Page 110 of Borden 3

He shook his head and then came at me, fury in him now as he pointed at me. “You can’t even look at me these days. You know that? You’re here, but you’re not really here. You cry in your nightmares. You talk about being lonely. I fuck you to close the gap, and all it does is make it bigger. You’re always hiding your pain. I don’t take it away from you anymore, Doll. I don’t make shit better for you—”

“That’s not true—”

“I’m not good for you—”

“You are—”

“How could you ever love something as hideous as me? You had rose-coloured glasses—”

“That’s not true!”

His torment shone like never before. Angry tears burning his eyes but they would not fall. “I am a walking dead man, baby, and I’ll only take you down with me. I ought to fucking let you and our boy go—”

“Borden—”

“But I love you. God-fucking-dammit, I love you, Emma.” Now his voice broke as he collapsed at my feet, wrapping his large arms around my legs. “Please, baby, don’t leave me. I can’t be without you. Don’t leave me. Don’t…”

I’d never seen Marcus Borden fall apart before.

I wondered if it had ever happened.

“I fucked up. I fucked up again, baby. I can’t get it the fuck right…”

He was terrified. He was heartbroken. He was pained. He held me so tight, like Lincoln did when he’d had a nightmare. He reminded me of those lost boys I grew up with. Of Theo holding my hand, squeezing it tight, asking me to never let him go.

And I did.

I let Theo go and now I was sobbing, my tears burning my cheeks as they fell mercilessly. I buried my fingers in Borden’s hair, holding him to me. We both failed. We both broke promises we couldn’t keep.

And Borden was terrified of losing me.

He was waiting for me to walk.

“I’m never leaving you,” I whispered. “Never, Marcus. I love you.”

He shook so hard, I thought he was having a fit. I dropped down to his level and put my hands to his cheeks, but he refused to look at me. He looked down at the floor, his lips parted; he didn’t hold himself high. He didn’t feel like a man worthy of my love, or the love of our son.

It killed me.

“We got off track,” I said to him gently. “We wandered in different directions, but we’re not so far apart that we can’t find each other again.”

His blue eyes finally looked up, meeting mine. “You make me vulnerable, Emma.”

“I know.”

“It burns, Doll.” He pounded at his chest. “It hurts in here in a way I have never felt before, and just when I think I can take it, I wake up to more agony. It twists me apart with grief, and then I think…there was a time you weren’t in my life, but maybe…I don’t know, maybe you were always there. Maybe we crossed paths. Maybe you were always a few steps away from me and I didn’t know it.” He hangs his head low again, guilt-riddled. “I feel selfish that I put myself in your path, and I ask myself whether I would have still put you in my crosshairs if I knew what you were going to endure…”

“Yes,” I answered for him, my voice rough. “Yes, you would have.”

But he didn’t look too sure. “Doll, I’m not a good man. You and Lincoln are the only good things about me, and even then, I can’t take credit for it. You’ve been raising him, and he’s all you, and if you were gone, I’d fucking destroy him because there is nothing good or pure I can impart on him.” He scoffed bitterly. “I am like that disappearing boy from your past, aren’t I? Theo took a toll on you. Like I am doing to you right now.”

I blinked rapidly, shocked and breathless. He’d dug more information somehow. It didn’t even bother me. I was ready for him to know—to understand. But it was important he knew this one thing I was about to tell him. I pressed my hands against his cheeks, forcing him to look at me. His sad eyes met mine, and I felt my voice break.

“When you blow, I can hold you back from the brink,” I whispered. “You shake your head a little, like you’re waking up from a dream. You see sense. You see me. You don’t go so far beyond the point of no return that I can’t get through to you.” My lips trembled. “You’re nothing like Theo. You fucking love hard, Borden, but it’s not a toxic or selfish love. You take care of us. You have breathed life into me, baby. I wasn’t living until you found me. And if there’s one thing I wish I could do, it’s to go back to that alleyway when I was fourteen and tell you that you saved me, that I’m thankful for you, that I wish you would stay, and that I’d wait for you.”

My shoulders shook as the tears fell. I thought of that little girl. I didn’t need to be lost. I just needed to be rescued. Like he rescued me that night.

Borden wrapped me in his arms, and we held each other, breathing each other in. I stood him up after we calmed down. I took him into the shower and we rinsed the grit and mess away. Our emotions were raw. We held each other, and there was nothing sexual about it.

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