Page 20 of Atonement

“What’s he done?” He reached for me as he spoke, but I slapped his hand away.

“It’s been a week, Meyer. A week!”

“I know that.” He pushed his hands through his hair, distress evident on his face. For a moment I wanted to go to him, soothe away the hurt as if I was somehow responsible for his pain.

But I wasn’t.

All of this was his fault.

“What did you think was going to happen? That I’d just hang out and have a fun sleepover with your sister while I waited for you to get your life together?”

He blanched. “You’ve seen Anita?”

“Well, no.” Come to think of it, it was strange she hadn’t been by to torture me. “Your fucking father has more than made up for her absence.”

He bit his lip, and for one second, the well of pain in his eyes was deeper than I’d ever seen it before. “I’m sorry, Maddie. There were … complications.”

“And do you know what happened while you were dealing with those complications?”

His eyes raked my body as if searching for evidence of the assault I’d suffered. He stepped forward, reaching for me, but I stepped deftly to the side even though I had barely any chain left to work with. The hard edges of the collar pressed into my skin. He grabbed at me anyway, fingertips light against my skin

“You’re too fucking late, Meyer!” I didn’t care that I was crying. We thrashed together as silently as we could, him trying to catch me and me fighting against him hard than I ever had before.

“Don’t say that.” His voice broke along with mine, giving me pause. “Don’t say I ruined everything in one moment of weakness. I’d never forgive myself.”

“You shouldn’t.” We panted, staring at each other, as he took in that. “You should live with this guilt for the rest of your life. Because I’m sure as hell going to live with the scars.”

He finally dropped his hands, and in giving me the space I’d demanded so passionately I felt the gulf between us widen even farther. I wanted to forgive him so badly, but his words meant nothing. Not while he stood there and let me hang off a chain like a dog; not while I slowly starved to death on a prisoner’s diet. I swallowed back my tears. He’d been suffering too, that much was obvious.

I swallowed back my pride and looked closer at him. “What happened to your face?”

“Shawn.” He sighed, looking away.

My anger at him transformed in an instant. “WHAT? He hit you?” I looked around the room as if expecting Shawn to appear out of thin air. “He can’t fucking do that!”

“Maddie, Maddie, it’s okay,” Meyer said as he grabbed my arms, forcing me to swing a little less wildly in order to avoid hitting him. “He was trying to help.”

“He needed to keep his fucking hands off of you!”

Meyer finally got his arms wrapped around me from behind, and pressed his forehead to the back of my neck. I stilled, not wanting to hurt him further.

“It was what I needed,” he whispered, breath tickling hair at the back of my neck. One of his hands slipped up my arm to grab my shoulder. “I was being an idiot, Maddie, and I’m sorry. Shawn helped me realize that.”

My eyes fell closed as I remembered the reason I had been angry at Meyer in the first place. His hands and arms pressed into fresh bruises on my skin, reigniting my nerve endings and sending fire through my body. I twisted again, pushing his hands away.

“I said it already, Meyer. You’re too late.”

He spun me slowly, holding me so gently that I could have escaped if I wanted to, but I didn’t move away. “What did he do you to?”

Tears sprung to my eyes, and I blinked them away. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it fucking matters!”

I screamed and kicked the wall, finally breaking free. “It mattered the first time too, Meyer, not that you ever fucking apologized for that.”

“Maddie, please.”

“Do you want to know what he did? He brought my father here. The man who raped my mother the night that she decided she had to leave you behind if she wanted to survive. He looked me in the eye while he talked about how much fun it was to break her.”

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