Page 160 of Leave Me Broken

“I-I had a bad dream.” Saying it out loud makes me feel the most stupid I’ve ever felt. Then I realize it’s the middle of the night and I’m calling my boyfriend because I had a bad dream and I feel even more stupid.

There is ruffling on his side, then he says, “I’ll be there in five.”

“What? No. No I just wanted to hear your voice. You can’t come here; you’ll wake my grandpa.” It’s bad enough my whispers could wake him through the wall, let alone Ash’s loud truck.

The ruffling stops and he breathes hard, as if he was rushing. I cringe thinking about him hurrying just for me to tell him no, but he must know he can’t actually come here just because I had a bad dream. That’s crazy.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I want to talk about anything else.”

“Okay, go ahead. Whatever you want.” He sighs like he just sat back down.

I rack my head to think of anything that’s not my dream, but I come up empty. “I can’t pick something, can you?”

After a minute he speaks. “How about our wedding?”

If I could groan out loud, I would. “Haven’t we talked about that enough?”

“That is not possible.”

I give in because I want the gross feeling inside my body to go away. We spend the next hour discussing every single thing there is to discuss for a wedding. Dress color, I said different shades of light blue because it’ll be spring, he said green, so we agreed on pastel blues and greens. I’ll only have Ronni and Janelle on my side, maybe Amanda, so I’m not sure how that will work, but I digress, this is hypothetical anyway. He wants basic black suits for him and the groomsmen, but I think I may have convinced him to do brown or gray. The brown would accent the warmth of his skin, but the gray would compliment his eyes. We couldn’t agree on flowers, he wants roses because they are traditional, where I think a bouquet of various flowers is nice, again it’s hypothetical, but we agreed on light colors. Another thing we agreed on is an English wedding. I think it would be lovely to marry in London where he is from. Since he has more family that would attend than I do, it seems fair. He tried to tell me he is from a place called Croydon or something and not London but in my head—especially this late, or early—it’s London.

After a while, our conversation drifts into casual chatting and it feels good. Like the night we went on a date. It eases my mind enough to make me tired again.

“Goodnight, babygirl. No more bad dreams, but if you have one, you can call me and we can discuss our children’s names.” He chuckles and the deep vibrations are felt through the phone.

“Okay, deal.” I giggle back, still in my sleepy stupor.

“I love you.”

I pause for a moment, then whisper, “Me too.”

As soon as we hang up, I drop my phone to the floor and turn over to hopefully a dreamless sleep.

52

Payson

“Fuck you.”

Ash grips my throat and slams me against the wall of his office, knocking the air out of me when he does. “Say it again.”

My throat burns trying to speak under his grip but I’m too angry to not try. “Fuck. You.”

If I could feel my arms right now, I would slap, punch, or claw him for what he just fucking put me through.

How did we go from talking about our wedding a few nights ago to him ripping my spandex off me while holding me by the throat against his office wall? Well, he found my pills. The empty bottle, and when I told him I flushed them—which I did, after the talk with Clay, he didn’t believe me. Then I asked him to cut me, and he said no. Oh, then Parker kindly filled him in on the rumors going around school—I gave Clay his red wings.

Everything is happening and my grandpa is doing worse. His health has dramatically dropped in the last week. It’s almost Thanksgiving and I’m not even sure I will get that with him.

I might not get Thanksgiving or Christmas. He won’t live to see the New Year. I squeeze my eyes closed, enjoying how my vision is blurring and my head is clouding from lack of oxygen. Ash doesn’t warm me up before he shoves his cock inside of me. I’m not dry but I’ve definitely been wetter. He hisses something but I’m lost in the state of euphoria, not listening. Until he moves his hand.

“You are going to stay awake for me to fuck you, then you’ll be lucky if I don’t choke you until you pass out,” he spits.

As if he hasn’t tortured me enough with a six-hour long open gym on a Saturday. Ash-hole. Just me, too—no one else and he didn’t even give my knee a second thought. Not that I feel pain anymore.

I thought the practice was to give us time alone since it’s been so long but nope. He was pissed and took it out in the only way he knows how that doesn’t involve any of the ways I actually enjoy, like him fucking me so hard, I’m positive my pussy is ripping—like he’s doing now after the actual torture so I’m not even able to fully enjoy it.