Page 105 of Leave Me Broken

“Do you feel yourself relaxing for me, baby?” He doesn’t even sound like Ash right now. My mind is taking me to a place I don’t want to go. The pain is causing confusion with reality and what is in my head. Maybe it’s the room. I don’t know, but all of a sudden, it’s not Ash behind me—assaulting my ass.

The grunts aren’t the ones I love to hear from Ash. His calloused athlete hands aren’t the ones gripping my hips, angling me in the way he wants.

I cry, I think. Tell him to stop. Beg him to get off me and remind him I’m not eighteen yet but he doesn’t listen.

Maybe it’s all in my head.

Or maybe it’s not.

Maybe everything has been in my head and the moments with Ash have all been made up. A figment of my imagination to save me from the reality.

I mean, what are the odds Ash Pearson is actually my coach? What are the odds even if he was that he would be in love with me and be the man drilling into my ass?

The girl who gets ass-fucked by her stepdad.

34

Payson

The shower water is cold because no one has paid the bill. I refuse to open my eyes even though I know it’s Ash kneeling in front of me, begging me to open my eyes and look at him. I don’t know when he stopped or how we got in the shower. I don’t know how long we have been here or if he finished the deed first.

“Babygirl, please,” Ash begs, his voice shaky. “I’m, fuck. I-I thought you were moaning. I d-didn’t know you were crying. You didn’t say the word.” His voice cracks, much like my heart hearing it. “You didn’t say the word, Jailbird.”

I didn’t even know who was behind me, how was I meant to remember a word?

“Please look at me. Please, it’s me, Ash. Your boyfriend, your coach, your everything. Please look at me and tell me how to help you.”

My arms are stiff from the cold water, but I lay them across his back and bury my hands in his hair. He sits up and looks up to me with red eyes. I hope that’s from the cold and not because he was crying. I won’t make it if I think my mind made Ash Pearson cry.

I don’t even care about the burn in my ass, I’m just so happy Ash is really sitting in front of me. Unless I’ve actually lost my mind and am so out of touch with reality, he’s real. Everything is real.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him before he can say it to me. “I got lost in my head again, that wasn’t your fault.”

I place a finger over his open lips, silencing him.

“It’s not your responsibility to always save me, Ashley.”

“I will always save you, Payson Murphy.” He pulls me onto his lap and tucks my head into his chest. “We are going to heal your fucked-up mind, babygirl. I don’t care if it takes the entirety of our time on earth, we are going to do this together.”

How can you save someone from themself?

After seeing pink water run down my body and the way Ash reacted to seeing it, I decided it would be best to leave him to finish his shower alone.

Plus my ass is on fire. I was hoping to find Tylenol in the medicine cabinet but as I pull it open and dig around, it’s not Tylenol I find.

Hydrocodone. Rolling the orange bottle, I see that it has my mom’s name on it, but I don’t know why she would have needed this heavy of a drug. She dealt with headaches, but I don’t know what else. Seeing her name sends a weird feeling down my body—an eerie feeling—but it could also be the house. I haven’t felt at peace since we walked in.

I head for my room to get what I want and get the hell out of here as fast as I can. I slip into Ash’s dress shirt and open my closet first. There’s not really much I want, clothes, I guess but I’ve lived this long without them. I grab them out anyway. I think about throwing them on my bed but the blood stain stops me. I toss them on Jason’s bed, then head for my mine and rip the covers off and toss them in the corner.

Everything stops when I open my underwear drawer and only find my boy shorts left. Three pairs of them. I had at least ten thongs and numerous pairs of other underwear in here at one point, and I didn’t bring them to Grandpa’s; they’re just . . . gone. Anger bubbles deep in my stomach, spreading like a forest fire because I know exactly what happened to them, and I hate that I know. I hate that he is always there to be the answer of everything bad in my life.

I grip the dresser and shove it over with every bit of strength I can manage. It’s a cheap dresser so it flies into the wall before tumbling to the ground.

“Payson!” Ash’s panic is heard from here.

“I’m fine!” I call back. “Dresser fell over but I’m fine.”

The shower cuts out and I move onto the boxes at the bottom of my closet.

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