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My stomach heaved as pain crushed my windpipe. "Jordan –"

"Is that what you wanted me to tell you?" he demanded, jerking to his feet. "About how he made me come while my face was crushed into a fucking pillow? Or the holes I bit in my own tongue and gums to stop myself from screaming out? Knowing that screaming only turned himon. And how I wanted to die when I did?"

"I don’t know what I'm supposed to say," I sobbed, heart splintering in a million pieces, as I sank back down on the mattress.

"You're not supposed to sayinganything," he roared. "You were never supposed to say anything. You're just supposed tolisten."

Shaking his head, he continued to torture us both with his truth. "Or how about how he fucked my head up so badly, I didn’t know what the hell I wanted orwhoI wanted?"

"I can'thearthis–"

"Hear it," he roared hoarsely. "Hear about the nights I rocked myself to sleep because I was so damn scared that I was broken. Do you want to know how many nights that happened, Hope?"

I shook my head, but he didn’t stop.

"Every night," he bit out.

"I'm sorry…"

"Maybe we should talk about the fact that I couldn’t take a shit for sixteen days and when the doctor gave me an enema, I was so fucking used to it that I got hard? Would telling you that have saved our relationship, or turned your stomach? Be honest, Hope!"

Burying my face in my hands, I cried and begged him to stop.

He wouldn’t.

"Look at me," he demanded. "Look at my face when I tell you there is not enough soap and bleach on thisearthto rid my body of the feeling–" His voice broke and I watched as a huge shudder rolled through his body. "To this day, I canfeelhim inside me, Hope. In my body. Under my skin. The sensations and smell ofhim."

"I'm sorry," I strangled out, crying hard and ugly now. "I’m so sorry this happened to you."

"I was fourteen years old, Hope!" His voice cracked. Sinking onto the floor, he wrapped his arms around his knees. "I wasfourteen... And I blamedyou. I blamedallof you. With your happy fucking lives, and my father!Mine. The one person I prayed would wake up and save me." He choked out a heart wrenching sob. "Guess what, Hope? Hedidn’t. I wasn’t fucking saved. I was abandoned. I was left behind. I was fucking raped and pillaged and tortured until all that was left inside of me was absolute and total fucking hatred for the world. And formyself."

"Jord –" I moved to hold him, but he roughly shoved me away, causing me to fall on the floor with him – fall into his personal hole of hell right along with him. Pain shot up through my wrists from the abrupt impact, but I didn’t move. He didn’t mean to hurt me. I knew that.

"Do you get it yet?" he cried, tears streaming down his face. "I. Can't. Take. Your. Touch."

"I know," I sobbed, crying right along with him. "But it's all I have."

"If you leave me, I'll have nothing," he half-snarled, half-cried. "Fuckingnothing."

"You mean so much to me," I choked out. "And I will love you for the rest of my life." Pulling myself onto my knees, I crawled closer to him, wishing I could put my arms around his neck and hold him. "But I can't live like this anymore…Ican'tdo it, Jordan. No love or emotion or intimacy? It'skillingme!"

"I can change," he begged, tone desperate. "I can. Iwillchange."

Shaking my head, I slowly climbed to my feet. "No." Walking over to the bed, I sank down and released a weary sigh. "You changing won't change the way I feel about him –"

"Don’t say that!" he howled, tone almost frantic, as he sprang to his feet and moved towards me. "We can fix this, Hope. We can."

And then he was on top of me, pressing me deep into the mattress.

"See," he coaxed in a voice I didn’t recognized as he pressed kisses down my neck, the stench of whiskey on his breath suffocating. "We can fix this."

"Jordan, no," I warned, trying and failing to push him off my body. "Jordan!"

Panic began to set in, a fear unlike any other, and I shoved harder. "Get off me!"

He didn’t get off me.

And he didn’t stop.

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