Page 168 of Broken by my Bully
She props herself up on one elbow, blinking at me through hertears. There’s a nasty scrape on her chest, and it’s only now oozing blood. That stroke of red seems to make her blue eyes pop.
“But sometimes I don’t want to live either.” A tear races down her face, merging with the water droplets covering her skin.
“Jeez, Heavenly, I told you before, just keep at it. One day at a time. That’s what Mom always says. One day at a time.” My arm shakes as I reach out to wipe at the blood beneath her collarbone. “But keep jumping into rivers like that, you won’t have to put up with it much longer.”
She giggles, and it’s like my heart only just started beating for the first time.
“Haven?”
“Yeah?”
“Where’s your bra?”
She stares down at herself, frowning hard. “What you on about?”
A beam of sunlight hits my eyes when I sit up, so I squint at her. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a bra?”
“I’m nine, Kai!” She scrambles into a sit, then crosses her arms over her chest. “I don’t need one yet.”
“Dunno. Pretty sure you?—“
She slaps me so hard I see stars. And then all I see is her stomping along the riverbank, her wet hair clinging to her neck and shoulders, one hand fisted at her side, the other wrapped over her chest.
I still have her blood on my finger, and I use it like paint to draw a matching scar on my chest.
Then I wipe it away with a quick rub of my palm so she won’t see it.
Haven
Kai might as well be choking me again. With his heavy body crushing mine, I can barely get air into my lungs. But I still keep trying to draw in shallow breath after shallow breath.
Not for long.
I’m losing my grip, and I can’t think of a single fucking reason not to let go.
I’ve wanted to many, many times before.
I wouldn’t be alive if Kai hadn’t found me. Befriended me.
And now he’s trying to destroy me.
What happened to that kid who’d risked his life to save mine? Who’d teased me about not wearing a bra? I was furious, but how was he to know I couldn’t afford one?
He could have let me drown that day when the river swept me away. God knows he should have. I’d told him how many times I wanted to die. But he held on when he could have let go. And thenIheld on, because I didn’t want to lethimgo.
I want to let go now.
I’m silently begging him to take the knife digging into my sideand bury it between my ribs. To pierce my thumping heart and make it all go away.
The sadness. The pain.
The guilt.
He’ll do it if I ask. I know he will.
Kai’s mind always lived on the edge of the forest, in the dappled shade blurring the line between dark and light. But something has pushed Kai deep into the shadows beneath the trees.
I can see it in his eyes, the way he studies me for the smallest trace of pain. Memorizing any cut or bruise he can press on later, just to see how much it hurts.
