Page 106 of Anything To Be With You

"Anything for you, Sweetheart," I force a smile. "Always."

Dani

I feel like shit.

My whole body hurts.

I should take some pain meds, but I don’t have the ambition to move. Luke has been coming in every half hour to check on me. His concern is more evident now then it was before I hugged him, and I feel horrible because I didn’t want to touch him. It has nothing to do with him, he has been nothing but amazing. It has to do with me and that tiny nugget in the back of my head telling me that every person I care about will hurt me.

There's a knock on the door.

"Come in."

The door opens and Luke steps into the room. "How you feeling?"

I look down at my lap and shrug. "Good, I guess."

"Are you in any pain? Do you need anything?"

"No, thank you."

There's a pregnant pause, then Luke asks softly, "would you like to talk about it?"

My heart stops and my stomach rolls with nausea. Talking about it brings back the memories and they're worse than the act because you have to re-live it over and over again, until it breaks you and you have to fight to push them back into the metal box in the back of your mind and lock them back up.

"If you're not ready, I won't push you Sweetheart."

I shake my head. "It's not that I'm not ready, you're never truly ready to talk about the abuse you went through. It's the memories it brings up. But it's good to talk about it, or at least that's what my therapist used to tell me." I nod to the other side of the bed. "Would you like to join me?"

Luke walks around the bed and sits on the edge. "Whenever you're ready."

I wrap myself up in the blanket, using it as a shield of protection and swallow past the lump in my throat. "I'm not ready to talk about what just happened, but I'll talk about my past. It may help you understand why I was pushing you away earlier."

Taking a deep breath, I begin. "When I first met Josh, I thought he was the sweetest guy. He would meet me at my locker after every class, I would find little notes, or a flower taped to my locker. He would take me out for dinner every Friday and lavished me with gifts.

"We were dating for three months when the manipulation started. It started with him saying I was being dramatic when I cried or I was overreacting when I got angry. My feelings never mattered. He would tell me to suck it up or to just deal with it. He would say something about my looks or weight then tell me he was only joking.

"He never liked how much time I would spend with Erin. Said she was a slut and that he didn’t want me hanging out with her because she would turn me into one too. He kept me from her as much as he could and when I would bring it up, he’d say that it wasn’t healthy to spend that much time with her and that everyone else thinks so too." Tears being to roll down my cheeks.

Luke places his hand palm up between us. A waiting invitation of comfort and support.

"When I got pregnant however, he started blaming me for things out of my control. He blamed me for the condom breaking, for having morning sickness that lasted all day, for gaining more than twenty-five pounds, for going into labour while a hockey game was on," I snort. "It moved to physical once I started showing." I wipe my cheeks and slip my other hand into his.

His hand doesn't move to wrap around mine. He's waiting for me make the first move.

"It got worse after Mason was born. He stopped using his fists and started using objects. He burned me, whipped me, stabbed me. He used a bat to break my hand, stabbed me with a fork. Pushed me down the stairs while I was holding Mason," I shake my head. "It only stopped when his daddy told him that he needed to ditch me because the college recruiters were looking at him for a hockey scholarship."

I close my fingers around his and he gives my hand a squeeze. Our eyes meet and I fear the worst, the look of pity. However, that's not what I see in Luke's ice blue eyes, in fact I don't find pity, I find tenderness and dare I say…love.

"How did you get the scar on the side of your face?" he questions softly.

I touch it, running my fingers down the raised skin. "Our waiter at the restaurant we were dining at told me I was very beautiful, so Josh decided to change that." I touch the fine line scar again. "It took two surgeries to get it to look like this. He flayed me open like a fish. It's the one I hate the most. It's not as easy to hide like the other ones."

"Your scars are proof that you went through hell and walked out the other side with your head held high. They show that you are a survivor and that makes you even more beautiful." Luke says.

I duck my head while my cheeks heat and slide my hand out of his and he lets it go, leaving his between us.

"Can I ask another question?"

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