Page 104 of Did They Break You

I throw my hands over my face and inhale, trying to swallow the sob that wants to escape my throat, the panic attack pressing in on all sides. I’m squeezing my thighs together so I don’t pee my pants, clamping my mouth closed so I don’t scream.

Then I smell him, the woods on a fall night. Dark and hypnotic.

Bringing me backthereall over again.

I feel his calloused hands over my face, reassuring me as he let his friends…fuckme. And the next morning, I’m in his bed, full of shock.

Nothing but numbness. A hollow silence as I tried to process what had happened.

I’m still not sure if I have.

“Shh, baby,” he says softly, in this moment, my nightmare come back to life. His arms go around me as he pulls me into his chest. I don’t bother fighting him this time. I just sink into his warmth and he holds me tight, his chin on my head. “You’re okay,” he whispers as my shoulders shake, a jagged sob ripping up my throat, past my lips. I can taste my own blood in my mouth, something salty, too. The memories and the present seem to blur, because I can feel him trying to comfort me, even then.

Tears leak past my closed eyes, my hands still over my face as I lean into his hard body, both of us melded together.

I can barely breathe, the way the pain threatens to erupt, but he just squeezes me tighter, as if he knows. As if he’s trying to hold me together.

“It’s okay,” he says again, his words hoarse. Another cry rips through me, an anguished sound of pain in this small room, and it’s like my lungs are collapsing. I can’t quite let it out. I can’t do much of anything except make this pathetic whimpering sound. “It’s okay. Just breathe, baby,just breathe.”

I think of what Silas would say to me when I cried. I think of him coming up to my room after a fight, the door off my hinges, my head buried in my hands.

“You need to eat,” he’d said, a plate in hand.

I had looked up at him in shock. Since Mom died, he never much cared if I ate or starved. My eyes had refilled with tears, another sob breaking through, and with that, his face full of disgust, he’d thrown the plate full of food at me.

The edge of the ceramic had grazed the side of my head, the steak and salad all over my shirt.

“I don’t want to hear that, Remi.”

He’d walked out. Left me to clean up the mess he made.

In this moment, in Cortland’s arms, I cry harder.

“You’re okay, baby. Breathe.”

I try, dropping my hands by my sides and pressing my face to his soft shirt. Those memories in that basement are resurfacing.

And of course, it’s got to be here.

In front of him.

I try to breathe even as I taste the tears like salt on my tongue.

I take a shaky breath in.

Out.

Then I realize what I’m doing, like being drenched in ice cold water after waking up from a nightmare. I’m letting him comfort me. Just like I did that night.

Chase’s nails are running down my back.

“You like that, Remi? What a nasty whore.”

I close my eyes. I can’t feel him. I can’t feel what he’s doing to me anymore, even as my stomach convulses, even as I think his nails might’ve split my skin.

It’s so distant.

It’s like he’s miles away.

---