Page 38 of Tormented
Abbey turns for the door, and I lunge across the room to beat her to it. Her hand lands on the doorknob, but I reach over her head and place my weight against the door. It closes with a thud.
“I want to leave.”
“Why,” I whisper beside her ear. “Because things are gettin’ too hard?”
“No. Because they’re hard enough without adding to it by talking about topics that aren’t necessary.”
She guards that heart well . . . .
You don’t say.
“Why do you think talking about what’s botherin’ you isn’t necessary?” I ask, pushing off the door.
She turns slowly, refusing to look me in the eye as she stares down at my boots. “Because tell me what it helps by bringing it up all over again.” She lifts her chin and the honesty in her eyes cuts me. “Why put yourself through pain when it won’t change the past, and it won’t help the future?”
“Because burying your secrets is denyin’ who you are.”
“Maybe I want to deny who I am,” she says. “Maybe I don’t want to be reminded of what I was made to be.”
“And what’s that?” I inch closer, relishing the way her body searches out mine.
“A failure as a human. A joke.”
Girl really has issues . . . .
Don’t we all though? Aren’t we all a little broken inside? Perhaps some of us have hairline fractures, compared to the cracks and gaping holes left in others, but deep down we’re all a little damaged.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
“That’s the problem.” She laughs bitterly. “I didn’t hear it, I know it. Nobody’s ever directly said those things to me . . . well, until recently.”
“Who told you that you were a joke?” I ask, burning to lift a hand to stroke the hair from her downturned face. “Give me names.”
She huffs out her nose, fidgeting with her hands. “You wouldn’t care enough to change anything, even if I told you, so why bother starting trouble?” Abbey steps away, running her fingers over an open box. “I’ve done fine dealing with it on my own for this long, Sawyer. I don’t need your help now.”
“Seems to me like you do.” Why else would she still be so fucked-up after ten-plus years living with a club that’s raised her and cared for her?
“I don’t need to be protected, and I don’t need to be babied. I wish everyone would stop treating me like I’m about to break.”
“They treat you like that,” I argue, “because you do break. Maybe you don’t want to admit it, Abbey, but you are fragile. You’ve been kicked around so much that there’s barely anythin’ left holding you together. But you know what? That’s okay. Because it just shows how you were built to last.”
Her lips twitch up in the corners, the barest hint of a smile.
I think you did it, old chum . . . I think you cracked her . . . .
The tears fall. Slow, fat, droplets at first, carving their way over her golden skin, soon thinning out to a steady stream as she tries to hide her true feelings.
“Let it out,” I say, stepping toward her turned back. “I hate dealin’ with women when they cry, but you know what I’ve learnt watchin’ you lot do it over the years?”
“What?” she asks.
“That you women need to do it. I don’t know what it is, but it’s like you females need to break right down and hit bottom before you can get your shit together and come back at it stronger than before.” She turns to face me, smiling as she wipes her cheeks with the back of her hands. “Maybe that’s what your problem is, Abbey—you’ve never allowed yourself to fall apart before.”
“I’ve cried plenty,” she argues.
“Not in the right way, though. Am I right?”
Her dark eyes search mine, a frown pulling at her brow. A hiccup escapes, and she stifles a sob with the back of her hand.