“He put his hands on you? Son of a bitch! If he wasn’t already dead, I would fucking kill him. Gut that sorry bastard.” He paces in front of the couch, growling each word out with disgust. “Fuck!” He keeps his pacing up for a few minutes before he stops in his tracks and looks over at me. Shaking his head, a look of stark terror comes over his features. I watch in slow motion as he figures it out before I can tell him. Somehow, he just knows, and when I watch all that anger turn into a pain so great that he drops to his knees in front of me, my world ends. “No, no, no . . .”
I can’t move from my spot on the couch. My chest is heaving with the force of my emotions. My tears burn as they fall down my face and land in my lap. I can’t even move to wipe my eyes. He quickly moves over to where I’m sitting, his head hits my lap, and his arms wrap around my waist. When his shoulders start to shake with the emotions warring through him, my tears come quicker, and a loud sob breaks free from my throat.
That sob seems to break him from his silent misery because his he pulls his head up, unwraps his arms, and pulls me down into his lap. His strong arms wrap around me again, and he pushes his face into my shoulder. I cling to him, soaking up his heat, trying to warm my body and chase away the pain.
He doesn’t break his hold on me when he pulls us back up to the couch, still making sure that I’m in his lap and safe in his arms.
“I’m sorry.” I offer weakly.
He looks shocked, but desperation bleeds off his face. “What? My God, Dee, what do you have to be sorry for?”
I shrug my shoulders and just shake my head.
“You’ve thought this was your fault this whole time? Oh, Baby.” He pulls me back to his chest and rocks us slightly. “What that bastard did to you isn’t your fault, Dee. Never your fault. He was a sick, disturbed man. It kills me to think about you going through that, and going through it alone. I wish you could have opened up and told me that before, but I understand why you didn’t. That’s why you kept running?”
“Yeah. I don’t think I can ever prove to you how sorry I am for everything that I’ve put us through. I just saw you and all your perfection, and it reminded me of how he was when I had first introduced him to Izzy. I think I always knew deep down that you would never turn on me, but that fear was so ingrained, that no matter what I did, I couldn’t separate you two. And then when all of that stuff happened, it was like a light switch went off. I knew he was gone, but my mind couldn’t turn the fear off. He was everywhere I looked, and every time I looked in the mirror, I could see what he did to me. I punished you because of what he did, and I did it over and over.” I pause to wipe my eyes and blow my nose. He keeps silent and lets me finish.
“It’s taken me all this time to push back those feelings, to clear all of the dark webs of my depression. I can’t thank you enough for forcing me to start seeing someone, because without that I don’t think I ever would have healed. For a while, it was a lot of trial and error, trying to figure out what worked best with my trauma. Dr. Maxwell tells me that there will still be setbacks. Some people don’t ever really beat PTSD, but they do learn how to live with it, and that’s what I’ve been doing. Living with it. I can’t sit here and tell you that I’ll ever be completely carefree and healed, but these last few weeks with you by my side have given me all the hope I’ve ever needed that I will get past this.”
When he still doesn’t speak, but just keeps holding me tightly and staring off into the distance, I start to worry that he hasn’t heard me. So I say the only thing I can think of to make him understand where I am now. How I’m finally ready for him and all the love he’s ever been offering.
“Your love saved me,” I whisper.
CHAPTER 18
Beck
Your love saved me.
Her words keep echoing around me, coiling around the pain that has filled my heart since she started talking.
Your love saved me.
I can feel her body shaking, and I tighten my hold so she knows that I’m still here, but I can’t speak past the lump that’s taken up residence in my throat. I always knew that she had a rough history, but never in my wildest imagination could I have pictured all of this pain she’s gone through.
It makes so much sense now. All the times she pushed me away with fear in her eyes. Every single time she would look at one of the guys and have this odd look about her as if she was waiting for one of them to go all Hulk or something.
There is so much swirling around inside of me. I want to kill that motherfucker all over again. I want to go find her father and teach him to pick on someone his own size. I want to lock her away in this house and never let anyone get close enough to so much as give her a paper cut.
Your love saved me.
All I’ve wanted since the day I felt her slipping away is to prove to her how much I love her and for her to know that I’m here for her. It kills me to know how greatly she’s suffered, but with that comes the clarity that she’s finally, fucking finally, on the same page with me.
I squeeze her tighter into my body when I feel her sobbing get harder. It finally hits me that I haven’t said a word since she finished talking. I have to work at swallowing my own sorrow. I wipe the tears from my face and clear my throat a few times until I feel confident that I can talk without breaking down.