Page 107 of Did They Break You

“Cortland…” I whisper his name, but it still comes out as a moan. His fingers prick over my scalp, causing the little hairs on my body to stand on end.I only wanted you. I only ever wanted you.

“Is this how it’s always going to go?” he demands. “Is that what you’re always going to be, baby?”Thosewords aren’t harsh. They’re quiet as he runs his fingers through my hair, my body drenched in sensation. His lips are hovering over mine, the cool metal of his piercing scraping my bottom lip. “My littlevictim?”

My face heats with those words, and I’m thankful for the darkness, but I don’t speak.

“Yeah,” he scoffs at my silence. “You’re not afraid of me. Stop being weak.” His mouth touches mine. “You know I won’t hurt you.You’re not fucking afraid of me, pretty baby.”I hear something like anger in his words.

My heart is in my throat and I don’t know what to say.Am I afraid?I was that night. I was terrified. But this isn’t that night. And I’ve spent an entire year being afraid,of everything.The dark. Strangers. The smell of alcohol. Horror movies. Being alone with my thoughts. My stepdad.

But with Cortland around, it’s like I started to change. Like when I bit him. When I dug my nails into his skin.When I slapped him.

This past year, I’ve been thankful for his absence.

Thankful, and scared, and stunted.

Do I need this to grow?

Will facing him make it better?

“Say something, Remi.”

My voice is hoarse when I do as he demanded. “You ruined me.”

He stills, and it’s like neither of us are breathing.

His hand comes to the side of my face, his fingertips skimming along my jaw.

“Is that why you fucked me over?” That’s a whisper, soft and low, but he drops his voice to something like a growl when he asks, “Because you thought you wereruined?”He sneers the word, and nerves run down my spine, my skin tingling in its wake. “You thought I’d judge you? You thought I’d leave you?” He shifts his thigh between my legs.

The warmth in my belly travels lower and I close my eyes, knocking my head back against the wall as I tilt my chin up.

“Is that why you’re really mad? Because we shared you, Remi? Because your first time wasn’t rose petals and fucking candles and whatever bullshit you thought it should be in your head?” Those words are a snarl.

I don’t open my eyes.

Cortland presses his leg between my thighs, moving faster. The pressure feels good, and the pressure inside of me is building, growing.

I know I should stop. Scream, maybe, or at the very least, push him away. They asked me about that so many times, the detectives.“Did you tell them to stop? Did you scream? How did you fight? What happened when you did? Did you say the word ‘no’?”

I couldn’t remember. I didn’t know.

“Who taught you to believe in fucking fairy tales?” Cortland’s breath is on my neck and I shiver again, dig my nails into my palms as I close my eyes tighter, wanting to flee and needing him to keep rubbing his thigh on me. Needing the material of my underwear shifting against my pussy with every move he makes. “Life can be whatever you want it to be, Remi. It can be dark and chaotic and dirty. It doesn’t mean you’reruined.”He spits that word out with venom. “It means you’re messy. And I fuckinglovemessy.”His tongue comes over the side of my throat and Igasp, biting my lip. It’s like I canfeelhim smile against my skin when he says, “That’s it, baby. Moan for me.”

He licks a line up to just under my ear, then he pulls my lobe between his teeth as he pushes his thigh further against me, stroking me up and down with his leg.

I clench my thighs around his, tilting my pelvis, wanting more. Wanting my pants off, and his too.

I’m burning up in this hoodie, and I want to cross my arms over my chest and pull it off. I want nothing between us, but I know if I open my eyes, the bubble will burst. We’ll go back to what we really are.

A girl that got fucked up, and a boy that got away with it.

He slides his hands down to my shoulders, his thigh still moving between us.

He runs his palms over my sides, then skims his fingers under the edges of my hoodie, against my bare skin.

I close my eyes tighter.

“Yeah,” he whispers, “keep your eyes closed.” I’m shocked he can tell, but I don’t dare open them. “Pretend it isn’tmewhose touching you.” His words are full of venom, like he hates that. The fact that I have to disappear inside myself, pretend his fingers sliding under the edges of my sweats aren’t his.

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