Page 22 of Pulse
“He was going to kill a man for you, Ren. Fucking hell.”
I dropped my head into my hands. “He told me that he didn’t want me. That he couldn’t-”
“Couldn’t what? Love you? Fuck that shit,” she declared, getting pissed. “I saw the way he looked at you when you took me to that Underground hellhole. That was motherfucking love Ren Miller.”
“I didn’t even know he had a sister!” I cried. “I didn’t know he’d been to prison! I didn’t know shit about anything!”
Josie knelt in front of me, grasped my shoulders and shook me hard, her eyes wild. “Listen to me,” she hissed. “If Violet was attacked like you say, don’t you think she might be afraid to come all this way on her own?”
I glanced up at Josie, her words striking a chord of compassion deep inside me. Ash kept things from me in a futile attempt to protect me from the assholes that wanted to bring him down. I was strong, I knew that. My childhood had made me tough, it’d conditioned me to stand up and fight. I didn’t know Violet, but maybe Josie was right about her. She’d been quiet, almost skittish, when she came into Beat. Maybe it’d taken a lot for her to ask for my help.
“Maybe…”
“Don’t you think she came here out of fear for her brother? Ash, who sacrificed everything to save you from that rapist asshole Hammer? Because that’s what he did, Ren. He risked going back to prison for you. He’s just adeadshitman who had to hurt you with empty words to protect you from the fallout.”
Despite my hard shell, a tear slipped out and trailed down my cheek. I knew now that I was falling in love with Ash Fuller, but I wasn’t sure that was enough to get us through, let alone give me the courage to go see him.
Josie pulled me into her arms and rubbed her hand on my back, soothing me as I let a few more tears escape. Somewhere along the line, I’d forgotten to cry. I’d cried so much when Mum passed away, I thought I’d cried my entire life’s worth of tears and that the well was dry. Seemed I hadn’t met a certain beast yet.
“Okay?” Josie asked pulling back.
I nodded.
“Are you going to go see him? I can come with you if you want.”
I shook my head. “Ash and I…” I sighed. “We were both broken…are still broken…but we fit. Our brokenness matched.”
“And you thought you could help each other?”
“Yeah. I wanted to, but…” I shrugged.
“He left you.” Josie finished the sentence that was too hard for me to even think, let alone speak.
“Without an explanation.”
“Until his sister showed up.”
“Maybe I should be with you,” I said, trying to make a joke. “You finish all of my sentences.”
“I’ve told you this before Ren. I like penis.”
“It’s just…how much loss and abandonment can one person take before they lose hope?”
Josie sat beside me again and wound an arm around my waist. “I don’t know where you came from Ren Miller, but you’re the strongest woman I know. And you know I don’t say shit like that without meaning it. I think if you don’t go see him now, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
What would I even say? Hell, what would I find when I got there?
Ash was the strongest man I ever knew. If he was as broken as Violet said, would that change my opinion of him? I wanted to see him as the same man who’d come into Beat and took me out there on those mats. He took me and made me his and I made him mine. What if I went there and there was no hope of making him mine again? What if it was too late?
What if what he said to me that night was true? That he didn’t love me. That he couldn’t...
God, what was I supposed to do?
