Page 28 of Give Me Perfect Love

He doesn’t even know my story, and yet he’s already decided he loves me anyway.

I blink over to him, swallowing at the sight of how gorgeous he is. In a simple white T-shirt, black jogging pants, and so, so much feeling in his blues.

Blues that I’ve seen in different moods. Guarded, angry, curious, lust-filled, and now love.

Love is my favorite.

Hands down.

I look at the washcloth in my hands, my nervous system tingling at the idea of talking to someone about my past. My palms begin to sweat and my spine prickles. All these years I’ve kept the horrific nightmares I lived to myself. I put them in my filing cabinet and locked the door, but my past has clashed with my future.

My eyes go back to the window and I rub my chin across the cotton of his T-shirt. At least I hope he’s my future. Our relationship has been pretty rocky lately. The heroin use, the girl I saw him with, and, of course, his mom’s overdose.

I have so many things running through my mind it’s overwhelming. Part of me just wants to sleep and forget, but that’s never helped me.

Forgetting and not talking about all of this isn’t the answer this time.

Maybe it never was.

Inhaling, I focus my eyes on the snowflakes falling outside the frosty window and I begin to speak.

I tell him memories that I have of her when I was little. I tell him about Saw’s abuse toward her, and then I tell him how I woke up one day and she was no longer there.

I fill him in on the heroin dealing that I’m sure was going on long before I realized it. When Bethany was there, I didn’t really know, but when she left, he didn’t hide anything.

I tell him how Saw used to speak to me and tell me I was nothing, and then the hard part comes.

The part that I put so far down inside myself, hoping it would dissolve and become dust. I tell Bryce about the sexual abuse. The taking of my innocence. The fighting to keep Saw away from me.

I fill him in on how I used to sleep outside in the field under a blanket of stars, how I knew Mills, about the money I buried, and the moment I walked out of that house. Bryce gives a small smile when I inform him that Claire and my old friend Lucy, who passed a few years back, helped me create a new life for myself.

By the end of it all, the sun has faded in the gray sky, the storm has halted, and my voice is raw. My eyes are puffy from the tears I’ve cried, and my body is spent from finally telling my truth.

“So, you see why I am the way I am now. The mystery of me isn’t really a mystery at all. It’s just a dark, sick past that I lived and wished I didn’t.”

I look over at him, and what I feared is not there.

Sympathy.

Pity.

None of it.

My heart flutters and my eyes water more.

My blue-eyed boy looks at me with love and adoration. He looks at me as though I’ve fought a hard battle and won.

And as I think about everything I’ve been through and where I am now, I believe he’s right.

I have won.

ChapterTen

Bryce

Nothing could have prepared me for the heat of anger I feel inside of my chest. It twists with veins, snapping blood vessels while roping around my bones. It mingles with nerve fibers, snaking its way to my diaphragm before dipping into my soul.

That motherfucker.

---