Page 81 of Did They Break You

“I’ll see you around, Remi.”

Then he disappears inside, and I lean against the wall, trying to catch my breath, my eyes closed tight.

“I can’t get you out of my head.”

I can’t either, Cortland.I fucking can’t either.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

CORTLAND

By the endof our session, I’m pretty sure Dr. Ravi hates me even more. Turns out, she does know about me. I know what she sees. I’m a spoiled football player who got away with a felony and ruined a girl’s life in the process.

I guess that sums it up.

Even still, I’ve spent the past year fighting back my own urge to pity myself for everything that went down. I think we all have, save maybe for Chase. At first, we banded together. We had the same stories. The same defense.Consensual.That word was tossed around so many fucking times, it started to kind of blur in my mind. Like when you write a word over and fucking over and you start to think you’re misspelling it. I started to think maybe…it was.

The truth is slippery inside my head.

Because you really can believe your own lies.

But then the truth started to eat at us. Atme.

Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was all… gray.

But we stuck with it.

We were—are—a pack. And more than that, she was fucking us all over. It wasn’t just Brinklin. Storm.Chase.

She was going after me, too.

I walk out of Dr. Ravi’s office feeling worse than I did when I walked in, which is saying something considering my mom came by the house to “discuss” how I hung up on her last night before I got here.

That ended with her hand against my face.

Should’ve ended with my fingers wrapped around her throat, but I can’t do it. Putting my hands on my fucking mom, it’s just…I can’t.

I check my phone as I walk out, thinking about what I told Remi.I want to see her.I have a game in two days, and fucking her would get my head on straight, but I know, the way she dug her claws into me, that’s unlikely to happen.

A message from Maya comes up on my phone and all thoughts of sleeping with Remi leave my head.

Maya

I know you saw her. Do you WANT to go to prison???

Fuck.

My stomach flips, but at the same time, I hear Dr. Ravi’s door creak open at my back and she says, “Cortland?”

I tear my eyes away from my phone screen to glance over my shoulder as I arch a brow, my heart beating uncomfortably fast in my chest.

“Did someone hit you?” She touches a manicured nail to her cheek, standing in the doorway right behind me. “Here?” Her voice is gentle, and I hate that.

Her fucking pity.

Just like Remi’s.

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