Page 110 of Tormented

“What’s the matter?” I steal a glance at Sawyer as we near the end of the driveway.

“That heartbroken fuckin’ look on your face,” he says. “I’m warning you now, Abbey-girl, if I ever find who did this to you, who made you so sad, this guy”—he taps his head—“gets free rein.”

“Better let him rest up then,” I say dryly. “Because hopefully he’ll get a workout.”

A small smile spreads over Sawyer’s lips as he looks down at me. “You have no idea how happy that just made him.”

“You’re fucked-up. You know that, right?” I say with a laugh.

He nods, his smirk growing to a smile.

My own fades as I drop my gaze to the road beneath our feet. His bike is a few yards up. “When did you know you were different?”

“I don’t think there was a moment when it occurred to me that there was somethin’ wrong with me,” he says. “I just knew from the start.”

“Nobody’s born like you, though. I mean, it has to be conditioning from the environment you grew up in, doesn’t it?”

He frowns down at me, thumb rubbing over the back of my hand. “What you getting at, girl?”

How do I explain it to him? He embraces who he is so wholeheartedly, and here I am trying to deny that this is who I’ll be for the rest of my life. I wasn’t born afraid. I wasn’t born untrusting. And I sure as hell wasn’t born with the ability to watch a man be butchered—alive, and dead—and to not even bat an eye. Once upon a time I was a happy little girl, I’m sure of it, back before my life was sent off course by a selfish pig of a man who stole my mother’s heart.

“I guess,” I say, “I’m just hoping that I’m yet to find out who I really am.”

“Is this not you?” he asks, stopping us and turning me to face him. “This girl here”—he prods my breastbone—“is she not Abbey?”

“Not the Abbey I wish she was.”

“Why? What’s wrong with her?”

“Everything,” I murmur.

He sighs, opening his mouth to speak, yet shutting it just as quick. Rejection strikes me like a hot iron as he shakes his head and turns away, walking the last few feet to the bike.

It’s begun: the frustration, the confusion, and ultimately the rejection.

Before long, Sawyer too will give up on the mess that is the wild child trapped in her gilded cage of fear.

Fear of rejection.

Fear of not being enough.

And ultimately, fear of finding out who she really is . . . and not liking that girl one fucking iota.

This, right here, is why I never let people in.

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