Page 100 of Heat & Deceit
“Oh, Nova,” she whispers, voice shaky with worry.
And that concern breaks me. I release a sob that shakes my entire body, the sound hoarse and so clearly broken. I try to breathe, but my chest hurts. My throat aches and a solid lump forms, making it hard to get the oxygen my body needs. I’m too weak to hold back the tears. Too tired to pretend like everything is okay.
It’s not. I’m not. It’s too much. I shouldn’t have thought I was capable of living a normal life. I should have known better. I should have fucking known. Another cry rises up in me. One filled with years of rage and hurt. One filled with so much pain, I feel my chest crack open as that keening sound spills out of me.
Why the fuck did it have to happen to me?
What did I do to deserve those vile touches?
I wasn’t always this person, but I’m so lost right now, I can’t even remember what it’s like to breathe without remembering every moment. Every moment when I was only prey, only an object for someone to hurt and abuse. There are too many, and they all hit me at once. Suddenly, there’s nothing but those memories. Memories no one deserves to have.
Memories scrawled across a paper, but I don’t have a pencil to scratch them out. I don’t have the strength to grab the edges and rip it to shreds. Flashes of hands. Drugs. Red-lit rooms. Mirrors with my reflection, eyes distant and resigned. Needles used to chase the pain away.
No. Make it stop.
Stop.
Stop.
STOP.
“I can’t,” I gasp, my voice barely a whisper.
“I can,” Kiki says. She squeezes me before steering me inside. “You don’t have to,” she murmurs. “I can do it.”
I cry even harder at her words, feeling unworthy. She’s everything I should be. Everything I’ll never be. I don’t know how to be Nova without my past.
“One step at a time.” She gets me up the stairs. Inside the apartment. To the kitchen for a drink. Into the bathroom. Undressed. I drop into the tub, curling my knees into my chest and resting my cheek on top. The cold porcelain seeps into my bones, numbing me but not those memories. “Can I come in and help?”
I pinch my eyes shut and nod. “I can’t.”
“I can,” she says again, making my eyes open. Her features soften as she looks at me. She peels off her shirt and pants before turning on the water. She climbs in behind me, not giving a shit about the dirt and blood and filth.
She washes away the past two days with a soft cloth and gentle touches. Her care erases that pain, and I wish she could take more than the past forty-eight hours. I wish she could erase the last five years of my life. I wish it had never happened.
I start to cry again, unleashing ugly tears and pain.
Kiki doesn’t say anything. She gently shampoos my hair, fingers lightly scraping across my scalp before instructing me to tip my head back. I stare at the ceiling while she scoops water with her hands and washes the soap away.
I’ve seen movies of mothers doing this to their children. I never knew my mom, but I had Kody. Kody used a cup and stole rubber ducks for me. I snap my eyes closed and scream at my mind to stop, but there’s no stopping it now that the walls are down.
“Will you talk?” I ask, voice small.
She runs her fingers through my hair, conditioning it and slowly working out the knots. “When my dad died...” She pauses and clears her throat. “I felt like I’d lost my whole world. In a way, I did. He was my rock, you know?”
I nod, gripping my knees tighter to my chest.
“I love the guys, but no matter how much love I have for them and how much love they give me, the pieces of me I lost are still gone, and that pain lives deep inside my chest.” She sniffs. “Sorry. It still hurts, and I don’t think that’ll ever go away.”
Kind of like my past.
“And what I’ve learned is that grief isn’t only for someone who’s passed away.” She rinses the conditioner from my hair with tiny handfuls of water. It’s a lot of effort for someone who may not deserve it. “Grief is deep sorrow.” Another handful of water that trickles down my hair and back. “You can’t bottle it up or pretend it’s not there,” she whispers.
“What if I can’t face it? What if I let it out and I break?”What if I’m already broken?I add in my head.
She doesn’t respond for a minute. Instead, she runs her hands over my arms, pressing her chest to my back and resting her cheek on my shoulder. It’s as much of a hug as she can give in this little tub. “Then, you break and we rebuild together. You’re not alone, Nova. So long as I’m here, and the guys are here, you’ll never be alone. We’re family.”
“What if I cry forever?” I ask, eyes watery.
