Page 77 of What I Should Have Done

“Not really,” she answered. “I…I…There was a moment where I almost gave up. Where I just knew that he won. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, he would have actually raped me, Mikey.”

Swallowing the lump forming in my throat, I pulled her tighter against my chest but remained silent. Fuck was I grateful I’d gotten there when I had.

“Tied up like that, absolutely helpless, I was terrified. More afraid than I’ve ever been, and growing up like I had, definitely wasn’t one for the faint of heart. Yet, I can’t even say that I was assaulted because technically he only got his dick in my mouth once, and I bit down on that nasty shit.” She paused and leaned back, glancing up at me. Doe eyes met mine, full of such innocent pleading. “So, why is his face what I see every time I close my eyes? Why is it that moment he nearly suffocated me to get his fucking dick wet just once in my mouth what keeps replaying in my head?”

Lifting my gaze from her eyes, I scanned the horizon again. “Just because he didn’t actually manage to get his fucking dick inside you, doesn’t mean you weren’t assaulted. That’s still trauma, Scotch,” I muttered. There was nothing out there. A nothing I wanted to escape to, away from reality, away from the little boy creeping forward from his cage in my mind.

“And next you’ll tell me that it’ll eventually go away completely,” she replied, almost hopeful. I hated to break her heart, but I refused to lie to her.

“No. But the amount of time between it showing up in your thoughts will eventually get longer. One day, you’ll realize it’s been a week since the last time you thought about it. Then a year. Then sometimes it’s every few days again, and then it’ll be a couple years. But what’s more important is every time those thoughts do come back, they’ll hurt less and less. It’ll control you less and less. That’s what matters more than how often you think about it or not.”

She scoffed. “Right, like you would know.”

Snapping my teeth together, I choked down the anguish that immediately surfaced. I knew she didn’t know. No one did. But her words didn’t torment me any less. Shame riddled my body, flowing through my veins. A shame that hadn’t caressed my mind in years. That lost boy I’d stowed away broke entirely free and stole what little peace I’d consumed.

I knew a moment in the near future would allow me the control I needed to cage him back up, to send him back to the darkest corner of my mind. But all that ran through my body right now was frustration and anger. She’d snapped defensively at me, and now I wanted to do the same. Everything in me begged to bite back at her.

She got on my case for being sexist, got on Reyes’s case and the entire military’s case for being sexist, yet wasn’t that statement of hers a bit sexist too? As if implying that men couldn’t be sexually assaulted like women.

Prying my arms away from her body, I gently slid my legs out from under her and she plunked sideways. Sand poofed up around her. She pulled her brows together, her eyes tracking me as I pushed upright from the ground. “You mind keeping watch for a minute or two? I’ve gotta take a piss,” I said, and I didn’t give her time to protest as I turned and walked around the boulder.

Staying would’ve resulted in me blowing up at her. Which I couldn’t do right now. Her trauma was much more recent then mine was. Her wounds were fresh. Mine were mere scars riddling my body and painted across my soul.

Part of me picked at the scab because it helped fuel the rage burning in me. Rage that I used to be effective out here, and I wasn’t quite ready to let that go. But there was a new bandage attempting to stick itself in place of the once again freshly opened scar. A different kind of fury rooted in a desire to never let something like that happen to Scottie again.

And I had to admit to myself that it burned blue—hotter than any wrath directed toward that pisshat of a man I once called father.

Chapter 27

SCOTTIE

He came back—eventually. Something changed in him. He wasn’t exactly cold toward me, but his expression wasn’t as lighthearted and tender as it had been. I wasn’t even sure what I’d said to tick him off, but something had set him on edge.

And how dare it be when I found no safety unless I was with him.

Every bone in my body ached, grogginess settled within my figure as he found his way back to me. The thing was, I didn’t think he actually went and peed because I hadn’t heard anything, and it was rather quiet out here. But I didn’t say anything as he pulled me back into his lap and cradled me within an embrace of warmth.

My eyes burned, desperate to remain closed, but every time they fluttered shut, all that ran through my head was the image of that man and his disgusting, unwanted desire for me. “What right did he have to think he could do that?” I mumbled, leaning against Mikey as his fingers rhythmically swept through my hair.

I knew he heard me. But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t falter in his movement. Nothing changed in his touch as he gently held me in his comforting lap.

With a quick glance up to his face, I found his eyes fixed on a single point in the distance. A glassy, unblinking stare holding steady on the nothingness in the horizon. Mikey was in a world that didn’t exist here.

Behind the dissociation in his gaze, pain, shame, and a boyish vulnerability washed his features.

I attempted to rouse him from the state he was locked in with a gentle shake, but he didn’t even twitch. He didn’t blink as I whispered my fingers gently across his cheek. My heart jumped into my throat as my touch hovered over his lips.

Lips that had once aggressively taken mine. Passion burned through the anguish darkening my mind. The simple thought of how protective Mikey was of me flamed like a light slowly swallowing the black clouding my head.

My burden was lighter with Mikey around. But I hated that I needed it—wanted it. I wasn’t raised to need anyone. I’d been able to keep up with seven boys, outshoot them all in a desperate attempt to gain attention from my foster father.

Maybe it wasn’t attention that I’d sought all those years, but his affection.

Well, shit. Leave it to Mikey to help me sort through my own fucking issues without intentionally doing so. Amidst this nothingness we were holed up in, my thoughts wandered to someone I hadn’t considered in years.

I was genuinely curious as to what my oldest brother was up to. Maybe there was some fault of my own for not reaching out directly to him. I bet there was a way to track down what James was up to. But that was tomorrow’s problem.

Right now, I needed to figure out how to close my eyes and actually get some rest.

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