Page 116 of You Were Always Mine
But I’m already gone. Already picturing Tyler’s throat under my hands. Already deciding how slow I’ll make him scream.
“Where, Scar.” My voice is nothing but ground glass. “Say it. Every fucking inch. Make me hear it.”
Her sob catches, and for a moment I think she’ll stay silent. But then—broken, trembling—her hand drops, guiding mine, forcing me to feel.
“Here,” she whispers, dragging my fingers across the inside of her thigh. “In the cinema. While everyone laughed at the movie, he—” Her breath splits into a sob. “He shoved his hand up, Kai, he wouldn’t stop. I told him no, and he just?—”
I rip my hand back like she’s burned me.
The cinema.
That night.
The night she came home with her mascara streaked, the night she couldn’t even look at me, the night she begged me—please, replace it, make me feel something else.
It hits me like a blade through the ribs.
My chest caves, my vision going white at the edges as it all locks into place. She wasn’t just desperate. She wasn’t just broken. She was running away from him. And I—fuck—I let her crawl onto me, I let her beg, I made it worse.
“You cried,” I choke, more to myself than to her. “That night—you came home, and you were fucking shaking. And I thought—I thought it was me. But it was him. He did that.”
Her eyes squeeze shut, more tears spilling, and I hear the knife twist inside me when she whispers, “You’re the reason I wanted it, Kai. You’re the reason I begged. After him,all I could think was—if it has to be someone, let it be you. At least, you.”
The words gut me.
I stagger back a step, my knuckles pressed to my mouth as if I can physically hold myself together. My lungs won’t fill, my heart’s tearing itself apart trying to climb out of my chest.
Because I wanted her broken. I wanted her begging. And now I know—I was her bandage, her way to claw the rot out of her skin.
And I’m the one who put the stain deeper.
The second she whispers it—the cinema—I’m not standing anymore. I am sinking and sliding down the wall as if someone ripped my bones out. My chest won’t work, my lungs are clawing at nothing, and my fists are dripping with blood from hitting plaster, but I can’t even feel it.
Scar’s still crying, her voice so small it guts me. And all I can hear underneath it is my own roar inside my skull—you were supposed to protect her.
I press my hands over my face, digging my nails into my skin hard enough to draw blood, because I can’t look at her. I can’t fucking look at her knowing I touched her after—knowing she begged me to erase him, and I didn’t see it, I didn’t see her.
“Scar…” My voice breaks open, torn and useless. “Jesus fuck—I let you down. I let him touch you, and then I—” I choke, can’t even finish the thought. My head tips back against the wall, tears burning down my temples, soaking into my hairline. “I should’ve known. I should’ve ripped him apart the second his eyes landed on you.”
She reaches for me, fingertips brushing my wrist like she doesn’t care about the blood or the ruin. And that’s what finally kills me. That she still reaches.
I grab her hand and press it to my chest, right over the heart that feels like it’s detonating. “You’re everything, Scar. You don’t understand. You are fucking everything. And I failed you.”
My body shakes so hard it feels like I might split open. I’m whispering it over and over, a prayer and a curse against her skin. “I failed you. I failed you.”
Her fingers press harder against my chest, right over the spot that won’t stop burning, and then her other hand is on my face. She doesn’t hesitate; she doesn’t flinch from the mess I’ve made of myself. Her thumbs swipe at my cheeks like she can erase the tears, like she can put me back together when I’m the one who broke her first.
“Stop,” she whispers, and it shreds me worse than any scream. “You didn’t fail me, Kai.”
The words barely scrape out of her throat, but they land like fire. My head shakes hard, violently, because she’s wrong, she has to be wrong, and I can’t breathe with the weight of it.
But then she’s closer. She kneels between my knees, and then she presses her forehead against mine, dragging me down. Her scent in my lungs, her breath against my lips. Her voice breaks as she says, “You didn’t fail me. You’re the only reason I can still stand.”
My whole body jerks, as if those words hit a live wire straight through me. My hands come up, trembling, and I cup her face even though I don’t deserve to touch her. My blood stains her jaw, and she doesn’t pull away. She leans into me.
“I’m not strong without you,” she says, softer now, like it’s a confession. “So stop trying to push me away.”
I can’t even fight it. Not when she’s looking at me like that. Not when she’s giving me something I swore I’dnever deserve. My forehead drops to her shoulder, and I breathe her in like she’s oxygen, like she’s the only thing keeping me alive.
