Page 89 of What Lies Within

"Sure." He ducks back into the bathroom in two quick steps and wraps a hand around my head, kissing my forehead. "It's good to have you home."

He doesn’t wait for an answer, seemingly satisfied he’s said his piece.

I’m fucking glad for the reprieve—I don’t know how much more of this emotional fuckery I can take.

“You sure you’re okay?” Jamie says quietly, rubbing the ends of my hair dry with another, smaller towel.

“Yeah.” I fixate on the faucet over the basin, avoiding my fractured appearance in the mirror at all costs. “The shouting just triggered me, is all.”

“You’ve been through it, hon. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

“I shouldn’t be like this,” I confess.

“Like what?” She leans around from behind me, hands paused on my hair.

“Weak.”

“Fuck’s sake, Mads.” Jamie finishes drying my hair with a few brisk rubs, then tosses the towel at the laundry hamper. “Don’t start this shit.”

“What do you mean?”

“I went through this crap with my goddamn daddy,” she snaps. “It’s not weak to be affected by things that hurt you, girl. It’s strange if you’re not.”

I tell Rae the same things, and yet here I am with the shoe on the other foot, and I struggle to find compassion for myself.

"He'd get upset after Momma passed," she says, taking my silence as a sign to continue. Jamie takes a seat on the closed toilet. "I'd hear him cry at night, but when I'd ask him what's wrong, he'd say 'Nothin', sugar bear. Go back to bed.'" She sighs. "I'd lie there and listen to him cry again night after night until one day I'd had enough."

“What did you do?”

“Stopped asking him what was wrong—I knew—and just crawled into bed and cried with him.” She offers a small smile. “He stopped not long after that. It was like we both got out what we had in us.”

“I suppose.”

"My point is," she says, sighing. "Is that the pressure builds the longer you hold it in. Give your pain voice, Maddie, and set it free. We're all here for you. We don't judge."

"I know you don't." I toe my dirty clothes on the floor. "I judge myself the harshest. Hey, could you grab me some clean clothes from my room? Saves me needing to walk through the clubhouse half-naked."

“Sure.” She rises to her feet, then frowns. “You be okay?”

“Yeah. Harvey should be back soon.”

"Yeah, okay." I catch it—the softness in her gaze just for him, and it warms me. We all need somebody in this world. And he'll be good for her, as she will for him.Way to judge Rae from the outset, there, asshole.

Why did I jump down her throat when she told me about Dad and Digger? Is it so different if it's my brother? They're all family, yet I wouldn't have batted an eyelid if she'd told me she'd got together with Kane.

It's just my father that I have an issue with.Because she takes my protector from me.My issue with her relationship with them is about nothing other than selfish need.

Fuck.I've got some serious repairs to do.

And therapy.

Lots of therapy.

I pass the time while I wait on Harvey by surveying the marks on my body. There are bruises along one leg, a rich bruise down my ribs where I collided with the doorframe after Sweetie deflected. A few scratches and a handful of strange areas where it hurts to touch, but there's no surface mark.

“Okay. You could have warned me this time.”

I spin around and find Harvey at the door, my phone shielding his eyes.

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