Page 110 of Behind the Bars

Her heart was broken, and I hated that I hadn’t noticed until she was drunkenly stumbling around in front ofme.

She pressed her body against mine and begged me to touch her, to love her, to pretend I didn’t see the storm dancing behind that chocolate gaze, but I saw it. I saw her, and it broke my fuckingheart.

“Kiss me,” shewhispered.

“No.”

“Fuck me,” shebegged.

“Ican’t.”

Tears filled her eyes, and she started pounding her hands against my chest. “I hate you!” she shouted. She hit me harder and harder. I held my hands up and let her hit me, because I knew it wasn’t me she was shouting at. It wasn’t me she was hitting; it was the demons she pretended weren’t even there. Alcohol had a way of doing that—pulling out the parts of you that you didn’t want tosee.

After a few more seconds of pounding, her anger shifted to pain. She started crying softly at first, and then she slipped into heavy sobs. Her hits slowed down, and she fell against my chest. She started pulling on my shirt, and my hands were still in the air. As she cried, I wanted nothing more than to be her comfort. I wanted nothing more than to wrap up all her hurts and put them into my ownsoul.

“Tell me what you want, Jasmine. I’m here. Tell me what you need me todo.”

“Hold me?” shewhispered.

“Yes.”

“Love me,” shebegged.

Always.

My arms quickly dropped around her frame, and I pulled her darkness against me. I held on to her for what felt like forever, and still, it wasn’t longenough.

I carried her up to my bedroom, laid her in bed, and tucked her in. She wiped at her eyes, which looked like raccoon eyes with her smeared makeup. “Are you sure no sleepover?” she murmured, making mesmirk.

“Maybetomorrow.”

She turned in the bed and hugged a pillow as I went to turn off the light. “She didn’t call me, oremail.”

I leaned against the door and raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

“Mama,” she whispered, her sobbing coming back. “It’s Christmas, and she didn’t write me. She never writes me back. I’ve written her every day since I came here, and she never writesback.”

“She’s a fool,” I toldher.

She laughed, hugging the pillow tighter. “You didn’t write backeither.”

“I’m anidiot.”

“It’s okay, Elliott Adams. I don’t get why Mama won’t write me, because I’ve always tried to make her happy, but I get why you didn’t write back. It was because I’m the reason Katiedied.”

My chest tightened and ached. “What did you justsay?”

“They bullied you because of me.” She yawned. “If I weren’t alive, none of that would’ve happened. Maybe Mama was right—maybe she should’ve never had me. Then everyone would beokay.”

Before I could reply, she was out cold, lightlysnoring.

Why would she think that? Why would she think Katie’s death was onher?

My heart broke for Jasmine. I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through, dealing with her mother’s scorn, having a mother who wished her own daughterdead.

My mother would have given her own life to have her daughterback.

Over the past six years, I’d been dealing with my own storms, never once thinking of the pain anyone else around me was goingthrough.

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