Page 165 of Unorthodox
“It’s easy,”I told him.
But the real answer is that I can’t.I can’t fucking live with myself.
“He knew,” I tell her, “and he still…he still choseyouoverme.”
Addison’s eyes are lined with tears and I hate her for it. I haul her up by her throat, snatch away her blanket and set her in my lap.
She grabs my upper arms to steady herself and I flinch. “What happened to you?” she whispers, gliding her hands up my shoulders, careful to avoid the gauze. Her hands cup my face and I want to throw her off. I want to hurt her for pitying me.
Instead, I let go of her throat, trail my hands down her waist and grip her tightly as she stares up at me.
“Let go, Max,” she says softly, repeating the words I told her earlier, on the bed, when I was manipulating her. “What happened?”
I want to hate her.
I want to hurt her.
I do none of those things. Instead, seeing her bravery, seeing the way she doesn’t shy away from me, even after what I just did to her, I cling to her small body, jerking her closer to me, until her forehead is against mine as I war with myself.
She fucking betrayed me…but I would have done the same.
Brave.
She’s fucking brave.
“Who hurt you?” she asks.
I close my eyes, see it all flash in my head. My father. His men. The stick. Ollie.Ollie.The gurney. The extension cords. The skin flaying off of my back. The women I was forced to hurt. My mother’s screams. Oliver’s. The blood all over her face, all over my father’s fist.
All over my brother.
My stomach convulses, and I grip Addison tighter.
Her hands move from my face to around my back and she hugs me, as if she’s holdingme, instead of the other way around.
“You can tell me, Max,” she says sweetly, her arms wrapped tight around me. This girl that I’ve broken and used and manipulated and hurt. “I’m not afraid of your monsters.”
I open my mouth to say something, anything, but the only sound that comes out is a strangled sob and I fucking hate myself for it. I hate myself, and I tense, expecting her to push me away. To slap me. To fucking scream at me or hurt me or leave me.
Don’t leave me.
“They used to…my father used to…” I can’t say it. The words are there, trying to scramble up my throat, trying to tear their way out of my mouth, but I can’t say them.
She brings her hand back to my face, pulls away from me just enough to take me in. My eyes snap to hers as she runs her palm over my face, so gentle. “He hurt you.”
I nod, because that’s all I can do.
I can’t tell her.
I can’t tell anyone.
“He let other people hurt you.”
And he made me hurt other people.
My fingers dig into her skin so deep I know it has to hurt but I can’t stop it. My eyes are burning but I can’t cry. I won’t. Not for her. Dante. Evora.
Maybe when I see Ollie’s face.
