Unbroken (25 page)

Well I sure as shit see now.

I don’t regret volunteering to get things for him. Because if he’d come in, it would have been him in this position. In pain, ready to beg for his life. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, and definitely not on the man I love.

My blood goes cold as I realize what this all means.

This is how Brody must have felt every day. This is where the scars came from, the nightmares, the fear of not being good enough for anyone. If his own father didn’t love him, how could he expect anyone else to? Oh, God.

“P-please. Let me go,” I beg. “I won’t say anything to anyone. I promise I won’t bother you again. Neither of us will. Please.”

He glares down at me, and I let the tears fall. I know I shouldn’t expect sympathy from a man who would put his hands on his own son, but I’m hoping he has some to spare for me.

“You or that boy set foot in here again and I’ll find and kill both of you, do you understand me?” He looks down at me for comprehension and I give it to him with a halfhearted nod.

He releases my hair and I fall back to the floor. Not even a second later, his foot rears back and I catch his kick just beneath my ribs. I groan, closing my eyes in anticipation for the next kick, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he steps over me and spits on the ground a few inches away from me.

“You have sixty seconds to get the fuck out my house.”

I’m hurting so much, but I don’t waste any time. I struggle to my feet, and with gritted teeth, I force myself to grab the bag off the ground and walk out. Walking slowly back to the car, I try not to meet Brody’s gaze. Swallowing back bile and the pain coursing through me, I get in the driver’s seat and throw his bag in the back, starting the car without a single word. He grabs my hand and kisses my knuckles.

I give him a halfhearted smile as I drive away.

I feel his gaze on me, but I don’t want him to say anything. Honestly, things would be perfect if he could stay quiet our entire ride home, because I don’t trust myself to speak steadily if he tries to spark up a conversation.

If the way I talked to his father is any indication, my voice will waver and he’ll find me out immediately. He’ll know something’s up, if he doesn’t know already.

I start the car, no longer excited over the fact that I’m driving my parents’ car. I just want to go home, lie in my bed, and cry to my heart’s discontent. Alone. Excitement is evading me now.

I start the drive back to our home in humble silence, too afraid to speak—of what just happened, of what could happen if I tell Brody now, of what will come out of my mouth if I decide to talk.

The minute we get back to the house, I hop out of the car before Brody has the chance to say anything. Trotting up the stairs, I feel my hand being grabbed from behind me. I turn to look at Brody, and his brows are furrowed in concern.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asks. “You haven’t said a word since we left my dad’s place. Did something happen in there? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

I shake my head, wracking my brain for a reasonable excuse for my unusual behavior. I don’t want to tell him the truth. Not right now—Hell, probably not ever. Now that I know the secret of what has being going on within the four walls of his childhood home, I don’t want to be responsible for him having to endure that again.

And I just need to think about how we’re going to get past all of this.

“No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just…” I trail off, averting my gaze. “I’m cramping really bad. I just want to go upstairs and lay down for a while.”

He nods, comprehending this completely. I wonder how he possibly could, but then I recall that he has a puberty-aged little sister.

“Do you want me to come up with you?”

The hopefulness in his tone completely shatters me. It’s amazing how things have changed since our first kiss. That night, I was the one full of hope, and he did everything in his power to rip that hope away from me. Today, it’s the other way around. And I know for the rest of my life I’m going to regret doing this, but it’s what I have to do.

To protect him.

To protect us.

“No, it’s okay. I just need to sleep it off. I need to be by myself for a while. I
want
to be by myself for a while.”

He visibly blanches, then nods, conceding.

I hate myself, hate what I just did. I’ve never pushed him away before, and the look on his face just seals the reason why. Before he can speak again, I pull my hand out of his grasp and run inside the house. The minute I make it upstairs, I collapse onto my bed.

Curling into a ball on my side, I grab a pillow and clutch it to my front. Burying my face in the pillow at my head, I cry myself to sleep.

STARING DOWN AT HER SLEEPING FIGURE, my heart hurts.

Something transpired today, and I don’t know what it was. I need to know, so I’ll know how to help her.

Where normally she looks peaceful while she rests, there’s a pain that’s settled and made a home in her expression that was never there before today. She clutches the pillow like it’s a life preserver, and half her pillow is wet with her tears. Hell, she didn’t even take her shoes off or anything. It’s like she was so exhausted—whether mentally or physically, I’m not even sure—that she just collapsed and went to sleep exactly how she fell.

In the corner of her bedroom is her desk, and there’s a thick throw blanket sprawled over the back of the chair. I walk over to it and grab it. Walking back toward her bed, I drape the blanket over her, tucking it around her in case she gets cold sometime tonight.

