Page 42 of Tormented

“He took it well then?”

“As well as I’d expect.”

We look at one another and laugh.

Fingers leans on the table with a sigh. “I’m not sure of his intentions, girl, but maybe a listenin’ ear ain’t such a bad thing.”

“I don’t want to talk about it again, though. Talking doesn’t change a thing.”

“It cleanses this,” he says, pointing to my head. “And this.” His finger redirects to over my heart.

“Even if I do tell him more, where do I start? When all of it is as disgusting as the rest, where do I begin?”

“With whatever comes easiest.” He pats my knee and then crosses back to where he’d been working as he says, “I wouldn’t force it though, Abbey. I know you’ll talk when you’re ready, and that’s what he needs to understand as well. If he’s goin’ to be the one to hear you out, then that’s fine, but the man has to respect what he’s bein’ given.”

***

“I want to know one thing,” I ask later that afternoon as I approach where Sawyer sits on the back deck with Bronx, one of the Butcher Boys.

“Give us a minute, would you?” he asks his company.

Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome stands and nods to me as he passes by. I watch Bronx walk over to the new pool table indoors, and then duck around Sawyer to take the vacant seat.

“Who knows everything about you?” I ask.

“What you gettin’ at, Abbey?”

“Is there somebody who knows every part of who you are, everything that happened when you were a kid, everything that goes on in that head of yours?”

He eyes me quietly, and then turns his attention out over the yard as he takes a drink. “Some people know a few things, others know the rest, but nobody knows all of it.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s too much to take on all at once.” He sighs, running a hand over his thigh. “I know what it does to me day in and day out, so why the fuck would I inflict that on somebody else?”

I nod, my gaze hard as I study his profile. “You just answered your own damn question.”

“What question?” He frowns, settling his icy-blue gaze on mine.

“Why I won’t let it all go and talk about what kills me in here.” I slam a fist to my chest. “Because why drag somebody else into my hell?”

He casually sets his tumbler down on the deck beside his feet, and then leans on one arm so his face is inches from mine. “Baby, I’m already in hell. You can’t drag someone down who’s already livin’ on the bottom.”

I’ve got nothing. He’s made a fair point, but it doesn’t change a thing. I still don’t feel the need to shed my skin and show the depth of what ugliness hides beneath.

“Maybe I wouldn’t drag you any lower,” I say quietly, “but I’d sure weigh you down so you had no chance to find your own way back to the surface. I’ve already told you too much.”

He leans back, a sexy one-sided smirk in place as he runs a thumb over his lips. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“What?”

“I don’t want to float up to the sunshine on the surface. I like it on the bottom, lurking in the dark.”

“Why?” I ask incredulously. “Why the hell would you choose to live in that kind of mental hell?”

“Because I never feel as at home as I do when I’m using my God-given gift.”

“Which is?”