Page 106 of Did They Break You

I meant what I told him. There hasn’t been anyone since that night, save for my own hand.

Part of me hates that. I want to fuck someone just to get him off of me, and I’ve tried, but it ends with me mumbling apologies, feeling ashamed. I’m terrified. I don’t know what toexpect. I don’t know if it’s okay anymore. I don’t know how tobewith my body around someone else.

Sometimes I want a new one. I want to start over.

But with him, in the graveyard, it was almost…easy.

I shove that thought from my mind.

“Cortland,” I say on a ragged breath. “You need to go.”

“Is that what you want?” he presses, dropping his head close to mine. I feel his clean breath dance on my mouth. “You want me to go? Is that what youreallywant, baby, or have you been lying to yourself, too?”

“Too?” I whisper, my breath catching as I stare up at him.

His hands come to my hair, tangling through my orange strands, his fingertips grazing my scalp as he softly pulls my hair down so I’m looking up at him, just a shadow in the darkness. My entire body is wound tight, heat flushing through me with his hands on me.

“Have you hurt yourself again?” he whispers, his breath along my lips.

Discomfort eats at me, but I can’t run from him. Not with him pinning me against the wall. “Cortland?—”

“It’s okay,” he says, nudging his nose against mine. “It’s…you feel alive when you do it, don’t you?”

My entire body flushes hot. I’m glad he can’t see me in the dark. “Yes,” I breathe, honest for once.

He groans, dipping his head to my neck, his fingers still tangled in my hair. “I want to be that for you. I want to make you feel fucking alive.” He shoves his body further against me, and it’s hard to breathe, but I don’t know if it’s from the pressure, from the ache in my scalp, the angle of my neck, or this conversation. “This past year, Remi, you haven’t left my fucking head. And I hate you for that, you know. I hate what you did to me, because I don’t have time to think about you.”

Those words hurt.

His thumbs graze the side of my face, close to my ear, and a shudder runs through me. “And I need to know, baby. It wasn’t all bad, was it?” he asks, and his voice is almost desperate.

I hear my own shallow breaths between us, feel my chest rise and fall. I can’t see him at all, and in some ways it makes it easier to stay here, like this. To pretend this is all a dream. This is all a nightmare.

I can say what I want like this. In the darkness.

“Did you hate every minute of it?” he whispers. “Or just the parts that weren’t with me?”

That warmth flushes through me again and I close my eyes, shaking my head.

“Tell me the truth, Remi.I need to know.”

I don’t say anything, clenching my jaw shut.He doesn’t deserve my truths.

“Do you know how long I would’ve gone to prison?” He presses his brow to mine.

That question, I can answer. “Hopefully, a long, long time.”

He clamps his hand over my mouth. “I could’ve gone for ten years.Ten fucking years.”He laughs, but there’s no humor in it as he slides his hand down my mouth. “I wouldn’t have gotten out until I was almost thirty, Remi.”

“And I’ll carry this for the rest of my life, so I think we’re even, don’t you?”

His fingers tighten in my hair and his grip is nearly painful, pricking at my senses, right on the verge.

But I don’t want him off.

For once, I want him to stay right here. I want him to face what he did to me.

“You never wanted me?” he counters, an edge to his words. “You weremine.”I can feel his breath skating across my face, minty and warm as he keeps talking. “Who did you want?”he presses, his body shifting closer to mine. His thigh coming between my legs.

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