As badly as I want to lie in bed with her and comfort her, and as badly as it hurts
not
to, I’m going to respect her wishes. I’m going to attempt to sleep alone in my own bed for the first time in what feels like forever, and I hope to God she sleeps more peacefully than I’m bound to.

Her request for time alone hit me where it hurt. And it hurts everywhere. I can’t help but think it was something I did—or something I didn’t do. And I just want to fix whatever’s hurting her.

And I honestly doubt that it’s menstrual cramps.

Taking a seat beside her on the empty space on her bed, I extend my hand and tuck a lock of her dark hair behind her ear. She stirs, but she doesn’t wake. With a sad, resigned sigh, I lean forward and press a gentle kiss to her forehead. I close my eyes, letting my kiss linger there for a second, and I inhale a ragged breath.

“
Please
come back to me, Sabrina,” I whisper.

TWENTY

IT’S BEEN THREE DAYS SINCE we went to my dad’s house, and I’ve barely seen her. The only words we’ve spoken are common niceties as we pass each other at home, and even then, she avoids locking gazes with me.

I’m so
tired
of this ridiculous standoff. If I did something wrong, I want to know about it. If something’s wrong with her, I want to know about it. I want her to know she doesn’t have to handle anything alone.

I know I made it seem like I was nonchalant about being with her, about putting a label on whatever we are, but I’m not. I want to be with her. I want her to be my girlfriend. I want to wake up in the morning beside her and go to sleep in her arms at night. I want
everything
with her. And I want her to want everything with me.

I’ve been trying to give her the space she requested. But each moment we go without speaking, without touching, without being in each other’s presence, a piece of me dies inside.

I’m tired of being the guy who lets girls go without a fight. I’m tired of being the guy who lets other people run his life. I’m tired of being broken. I’m tired of being a shell of a man.

She makes me feel alive.

She’s the air I breathe.

I can’t lose her.

Not like this.

She’s working now, but I know her schedule like the back of my hand. She should be on a break right about now, so I storm through the front doors of
Le Chateau D’If.
She’s working the front section tonight. I didn’t know that at first, but I know it now because of the fact she’s the first person I see once I step inside.

I know I shouldn’t just pop up at her place of work, but I can’t help it. I need to talk to her. I need to know what the Hell is going on so I can fix it. So
we
can fix it.

She sees me immediately, but she brushes past me, depositing the tray of dirty dishes she has on her hip into the bin near the kitchen. I don’t even get a single backwards glance. I start after her and I see her shake her head as she continues to walk away from me.

“I’m working, Brody. Can we do this another time?” she asks.

I hate the way she avoids my gaze completely, the way she can’t even give me the courtesy of looking at me when she talks to me.

“No, we can’t because you’re about to go on break. And we need to talk.”

“Not right now, okay?”

This entire situation is really killing me. Why in the world is she avoiding me so much?

In my head, I replay everything that happened the weekend of our first date. I can’t recall doing anything in particular that would piss her off or hurt her. But then again, I often do things to hurt people without even knowing what I’m doing. The mere thought that maybe I’ve done something to hurt her is unbearable.

At the same time, though, I know I must have done
something
wrong. I always do, even without trying to. I try to protect the people I care about, but somehow, they always end up getting caught in the crossfire.

“Sabrina, you have to talk to me eventually. We live together, for crying out loud!” I exclaim.

She slams the tray of dishes down and whirls around to look at me. Finally.

Everything about her has changed within a matter of days. Her eyes are sunken in and red-rimmed, like she’s been crying more than usual. Her skin is pasty pale, her hair has lost some of its luminosity. The ghost of a smile that normally plays in her expression is gone, and replaced with a firm line and stubborn jaw.

I shudder as I realize how much she reminds me of her father right now.

“Fine.
Fine.
What do you want to talk about?”

The snap in her voice strikes me as odd. Even when she was pissed at me, hurt over me kissing her in the kitchen and leaving her there to pick up the pieces of both our hearts, she never talked to me this way.

“What is going on with you? You’ve been acting weird and pushing me away ever since the day we went by my dad’s place. There’s something you’re not telling me, I know it. Because you would never blatantly ignore me like this if there wasn’t a valid reason for it. So talk.
Please
.”

I have never begged for something in my life. And after Michele, I promised myself that I never would. However, for Sabrina, I’m certainly not above it. I would get on my knees if it meant finding out what happened to seemingly change her mind about me, and about us.

“Nothing happened. I just had an epiphany that day.” I raise an eyebrow, waiting for her to enlighten me. “We should stay far away from each other.”

No. No way. She is not going to end this before it even has the chance to start. And she’s for damn sure not going to do it without giving me an explanation.