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He was my first and only boyfriend, my high school sweetheart. Everything was fine, perfect even. He said all the right things, and was always there for me, especially when both of my parents died the summer I graduated.”
She took a deep breath as painful memories washed through her.
“Paul helped me get through it, helped me get my life sorted out so I could live again. My parents were all I had, and so after they died Paul became my only family.”
“Jesus, Jessa. I’m so sorry.” She smiled at Thayer but refused to cry. Deacon held a stoic expression, but she could feel his comfort and understanding in his unspoken words.
Here we go.
“The abuse started a year after that. First it started as insults and little jabs at my weight. It then escalated to the pushing and hitting.” The room grew uncomfortably silent, but she pushed forward. “I was a fool for staying with him, but I didn’t have anyone else and feared being alone. He apologized every time, telling me it would never happen again, but of course it did. I know not all men were like that, but I’m a ruined girl, and who wants something that’s broken?”
She couldn’t look at them as she delved into the darkest part of her soul and put it out in the open. Once again she asked herself why she was telling them any of this.
All she wanted to do was put the past behind her, yet she spilled her life just because they had asked, no, told her to tell them. Fortunately, they didn’t say anything, just let her get it out.
In all honesty telling someone what had happened had a sense of relief washing through her.
“I told myself I wouldn’t stay another day, but then he would apologize, bring me flowers and chocolates, and grovel like his life depended on it. I was so dependent on him that I believed every fucking lie he spewed.”
The tears she had tried desperately to hold in were threatening to break through.
“He brought home random women like I meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. I told him I planned on leaving, more than once, but he wouldn’t let me go.
He knew I had no one, and he liked knowing I was dependent on him. For five years I let him do this to me. I let myself be his doormat. I decided to finally leave, but that night he had come home drunk and thought it would be a good time to use me as his personal punching bag.”
Deacon moved beside her and she curled into his body. She turned her head and looked at Thayer. She hated seeing the sympathy on his face.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” Deacon’s deeply whispered words sounded gruff with emotion against her hair.
“It’s not okay.” Tears fell down her cheeks, and she squeezed her eyes shut tightly. “It’s not okay because I don’t know if I killed him before I ran.”
Chapter
Twelve
The very air stilled at Jessa’s words. Deacon held her tightly, not about to let her go. He could smell and feel the turmoil inside of her.
When she had admitted what he and Thayer had already suspected, he had seen red. His body had shaken so hard he feared he wouldn’t be able to stop his leopard from emerging.
He wanted to taste blood on his tongue, wanted to feel this asshole’s bones crunch beneath his jaw. Whoever this Paul was he was about to know what pain really felt like.
The fact that he might already be dead helped to calm his beast, but feeling Jessa shake against his chest had him wanting to take her pain away.
“I didn’t think I would make it out. He had hit me so many times I thought I would die that night. He always hit me where my clothes would keep the bruises covered.” Deacon growled low and heard Thayer do the same.
His brother was on the verge of shifting as well. Someone had hurt her, their mate, and if that fucker wasn’t dead he would wish he was by the time they got done with him.
“He was so angry when I told him I had enough, that I didn’t want him anymore. After he finished using me as his punching bag, he left me on the floor while he went to get another beer.”
She started to laugh, but he could hear the desperation in the sound.
“I grabbed the first thing that I saw, which happened to be the fireplace poker. He heard me coming and charged after me, but I swung hard and felt the iron hit his body. He dropped lifelessly to the ground. Blood pooled around him so quickly that I got scared and ran.” She pulled away and looked between him and Thayer. “And you know the rest.”
The silence in the room grew thick, and so were the tension and rage. He could feel his brother’s anger as strongly as he could feel his own.
It felt like standing on the tallest mountain, the wind whipping at your body and threatening to take you over the edge. It took every ounce of strength Deacon possessed to not go hunt down that bastard and make sure he was dead.
Pulling Jessa away from his chest was hard as hell, but he needed her to know that things were different now, that they didn’t care about her past in the way she feared.
