I make a sound of comfort. I don’t know what to say.
“They medicated me into oblivion.” She snorts. “I didn’t care. It was easier to take the little cup of pills twice a day than to argue. Easier to crawl into bed and sleep. Even though I had bad dreams.” She shivers. I absorb all her pain. I take in her memories.
It hurts.
It heals.
I don’t have a choice.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, rubbing her shoulder, staring at the moon. If I look at her, I might lose the pieces of myself I just found.
“And so,” she continues, breathless now. It’s as if she’s relieved to finally talk. I close my eyes and take in the way air passes through her throat. When she speaks, the vibration of her voice touches every cell in me.
“And so I just lived like I was hollow. Insert medication. Hope it dulled the memories. Wait.” She sits up, eyes finding mine. They’re impossibly wide, big and pleading, needing more of me. “Do you know what that’s like?”
Yes.
“No,” I lie. “I can’t imagine.”
“The hardest part was thinking you had let them hurt me. Or worse – that you were in on it.”
