Page 199 of Broken Pieces

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This is it.

Home.

For the next seven fucking years.

I walk straight to the bed and drop down.

Fuck.

I can still see it. The second it landed. The way her eyes went wide, stunned and full of tears she refused to let fall. The way her lips parted to survive the hit.

And I fucking broke her.

With the one thing she trusted.

Me.

My voice.

The same mouth, once telling her she was the only goddamn thing that ever made sense.

I told her she was nothing. Called her an easy fuck. Told her I never loved her.

And I watched it crush her.

Watched her pull into herself, small and shaking, trying to hold it together in a room full of strangers while I sat there pretending it didn’t kill me to do it.

But it did.

It felt like driving a fucking sledgehammer into my own chest. Blow after blow, straight to the ribs.

I wanted to throw the table across the room and pull her into my arms and tell her the truth.

That she is everything.

That I fucking love her with a force strong enough to burn this place to the ground.

That I see her when I close my eyes. Hear her voice when this place gets too quiet.

But I can’t let her ruin her life for me.

She doesn’t belong in this world.

Not during visiting hours and scheduled phone calls.

She deserves more than the walls closing in around me. She deserves more than a boy who’s nothing but a record and a number now.

So I did the only thing I could.

I pushed her away hard enough to make sure she wouldn’t come back.

And it fucking hurts.

God, it’s fucking killing me.

Every breath. Every second since I walked out of that room.

But the pain is easier to carry than the thought of her throwing her entire future away for a broken boy with blood on his hands.

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