Page 212 of Did They Break You

I slap his chest, tears falling freely. “You said!” My words are raw, my eyes blurring as I stare up at him in the dim light. “You lied to me. You lied to me, didn’t you? You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to turn everything upside down and then leave.”

Gone is the warmth in his gaze. The soft words. He just says, “Go home, Remi.”

His words chill my bones. Stop my heart all over again.

He steps out of my touch, jerking his chin to my car, parked haphazardly beside his truck. I’d spun my tires yanking the wheel into this place. Barely remembered to throw the car in park, desperate to be near him.

I drop my hand by my side but don’t move.

“Go home,” he says again, his words colder as he crosses his arms over his chest, his biceps flexing.

The tears are hot but my body feels like ice. “Cortland,” I whisper, hating that I’m begging. Pleading with my tormentor. “Don’t do this.” My words are jagged like the splinters in my heart. “You said?—”

He drops his arms, moving toward me so fast I think he intends to hurt me and I welcome it. Anything. Any flash of emotion. Anything at all. I want it. My heart accelerates again as he gets in my face, my blood heating, the cold gone.

Fight me. Hurt me. Touch me. Feel something with me.

“I know what I said,” he snarls in my face. But he doesn’t touch me, his hands by his sides. “I know what I said, but that was before they tried to burn down your fucking dorm.”

I open my mouth to protest because I don’t care about the dorm and I don’t know who “they” are, but he silences me with his palm over my lips. I smell nicotine, and the familiar scent cuts deep.

“What’s next, huh?” he asks, his nostrils flare, his grip over my mouth tight. “What if next time they don’t fuck it up?”They.That word again.

And I know, in this moment, who he’s talking about.Chase.Chase did that.This.Maybe Maya, too. That’s how he knows.It was them.

“You’re gonna let them win?” I scream beneath his palm. The words are garbled but I know he understood them. I yank at his wrist and he drops his hand but shrugs out of my touch, like I disgust him. Another chip at my broken heart. “You’re going to be a fucking coward?—”

“Go.Home.”He turns his back on me to walk toward the door, but I run after him, jumping on him and trying to wrap my arms around his body. He spins, shoving me backward.

I catch myself before I fall on my ass but just barely.

My heart skips a beat and he looks torn.

Like he wants to help me up. Care for me. Comfort me.

I want to pull up my sleeves and show him the scars on my arm. Manipulate him into giving into me.

But I don’t feel that desperate anymore.

Not like I would have before.

“Remi,” he whispers, watching me stand so still.

I say nothing but I don’t move.

“Remi,” he whispers, the word choked. “You have to… you have to go, baby.”

“I will,” I finally say, my tone cold again. “But I want you to know that you did this to me.”

Silence.

“I was doing better before you got here. I was hiding, and scared, but I was growing and some days, I was stronger.” I don’t look away from him as I take a deep breath.“Brave, huh?”I scoff, bitterness twisting in my chest. “I’m feeling more and more like I was fucking stupid, Cortland.”

He says nothing. Just stares at me.

Beyond him, at the door, I see Storm.

He’s watching me, and he steps outside, his arms folded across his bare chest, his light blue eyes expressionless as he takes me in.

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