“Where is he?” I asked, needing to know.
“Gone. For now, anyway.”
“How could you do this to me?” I whispered, my eyes filling with fresh tears.
He shook his head, averting his eyes to the floor. Not able to look at me anymore.
“Did you think I had a choice, Daisy? We’re more alike than you realize,” he paused to let his words sink in. “This life. It’s yours whether you want it to be or not. It’s the shitty cards you were dealt. All you can do is embrace it, because if you don’t, it will bury you alive. I could have warned you. I could have told you to leave. I could have done a lot of things… but in the end, it doesn’t matter. You’re already nailed to the cross.”
I vigorously shook my head.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
“Fuck you,” I scoffed, snapping his attention back to me again. “Do you hear me? Fuck. You!” I screamed not caring who heard me. Tears streamed down my cheeks and fell to the floor between us, along with my jaded heart and fucked up soul.
I turned around and went back into my room, needing to sit down. I sat on the edge of my bed defeated, hating that he was right, hating that I had no choice, hating that this was my life now.
I hated my uncle, but I hated myself even more.
I bawled. I sobbed so hard that my body convulsed and I couldn’t breathe. The walls were crashing down all around me. Hyperventilating and sucking in air that wasn’t available for the taking, drowning in my own despair. Asking God why, why I deserved this? Beginning to think he didn’t even exist.
I felt fingers caress the side of my face, wiping away my tears that kept falling, one right after the other. I peeked up through wet lashes and blurry eyes, Esteban was on his knees in front of me.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” he rasped, his own voice breaking.
That’s when I really lost it.
That’s when it really hit me.
It was all a lie.
No God.
No family.
No love.
I was all alone. Abandoned. By myself.
I trembled, my body giving out on me. Any ounce of strength I had left vanished. He pulled me into his strong, solid arms. A place I was so familiar with. The only comfort I’ve ever known since the day I died. I sobbed uncontrollably, my vision blurred and my throat locked up, becoming so raw, so dry, so torn into pieces that I would never be able to be put back together. He held me tighter, trying like hell to save me from myself.
“Please… please…” I begged, shuddering against his chest.
I wanted something, anything, to keep me from feeling the emotions that were dragging me down, deeper and deeper into the pits of Hell.
Standing right by my uncle.
Where a part of me knew I belonged.
“What can I do?” he commiserated, pulling back, placing his warm hands on either side of my face, to look deep into my eyes. “Tell me, what I can fucking do and I will do it, Briggs. For you.”
It was the first time he ever called me that and I would be lying if I said I didn’t yearn to hear him say Daisy.
I blinked away my tears, swallowing back the sobs to gaze at the only man who has ever given a damn about me. The only man who had ever been my friend, my protector, my confidant, my everything.
He was all I’d ever known.
“I want to be the hero of my own story, Esteban. I crave to feel what they feel even for just a night, and you're the closest person who resembles affection in my life,” I half-whispered.
I leaned in on pure impulse and looked into his vacant eyes, searching for something. I felt him lightly gasp before I brushed my lips against his, kissing him. My inexperienced lips moved against his for a few seconds before he finally started to kiss me back. It was the first time I had ever kissed anyone. It felt different than I had imagined it would, a sensation like nothing I could ever describe and for a few fleeting moments it took away the pain in my heart.
He shook his head, pulling away from me, pushing me back and I whimpered at the loss of his lips.
“We can’t do this.”
“You want to make this better? Me better? I need you to take away the bad, silence the chaos in my head. Please…”
His conflicted stare never left mine as I reached for his shirt. He didn’t say a word or move a muscle when I started unbuttoning it one by one until it was fully open. I took in his hard naked chest for the first time, the contours of his abs, his tan skin that was so much darker than my white complexion.
I reached for the bottom of my tank top and his hand instantly stopped me.
“Daisy,” he warned in a voice I didn’t recognize.
“I know… this doesn’t change anything. I’m not looking for you to whisper sweet nothings in my ear, Esteban. I don’t need you to make love to me. I know where we stand. I just need this from you right now.”
It’s never this hard for the heroines in my books. They make it seem so easy.