Page 229 of Did They Break You

“I’m not a hero. I never wanted to be. But Remi…I’m yours.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Van mutters.

Tears build behind my eyes, and I forget Storm and Brinklin are watching. I forget Chase is out cold on the floor.

My heart beats too fast, clouding my thoughts, making it hard to think. But I remember the porch. Cortland turning me away.

“We’re leaving, Remi,” Van says, his words lined with impatience.

“I don’t want to,” I whisper. I turn to Van. “I don’t?—”

“Do you see what he’s doing to you?” Van’s tone is angry as he grabs my arm, and Cortland lunges for him but Storm pulls him back, both Van and Storm hauling us apart.“You see what the fuck he’s doing to you?”Van yells those words, his arms around my waist now, holding me back from Cortland.

I push on his forearms, try to shove them down and off of me as I kick my legs, and Cortland attempts to jerk out of Storm’s hold, but Storm is relentless, not letting go, just like Van doesn’t.

“Get your hands off of her?—”

“Oh, like you did when you fucked her up? You haven’t been here the past fucking year!” Van is shouting, yanking me backward, over Chase’s body. “You haven’t seen her crying and trembling and hiding because ofyou!”

“You just want to fuck her, don’t you?” Cortland snarls, his gray eyes full of rage. “I saw you, mother fucker, I saw your hands on her?—”

“And I stopped when she wanted me to stop.” Van doesn’t scream those words. He just says them. Like a fact.

Because it is.

Cortland stops fighting in Storm’s arms.

He just looks at me like for once, he doesn’t know what to say.

Fight for me. Say something to make it better.

But there isn’t anything to say, is there?

“Let’s go, Remi.” Van pulls me back, and this time, Cortland doesn’t try to get to me.

“It was never going to be real, was it?” I call out softly to him.

He just stares at me and I think he isn’t going to speak.

Finally, as Van starts to drag me away, he does.

“It’salwaysbeen real to me, Remi.It’s so goddamn real.”

I stumble backward, turning in Van’s arms, throwing my own around him. He holds me tight.

“Van,” I whisper, the two of us still for a moment.“I don’t feel so good.”

Then everything just...goes black.

CHAPTER

SIXTY-FOUR

REMI

My head is pounding,and I’m sore all over.

That’s the first thing I notice.Everything hurts.

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