Page 92 of Bitter Truths

“Oh?” If he thinks I’m going to feel bad, he’s delusional. This is the least of the punishment those dicks should get, although the collateral damage was not what I expected.

“Yeah,” he says roughly. “I hope you’re happy.”

“Well, I’m not. And I won’t be until I can close my eyes without seeing your fucking faces as you tore apart my insides,” I say, swinging my bag full of groceries toward him.

He steps back, his brows slamming over his eyes. “Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?”

Is this dick serious? How the fuck do I get through to someone who can’t fucking see the reality before him?

Cocking my head to the side, I ask, “Do you have a sister?”

He eyes me warily but nods. “Yes, I have two.”

“So, if your sister drank too much and woke up in the trees behind the house at a party to some jerk fucking her, would you be okay with that? Or how about when she said stop, and his friend covered her face? What about when his friends joined in after?”

“Wh-what?” he says, stepping back.

“Would you be okay with that, Will? Or would it tear you up inside to know those guys treated her like a piece of meat?”

“I don’t—”

“That’s what I thought,” I huff, spinning away and walking home.

No one is there when I arrive, and dropping the groceries on the table, I head straight for the bathroom before turning on the shower and stepping inside. Dropping to the floor, I wrap my arms around my legs and cry because that girl never stood a chance, and now she’s left with the empty realization that nothing she does is going to make the nightmare go away.

And with each confrontation from these dicks who don’t fucking care, she dies a little more inside. What’s it all for if they don’t even understand that what they did was wrong?

Eventually, I step out and stand on the carpet in my clothes, soaking wet and drenched to the bone, but I feel none of it as I stare at the stranger in the mirror, wishing I could go back in time and make sure she never had the chance to fucking emerge.

“Halsey?” Aaron asks through the door.

“Yeah,” I rasp, shivering and grabbing a towel to wrap around me. I didn’t bring a robe, so I’m stuck walking to my room in my clothes, which I would prefer to do without Aaron observing. Some breakdowns are better kept behind closed doors.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m good.” Lie.

“Okay. Well, you have company.”

“Okay, tell him I’ll be out in a minute,” I say, glancing at my reflection in the mirror.

Will Max see the ugly I can’t seem to hide?

When I hear him walk away, I peek out the door and make tracks for my room, only to stop up short when I find Griffin sitting on my bed. He glances up with dark eyes that fade to concern when he looks me over.

“Shit, Halsey, you’ll catch a cold,” he says, standing and grabbing my arm.

“I think that’s an old wives’ tale,” I mumble.

Pulling me around to the bed, he peels my wet clothes from my body.

Numbly, I stand before him, processing that he’s here. He’s fucking here. But I’m struggling to push away the memories that threaten to pull me under. Only when Griffin pauses, his beautiful eyes turning to fire, do I snap out of it.

“Hm,” he says, pulling my shirt from me with an intensity that causes goosebumps to rise on my skin.

When he reveals my boobs in my bra, he sucks in a breath, his eyes dilating, before he unbuttons my jeans and pulls them carefully down my legs.

Dropping to a knee, he wrenches the wet cuffs from my ankles and turns to stare at my core before licking his lips. A pulse of need sails through me, and touching his hair, I smile with all the love and longing I feel when he looks up at me with a stark expression.

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