Page 31 of Bound by Affliction
12
Leah
After what he saw.The words roll around in my head burrowing deeper and deeper into my soul, blackening part of it. This is pity. This is him being the man he is–taking care of someone because that’s the kind of man heis.
I’m aduty.
I’m aresponsibility.
I’m ajob.
Part of me wonders if this has to do with Bristyl and Cooper. Surely, Cooper wouldn’t order Green to stay with me all this time. I’m sure he’s wanted back at the clubhouse. But he won’t leave, and now,after what he saw,he can’t unsee it. Neither of uscan.
The blackness whirls around me and that feeling of falling intensifies. I can almost see that damn cat smiling at me and the clock ticking away the moments of mylife.
“What did I say?” he asks, not giving me the space I so desperately want. He can’t fix this, so there’s no need for himhere.
Scooting the chair away from the table, I rise. “Nothing, but you need to go home.” He goes to deny me, but I hold my hand up. Surprisingly, he silences. “I wish I could bleach it out of my body and wipe everything away, but I can’t. It’s there and will always be there. There is nothing you can do here. I’m not worth the time or the effort,Green.”
He cuts me off, rising and tossing his napkin onto the table, “How about you let me decide if you’re worth it. How about you let me decide when I want to go back to Sumner. How about you let me decide why I’m here and what I’m doing. You don’t get to decide that for me, Leah. You knew the man I was the moment you sat next to me on that park bench, holding you. You knew the man I was with the letters. You knew the man I was with the phone calls and texts. And you damn sure know the man I am when we’retogether.”
Green moves over to me, and I have to look up to meet his eyes. “Why?” I whisper, almost unable to get itout.
“In case you missed it, Leah, I care a fuck of a lot about you. When I got that call, my world stopped. In that moment everything stopped. Just know that I have your back no matterwhat.”
There was more he wasn’t telling me, but I didn’t want to talk so I couldn’t begrudge him either. Besides, what he said was sweet, kind, andcaring.
“Know you want me to go. I’m not, Leah. Unless you want to get on the back of my bike and ride out with me, I’m notgoing.”
This gives me pause, a long one. Go with him? To Sumner? He’s really lost his mind this time. I don’t feel safe in the town I grew up in, how the hell am I going to feel safe somewhere else? My head shakes back and forth, the words lost in mythroat.
“Right.” He pulls me into his body and wraps his warmth around me. I burrow into his chest, feeling his warmth and his strength. Yes, he deserves someone better. Someone who can give him what he just gave me. It sickens me that I can’t and neverwill.
* * *
My hands are strappedto the bed with rope. The knife glistens off the light. It pierces through my flesh, and Iscream.
“Leah!” My name comes through the fog, and I move to it because I know that voice. I used to dream about it and crave it even if it were over a phoneline.
“Leah, baby. Wake up!” he demands. The darkness of the dream has me in its clutches and it’s like trying to get through heavy smog with sticky glue on my feet, but I wade through pulling to thevoice.
My body shakes and I’m almost there. I reach. “Leah!”
Thunderous eyes stare back at me through the moonlit room. Green turns on my bedside lamp, and I blink to adjust to the light. All the while the dream slowly recedes, letting me go from itsgrasp.
“Leah, talk tome.”
Wiping away the dream, his eyes change to concern. Not concerned with the outcome, I wrap my arms around him and burrow myself into his body. The realization hits that this is really my life. Nightmares. Hot showers. Not leaving my place. Fearing the phone even ringing. Jumping when the mailman knocks on the door. All of it is me now, and I break down in Green’s arms that he wraps aroundme.
The sobs are silent but deadly. This isn’t how my life is supposed to be. Getting brutally attacked was never in the cards, but it came and now the deck is thrown up in the air, falling to the floor in a huge mess that I have no idea how to pick up. Yet, Green is here. Holding me. Letting me cry. Reassuringme.
“It’s never going to go away,” I whisper into his chest, not knowing if he can hear me and not sure if I want himto.
“Each day that goes by, it’ll get better. You’ll learn to live with it, carry it close to the vest, learn from it, and live the life you’re meant tolive.”
He takes my silence as a nudge to keepgoing.
“Shit happens in life. Most of it we can’t change, but what we have control over we take it. That gives us the power. But sometimes things happen to good people. When that happens, it makes it harder to move forward because your life before was pretty easygoing.”
