Page 65 of Wrecked By You
She curled onto her side and pressed a palm to my chest, right over the heart Sadie had ripped out. It beat strong and true beneath her hand. For the first time since I’d woken up in that hospital bed hooked up to machines and with my parents’ tearful faces looming over me, I started to believe that the deep scars I carried within me might heal. One day.
“I’m proud of you.”
I peered down at her, my throat tightening. “For what?” I knew, but I hungered for her to tell me, because that might make it real.
“For proving to yourself that your beliefs, while valid, can be challenged. You can overcome whatever holds you back.”
My mouth dried up, and I rolled my tongue across the inside of my upper lip to moisten it.
“I don’t know what happened to you, and I’m not asking you to share. That’s your business. But what I am saying is that you’re strong enough to overcome your demons, to not let them rule you. All you have to do is try. And you did.”
I shifted my gaze to the ceiling, her words sitting on my chest like a lump of lead. “It was just a fuck. Don’t turn it into a philosophy.”
I flinched at the harshness and cruelty of that statement. But I was a harsh and cruel man. Or I could be when I chose to. Sadie had created me, and when she had, the thoughtful, empathetic man of my youth had died, and a brute had risen from the ashes.
Closing off my emotions and keeping others at bay was how I survived. And I couldn’t allow Ella to chip away at my protective walls any more than she already had.
“We should go.” I climbed off the bed, and this time she let me. I didn’t dare look at her, afraid to see hurt painted across her pretty face. I shoved my feet into my shoes, but when I heard no movement from Ella, I had no choice but to face her and the aftereffects of my comment.
My eyes went to hers.
And she…
She greeted me with a cocky smirk.
What?
“Johannes, you and I both know that what happened here was far more than just a fuck for youandme. But you keep on believing those lies. Stay in your safe zone. It’s fine by me. When you’re ready to adult, I’ll be here.”
She got up and padded into the bathroom, buck naked, hips swaying.
I stared after her, my mouth agape, my dick springing to life at the sight of her curves. Stupid thing didn’t understand what had just happened.
And neither did I.
But one thing was for sure. I’d better find out.
After thirty of the longest minutes of my life, I pulled up outside Level Nine where she’d left her car overnight. We hadn’t spoken a word on the journey over here, but every time I’d risked a sidelong glance at her, that faint smirk had remained in place.
Goddamn woman.
After the assault, my parents, my brothers, and my doctors had pleaded with me to go to therapy, but I’d steadfastly refused. Talking to a stranger about the worst moment of my life and how I shared a sliver of culpability for ending up there wasn’t high on my list of priorities.
It didn’t even make the top one hundred—and it never had.
But the last twelve hours had shined a light on so many things, not least my conceding to Ella’s firm yet gentle coaxing to fuck face-to-face, or her calling me out and me sitting there and taking it without challenge. The barbed comment of “it was just a fuck” had been my reaction to the discomfort she’d made me feel, how she’d forced me to think, to see things I hadn’t been prepared to acknowledge.
Christ, my head hurt.
“Thanks for the ride.” She opened the car door, glancing back at me, that goddamn smirk still tugging at her lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Without waiting for a reply—probably because she guessed she wouldn’t get one—she strolled over to her rust bucket of a car and climbed inside, then pulled away.
Not once did she look back at me.
Chapter22
Ella