Page 112 of Edge of Unbroken

“You didn’tmakeme do anything.”

“What I really meant to say, Rony, is that we both have different ways of coping with our parents’ bullshit. You tried to be the perfect son, I tried hard to be a difficult daughter. We both succeeded, and in the end the outcome didn’t change for us—your mother still beat you to a pulp, my dad was…isan emotionally abusive dick,” she says in her usual unaffected manner. “But you have a real chance of making something out of your life. I mean, you’re going to Columbia, Rony. You’re so fucking smart. And… you’re hot,” she says with a sidelong glance at me. “You just need to heal. Me, on the other hand… my dad won’t talk to me unless it’s to tell me what a disappointment I am. I don’t have a college education, I have no real work experience. I just fuck hot good boys,” she says with another brief glance my way, “and travel the country trying to play some music.”

“You know how you always tell me I’m too hard on myself?” I ask her. “You’re doing the same thing right now. You’re so damn talented and such a go-getter. You set your mind on something, and you just fucking go for it. You’re so damn smart and such a badass, Randi. You don’t take any shit from anyone. You know how fucking envious I am of the fact that you had the guts to just up and leave the BS behind?”

She shakes her head, exhaling deeply. “You don’t have anything to be envious of.”

“No? Randi, you did the one thing I never could. You took control of your life. I’ve been stuck in that fucking hell house with my mom who took every opportunity to hurt me, but I was too much of a chicken shit to leave. I should have just done what you did,” I say, resting my head in my hands to keep my surroundings from spinning. “Sometimes I wish I had stayed in Montana with my grandparents. I should have fucking insisted…”

“You could stay now.” There’s a note of hopefulness in her voice.

I lift my head. “No, I can’t.”

“Why not? What, so you’re just going to go back to New York when your dad says you’re allowed to? And then what? You’ll be stuck in the same damn place where all the torture was inflicted on you, you still have to testify at that fucking trial. And worse, there’s a chance your mother will get away with it,” she says. My frown deepens. “You could always leave New York. You don’t have to stay there.” She turns to me.

“And do what, Randi? Work on the ranch for the rest of my life?”

“Come with me,” she says. “On the road. You and me.”

She shifts in front of me to sit on her heels facing me, her hand on my knee. She moves in closer.

“Randi, what are you doing?” I ask, taken aback. My tongue feels heavy in my mouth, like it’s made of lead. I’m wasted. We both are. This isn’t good. I haven’t had this much to drink in a long time, and my body reacts way differently to the alcohol sloppily sloshing through my brain than it did before. I’m slow and foggy and really would love nothing more than to lie down and pass the fuck out.

Miranda leans into me, her mouth close to mine, so close I can feel her warm breath against my lips. Her right hand on my knee slowly glides up my leg, my thigh, traveling up and up. I grab her wrist, stopping her just as she’s about to reach for my dick through my jeans.

“I want you, Rony,” she breathes, her voice low, sensual. Her eyes are lidded and glued to my lips, her cheeks flushed with alcohol and lust.

“No, you don’t,” I say, willing my trashed brain to think straight and be sober. Why the fuck did I put myself in this situation?

“Yeah, I do.” She licks my bottom lip and before I can do anything to prevent it, she seals her mouth to mine. It’s so soft, so familiar, and so... fucking intrusive.

I scramble backward, getting up and stumbling in the process. I’m unsteady on my feet. How much Jack did I have? Eight, nine shots? More? Fuck, that damn bottle is almost empty. “No, Randi, you don’t want me. You just want someone—something—to fill the void, to distract you from your shitty life.” I can’t let this happen.

Miranda looks hurt, her blue eyes large, glassy, and bloodshot from the alcohol we pounded back, and I think her bottom lip is quivering. “You don’t know shit about what I want,” she says. “I want you. Now. Rony, please. Nobody needs to know.”

I shake my head at her. “Not going to happen, Randi. I’m with Cat. I lo—”

“You love her, I know. But you haven’t seen her in months. Don’t tell me you’re not itching for a good fuck. I know I am. Remember how good it felt when we would—”

“Knock it off,” I say harshly, angry now. “I’m not going to fuck you, Randi. I’d regret it; you’d regret it. Trust me, you don’t want this.”

“Stop fucking telling me what I do and don’t want, Ronan! You have no fucking clue what goes on inside me.”

“But I do!” I shout back. “Because I’ve been there; I’m there right now! One moment you feel like the fucking pain inside you is going to rip you apart, and then the next moment you feel nothing at all, totally numb. So you look for a way to feel something, anything to make you stop hurting for a while. And sex is just convenient, and it’s a powerful fucking sedative. But that’s just it—it’s just a hookup. It feels good for maybe ten minutes, and then you feel like shit afterwards.”

“Is that what I was to you when we were together? A fucking sedative?” Miranda yells, on the verge of tears.

“Randi, please don’t do this!” I say. “Why are you so intent on fucking this up right now?”

“Answer my question, Ronan!”

“I was fourteen, Randi. Life was shit. It’s still shit. Why are you pushing this?” I have no idea what she’s trying to accomplish with this.

“Because I need you, Rony. I always needed you. You’re my person. You make me feel so safe, like you’d never let anything happen to me. And I’m so calm when you’re around. It’s like all the bad shit, all the crap with my dad doesn’t exist when you and I are together. None of it matters. It’s always been like that. You were the only one who made life better for me, and maybe I’m hoping it could be that way again,” she says, her voice clipped as tears stream down her face.

Her words hit me like a ton of bricks. The way she describes her feelings for me mirrors exactly what I feel for Cat.

“It can’t.”

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