Page 74 of My Vows Are Sealed

My girlfriend’s sobs echoed in my ears as I quickly dried myself off and threw on a pair of sweats and the first t-shirt I could find. When I walked out into the living room, she was curled up on the couch in a ball, her entire body shaking while she bawled her eyes out.

I knelt down in front of her and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t touch me!” she screamed as she shot up to a sitting position, her eyes darting around the room as she cowered back into the couch cushions.

For a split second, her words stung me like a slap in the face. Not once in three and a half years had sheevertold me not to touch her. No matter how bad things got, no matter what that animal had done to her, she’d nevernotwanted a hug from me before.

And then reality hit me like a ton of bricks, and the sting was replaced by complete, absolute, soul-crushing terror. There was only one reason I could think of why she wouldn’t want to be touched.

Please, Jesus, tell me this isn’t what I think it is,I prayed.Please tell me it’s not the thing I’ve been terrified of since the second she trusted me with the truth.

“It’s just me, Dar,” I said, my voice thick with the fear I couldn’t hide.

Her entire body sagged with relief as her eyes finally focused on me, and the next moment, she was throwing herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck like a vice.

“Brendan,” she sniffled. “Oh, my God.”

I folded my arms around her as I sat on the floor and leaned back against the couch, and she didn’t let go of me as she moved to straddle my legs. She was still trembling violently as she sobbed into my shoulder, and she tightened her arms around me even more and shimmied further up my lap, like she couldn’t get close enough to me.

My heart felt like it was about to pound out of my chest, and I realized I was shaking a little too, almost like I was absorbing all of her fear and pain and processing it for her. Or maybe like our souls were so connected that I could feel her abject terror and had no choice but to mirror it. I had so many questions right now that I didn’t even know where to start, but I was terrified that I wasn’t going to like the answers when I heard them. And I knew I wasn’t going to get anything out of her until she got this out of her system, so I took a few deep breaths to try to calm down as I hugged her tighter and kissed the side of her head.

“I’ve got you, baby,” I murmured. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

“Don’t let go,” she blubbered. “Please. I need you.”

“I’m right here, Dar. I’m not going anywhere,” I promised as I rubbed her back.

I’d seen Darla at some low points over the past few years, but this was on a whole other level. I had no idea how long we sat like that, her crying her eyes out and begging me not to let her go as she clung to me like I was a life raft in the middle of the ocean, and me promising over and over again that I was here and not going anywhere.

Finally, she stopped shaking and her tears slowed, but we still just sat there in silence until it got dark outside and the apartment was almost pitch black.

“Baby, can you let me up so I can turn on a light?” I asked quietly.

Darla took a shaky breath and released her hold on me, pulling back slowly. “Don’t go.”

For the thousandth time, I wondered what on Earth had happened to her tonight. She’d never beenthisclingy before. Wanting me to hold her wasn’t anything new, but begging me not to leave? Verbalizing her need for me to keep holding her? That was new. Not that I minded; it was one of my favorite things to do. But it did worry me. A lot.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised. “I’m not even leaving this room. I’m just going to go turn the light on so we’re not sitting in the dark.”

She took a shallow breath as she nodded and climbed off my lap. I quickly went to the other side of the room and flipped the light switch, then walked back over and sank onto the couch. She immediately crawled back onto my lap, this time sitting sideways and curling up against my chest.

“Can you tell me what happened, baby?” I murmured.

“I didn’t even do anything wrong,” she sniffled, tightening her arms around my neck. “I didn’t.”

I hated that she always felt the need to explain to me exactly what she’d done – or, more often than not lately,hadn’tdone – before telling me what her father did to her. Like she was trying to justify his actions. Or explain why she was so upset about it. Because the reality was, it didn’t matter if she was sacrificing chickens and goats and had a shrine built to Lucifer in her bedroom.Nothingexcused the marks he left on her body.Nothingexcused the vitriol that he spewed at her. What he was doing was illegal, and I wished like hell that she’d talk to the police, but she was too scared that they wouldn’t believe her and it would just end up making things worse, so I knew I had to respect that.

“I don’t care if you did do something wrong,” I told her. “There is absolutely nothing you could have done that would make him scaring you this much okay.”

“I was…I finally got around to refinishing my craft table,” she started. “But I was a klutz and spilled the wood polisheverywhere. Like, it was all over the table, the carpet, and me. So I used what I could on the table, and then my mom steam-cleaned my carpet for me while I went to take a shower. A-and then…wh-when I w-walked out of the b-bathroom…m-my dad stormed i-into the house and st-started screaming at me a-at the t-top of his lungs. I gu-I guess h-he saw s-someone who looked like me…do-doing stuff with s-some guy i-in an alley.”

My jaw clenched and my teeth started to grind as I put the pieces together in my head.

God damn it all to Hell. That jackass who called himselfmy bosshad been responsible for this? All because he couldn’t keep it in his pants and had to have Darla’s doppelganger get on her knees for him in full view of a public street?

Frank was lucky that my uncle was planning on firing him, because if Ieversaw him again, I was going to beat the fucking shit out of him for this. I didn’t care why he’d done it. I didn’t care that he had no idea about the damage it would cause. Because he’d been stupid and reckless and unprofessional, my girlfriend’s father had hurt her. And there wasnoexcuse for that. None. I wasn’t a violent person, but when it came to Darla, all bets were off.

“God damn it,” I muttered before I could stop myself.

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