It's time. I'm as nervous as a hooker in church, but there was no way I wasn't going to go through with this. "Do you remember everything we told you?" "Yeah, but I still don't know how you know what the inside of her house looks like." "You really wanna have this conversation now?""No, I guess not." I wasn't in the mood for a tongue-lashing from Zak, and we both knew I was just talking to hear myself speak because it's a given that I don't know how they know half the shit they do. They still haven't come right out and said it, but my money is on military."Just breathe, kid; it's gonna be fine." Yeah, that's what they've both been telling me for the last hour or so. I don't know why I feel so sick to my stomach. This is what I've been striving for since my return, but now that the time was near, I wasn't sure I could go through with it.I knew it was fear of her reaction that held me in its grip, but still, I couldn't figure out how to shake it off. There was so much at stake here an
"Elena, please, just let me come in so we can talk.""No, it's too late for that." I felt such rage inside that I was almost afraid of what I might do. The tears that I'd been fighting so hard to contain were winning, and I hated that for myself; I hated showing any kind of weakness in front of him.How dare he show up here like this? Acting so blasé, as if he wasn't the monster who had hurt me in the worst possible way. How dare he think that all the pain and hurt of the last five years could just be swept away and forgotten by his mere presence?In the past, it was always like that. I was always quick to forgive him and move on from whatever idiotic thing he'd done. Because I believed that that's what love was. Long-suffering, forgiving, merciful. All the things an innocent young girl should believe. But look where that got me.He made me a laughingstock, something to be ridiculed and laughed at, someone to be pitied. "Damn you, I told you to go away. It's too late for explanations a
How the hell was I going to explain everything to her? Where the hell do I start? I felt gutted and raw. There was so much pain inside that I could hardly breathe. How the hell could I tell her everything that I'd learned in the last couple of months? And how will I bear this pain? The pain of what my words might do to her.Does it really matter? My pain was nothing compared to the hell I just heard in her voice, and though I'm not conceited enough to hold myself responsible for all of her pain, I knew at least ninety-five percent of it was because of me. Now I'm here for the first time in five years to add even more pain to her load.I hated myself more at that moment as I stood there staring at the back of her head because she refused to turn around and face me. I could force her; I know I could. I've done it before, forced her to see things my way or to do any number of things that, when I look back, I feel like the worst kind of human being for doing to her.If I were her, I wouldn
"Don't panic; I have everything under control. No one is going to hurt you." I couldn't help laughing at the worried look on his face. Then he looked really concerned when that laughter turned into howls of pure cackling. I'm sure he thought I was losing my shit, but nothing could be further from the truth. My mind was as clear as a bell in the Italian countryside."Elena, what…?""Do you know what killing people with kindness does to them, Ryder? It eats them up inside, especially when they've done you wrong. Though they may have no conscience, some part of them, some minuscule thread of humanity, destroys them little by little.""I've always taken the high road. I've always shown kindness. Even when I was being torn apart inside and out, I put a smile on my face, and I never hit back, but this there's no way. I want them to pay. You think I'm afraid of some washed up never has been actor and his crackhead of a daughter?" I laughed even louder.His eyes widened when I cracked my neck
"You fucked the whole plastic Barbie family?" I couldn't hide the disgust in my voice. Mary had set him up on a threesome with three of her five daughters. "Why did she leave the other two out? Were they out of town?" I jeered at him totally repulsed. He hung his head down in shame and nodded, and I kept reading, doing my best not to start throwing things or outright losing my shit. This was bad, it was even worse than I thought, and I already knew it was a shit show."So, you're saying you started cheating on me even before they started drugging you, right? Because these years don't add up.""Yes, and no. I wasn't sure exactly when the drugs started; I only realized once I got clean that it had been going on for much longer than I even knew. It started about the time they started lying to me. They filled my head with nonsense, tried to turn my mind against you, and I fell for it because I didn't know my mind was being altered.""Drop it, Ryder; you should've known me better than that
"No one has ever really loved me except for you. I know that now; I think I've always known it, but I wasn't in the right head space back then to understand it fully or to appreciate you and all that you've done. You and I both know that I was a major screwup in more ways than one. I know you tried to help me. I know you did your best, and that's why I know that I need to be here with you because when I looked back on my life once things started to become clear again, whenever I thought of the past, you were all I saw." "You were all I needed, but I wasn't in the right place even then because I still found myself trapped in a marriage that I didn't want and never wanted. I know as long as I live, I will never be able to make it up to you for the pain that I caused, but please give me a chance to at least try. I have to try; I think I'd die if I don't make this right. I can't not have you, Elena, not and stay sane." "Why? Why would I do that? So that you could hurt me again? So that y
If he's telling the truth about this, does that mean that he's being honest about everything else? I wasn't anywhere close to forgiving him, but I can't deny the fact that I was happy, elated even, that we were in the same room together after so many years apart, even though we were yelling at each other.I hadn't really let it set in entirely that he was really here, and it was now sinking in that we were this close to each other again after thinking for so long that this would never happen in this lifetime. I lost count of how many times in the beginning I imagined just this happening. How many times have I wished to wake up from the nightmare and realize that it was all just a dream until time passed by, and I gave up hope and stopped wishing?I won't deny to myself that I liked having him here, that being this close to him was the most alive I've felt in too long to remember. I won't lie to myself about the way it makes me feel, but no way in hell will I let him see or know it.I'v
I was as nervous as I was the first time I touched her. Back then, my nervousness stemmed from the newness and, yes, the fact that I was so in awe of her that it was like a fairytale come true just to breathe her in. This time my hands shook with emotion because I never thought I'd be here again.I know I have a long way to go and that there's so much more that needs to be done on my part, but the truth of the matter is I've never been able to keep my hands to myself when it comes to Elena, and it used to be the same for her. This was always the one place we were compatible, and I'd missed this closeness more than my next breath.With each bit of her flesh, I revealed I held my breath, waiting for her to stop me and hoping with everything in me that she didn't. Earlier, she'd said that it was just sex, but for me, it was so much more. I needed desperately to reforge the bond between us, the bond that I'd thought was so irrevocably broken.And when she trembled beneath my hands, I sent