Page 162 of Boy of Ruin
His own body shudders, but I can’t hold him.
I can’t.
Not now.
“I thought you never loved me, when you left.” His arms are tighter around me, and there’s a lump in my throat that I can’t break through even as I cry in his arms. “I thought you’d never come back. And I’m scared, Lilith. I’m fucking terrified I’m never going to be okay again. I see him.” His words are so broken, and he pulls back from me, leaving me disoriented.
He slides down against the glass door, coming to the floor, his fists against his temple as he bows his head. “I fucking see him, every time I close my eyes. And I see Jeremiah fucking you. Raping you. And I see…everyone that hurt you. Everyone I fucking burned for you.”
I stare down at him, torn between going to him, and leaving him. Between thinking he deserves this shit and thinking I should’ve been better.
I should’ve been better.
“But what does it do for you?” I ask him, biting my lip as I take a step back, his head still in his hands, his shoulders shaking. I don’t want his pain to vanquish mine. He can’t do that to me. He can’t fucking manipulate me with that. “What does it do for you to fuck her? Are you in love with her?”
He picks his head up, his eyes bleary, those shadows so thick beneath them. I don’t know if he’s sleeping at all. Has he been fucking her in our bed?
I think I’m going to ask it, it’s on the tip of my tongue, but his red rimmed eyes connect with mine and he says, “I’m in love with you. I’ve only ever been in love with you, Lilith.” His hands are on his knees, and he’s so fucking tall and so strong but sitting on the hardwood floor, crying at my feet, he looks like a child.
“But it…makes everything stop. The sex makes it all…stop.”
“That’s your excuse?” I counter, shaking my head. “Your excuse for fucking her while I’ve been holed away with Mav—”
“I haven’t,” he cuts me off, his eyes narrowing, jaw clenching. “I haven’t fucked her since you’ve been back. Not until tonight.”
“Why?” I ask, wanting to scream. Wanting to hit him again. To shake him. “Why would you do that to me? To us?”
“I wanted to know if it hurt you, as much as it hurt me, thinking of him fucking inside of you.” He stands, comes toward me. His hands come to my face, and he pulls me close as I stay rigid in his arms. “I wanted to know if you ever gave a fuck at all—”
“Get off of me.”
He blinks at me, surprised. So, fucking shocked, because since we’ve met, he’s been calling the shots. Controlling me. Dominating me. Belittling me.
I know he’s going through some shit, but what he did…
“Get the fuck off of me.”
Shocking me, he drops his hands.
Steps back.
Then he groans, a low, throaty sound just before he turns to the television against the wall, opposite the bed, and yanks it off the mount.
He throws it to the floor, the cord unhooking from the outlet, and the sound of it shattering on the hardwood makes me flinch. My limbs feel shaky, and I’m holding my breath, watching him.
He’s not done.
There’s a desk in the corner of the room, a spare laptop plugged into charge. He stalks to the desk, grabs the computer and throws it against the sliding glass door.
My mouth drops open, my pulse pounding in my ears.
He upturns the desk, smashes it into the wall, two of the legs snapping.
“What do you want from me?” he screams, turning to face me, his bare chest heaving. “You fucking run one minute, you cut a girl over me the next? What the fuck do you want, Lilith?”
He brings his hand to his pocket, pulls out a knife, one like I have. One that is mine. He thumbs the blade, brings the tip to his inner forearm, and before I can breathe, he drags it down, hard, blood oozing in the wake of the blade.
“You want me to die for you? You want me to fucking die for you, too?” He keeps dragging it up his arm, another long line of blood dripping, his already pale complexion even more ashen.
