Page 72 of Heart Sick Hate

The familiar nightmare once more sitting on the edge of my mind, reminding me what I’ve done. Why I’m sick. Where I went wrong.

Why I can’t back out on my commitments.

Crew is crouched down outside my car door with a pinched expression. I slept the entire drive to his apartment. And between the ledge I’m resting on from my memories, and my exhaustion from the night, I don’t have the energy to ask him why he didn’t drop me off at mine.

“Sorry.” I brush my pigtails off my shoulders and take a deep breath. “Nightmare.”

He nods, his dark hair falling just over his eyes as the gray orbs watch me.

I’ve always recognized a familiar darkness in him, even when I hate him. Something deep that rots Crew’s soul, the same way memories rot mine. Witnessing death at a young age will do that to you.

My mom.

His.

It shouldn’t settle me that he understands the pain from my past, but it does. It carved us into the misshapen creatures we are. Wounded in ways that can’t quite be understood.

We’re pieces.

Yet somehow, mine fit with his. If only they could make me whole.

Crew reaches out his hand, letting it hover.

As cruel as he is at times, he pauses, not touching me as I adjust to my fading nightmare. It’s safety I shouldn’t feel as I slip my hand into his palm and let him help me fromthe car. Things he can’t ever be in the long run because it’s not who he is.

It messes with my head. Because understanding his aggression and expecting his volatile nature is one thing, but care is another.

That’s not his role, it’s supposed to be his brother’s.

But tonight, Crew was the one there standing up for me when I’ve always been left to fight my own battles. He was there making someone bleed for their lack of respect.

What does it say that he wants me safe to such an extreme extent?

Rhett’s warnings blare as Crew guides me out of the car, watching me tug his leather jacket closed over my chest. If Rhett is right, and Crew’s only using me until he loses interest, when will it happen?

How much is enough?

There’s already so little of me left.

Crew wraps his arm around my shoulders and guides me into his building. He blocks the doorman’s view of me, and I’m thankful, given I’m a mess of dirt, tears, and so much more. He holds me at his side in the elevator and doesn’t lose his grip on me.

“Better now?” he asks, looking down at me.

I nod.

“Do you get the nightmares often?”

“Some months more than others.”

And lately, they’re more frequent. Little triggers and I’m flooded with evil I’m not sure I’ll ever escape. Hands on me when I didn’t welcome them—thinking they deserve to take what they want without asking.

Tonight, at the bar, when the biker closed in on me, for a moment I froze. Bile rising and needles prickling my skin. It doesn’t matter how strong I am, or how quickly I slipped out of it, for a moment I was that twelve-year-old girl again, waking up in bed with an unfamiliar man sitting on it.

Fear splitting me in half.

Crew stops us at his apartment door and unlocks it, waiting for me to walk in first. It’s dark, with a woodsy, warm scent hanging in the air, even if the room is cool.

I shouldn’t be here, but instead, I let Crew guide me to his bedroom.

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