Page 54 of Piston

“I’m sorry, Diamond,” I whisper, and more tears fall from her beautiful, captivating, midnight-blue eyes.

“So much hurt and pain between us, Elijah. We didn’t talk, and our childhoods consumed us. How can we get passed that?” she whispers back, and I huff, placing my forehead against hers again.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I love you, Natalie, don’t think otherwise, because I do, but I’m just so fucked up in the head. That day you lost our baby, I wasn’t watching the whores; that didn’t start until after I thought you lied about the pregnancy as a punishment at you for you doing this to us, which is just fucked up in itself. I love you, Natalie, but the thought of committing to you, moving you onto club grounds, and giving you the good and the bad when I’d only ever shown you the fun side before I distanced myself scares me, baby. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She nods. “I get it, I do. I’ve seen what marriages are like firsthand, how a father can put his child in a box just to keep his wife happy. I don’t know how to be a good wife when my own stepmother abused me.” She sniffles, gripping my tee, and asks, “So what do we do, Elijah, because every time I try and distance myself from you, you pull me back in, refusing to let me go. I gave back your cut, and you did one better and got me to wear it, and put me on the back of your bike. So, what do we do?”

I peer down at her, and I answer honestly, “I don’t know, Nat, I really don’t know. I’m not sure I’m capable of being what you need and deserve, but I also know that the thought of you not being near me makes it hard to breathe. So, I don’t know….”

She nods, understanding, before going to her tiptoes and pressing her lips against mine. I kiss her back with longing, love, and hopelessness, tangling my tongue with hers.

Idolove her, the fact I haven’t fought for a divorce is proof of that, but my actions haven’t proven it. Watching clubwhores getting off, believing she could trap me to keep me, forcing me to make decisions I never wanted to make…. It seems like I don’t love her, but I do, I just don’t know I can be the man she deserves, the man to fight for her, to make her see she’s worth loving.

19

Natalie – One Week Later

I gently hum to myself as I fold my jeans, and place them in my bottom drawer. I return to my bed and grab the next item of clothing: my ruined white dress from when I dropped the paint on my head. This is the fifth time I’ve washed it after soaking it with baking soda, and it barely touched the paint.

I roll my eyes as I hang the dress on the hanger, knowing I can just wear it around the house. I walk to the small closet and open the door, but instead of hanging the dress, my eyes instantly go to the property cut.

I haven’t worn it since our talk on the ferry, and I don’t know if I will ever wear it again, just like I don’t know if I’ll ever call him his legal name again.

He’s so unsure about us, about a relationship, yet he can’t let me go, and I can't let him go, either.

I understood his words and reasoning because I’m in the same boat. I love him, but I don’t know if I can allow him to takecontrol of my heart after watching my father treat me like a pest all my life, giving into his wife on a daily basis and yet, I don’t want to let him go either, even with the knowledge that he watched clubwhores get each other off.

Henry, Christy, and Billy really screwed me up, huh….

I sigh and hang the dress up before going back to my bed covered in laundry. This is the second time I’ve washed these clothes.

I hung the clothes on the line this morning, forgoing use of the dryer to save money, only to drop the whole basket of clothes into the mud after I tripped over on my own two feet like the idiot I am.

Growling with frustration, I grab my top, folding it, my mind going back to my husband.

I have barely seen him this week. After making love all night, I woke to him gone again, like in college, only this time he left a note saying he had club business and wouldn’t be around that night.

The only time I’ve seen him is when he’s picked Cooper up from school, and he’s always gone when I got downstairs after taking Coop to bed.

It’s like Piston opened his can of worms, his trauma, and regretted it, and all that has done is left me feeling alone and empty.

I miss him. I miss him so much.

“God, how will I handle when we get divorced?” I mumble and scoff, answering myself, “I’m not. I don’t want a divorce….”

And now I’m talking to myself…great.

Giving myself a mental shake, I continue to put my clothes away.

I meant what I said: I don’t want a divorce, I don’t want to lose him, and, my God, does that terrify me, but now he’s ignoring me, barely speaking to me when he is here, making me think maybe it’s for the best….

I squeeze my eyes shut at the pain hitting me. I’m so confused, and I know he is as well. We’ve both been through hell and have been closed off, yet we came together anyway, and let each other in.

He became the reason I breathe, the reason I get up in the mornings.

I miss him….

Trying to breathe through the lump lodged in my throat, I grab the empty basket and take it downstairs to my small laundry room. I place it on the washer before heading to the kitchen, and checking the time.

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