by Nashoda Rose
“Oh, sweetie, I don’t know. Jesus, I fuckin’ don’t know.”
I had nothing left. Ream had all of me in him and now it was destroyed. “He was my sanctuary. My home. I loved him.” I didn’t even recognize my own voice as the choked words fell from my lips. “He burnt it to the ground.” And all that was left were ashes of me being separated and blown apart in different directions.
Ream undid me.
Crisis picked me up in his arms and carried me out to the car.
The unfamiliar tears became familiar again as they kept spilling down my cheeks like a torrential downpour. I didn’t have the energy to wipe them away any longer as I curled into a ball on my bed in the darkness. The curtains drawn, the door locked, and the insistent knocking of Emily now gone after several hours.
Words had been strangled from my throat. I was unraveling. A shred of paper lifted up in the breeze then pushed around, never knowing where I’d land. Confused and … God, the hurt was so overwhelming that my insides were cramped.
The worst part … the most horrific, agonizing part of it was that I wanted Ream to hold me and take this all away. It was fucked up and yet … the comfort of his arms … but then it hurt more because I knew he’d taken that away and I’d never get it back.
My mind screamed over and over again—why. Why would he do that to me … to us? He wanted to marry me.
But why? Why fight for me then throw it away?
I heard running footsteps and a loud bang then a ruckus as if fighting.
“Don’t you fuckin’ dare, asshole,” Crisis shouted. “Leave.”
“Get out of the way.” Ream’s voice was laced with a husky sound, as if he’d been shouting too much and it was dry and torn.
“Ream, please. Give her time. She doesn’t want to see you right now,” Emily said, and I could hear the crackled tone. She’d been crying and she’d never left, sitting outside my door for hours.
I heard a scuffle and wrapped the sheet around me and ran into the bathroom and locked the door. I got into the bathtub, closed the shower curtain, and sat with the sheet up over my head.
This … everything I was and am at this very moment … it was what I’d been hiding from my entire life. The feeling of no control. Of being weak and vulnerable. Powerless to stop the pain.
I hid behind my flirting, my smiles, and my avoidance of telling anyone about my disease so I never had to feel like this.
Now that had all been ripped and frayed apart … I’d become the person I hated and never wanted to be. I became weak and helpless to the emotions.
“Kat!” Ream’s voice wasn’t weak or vulnerable. No, he was merciless as he yelled my name over and over. “Kat. Open the fuckin’ door.”
I cringed when the pounding on the door started. They were loud hard thuds, and I knew he was trying to kick down the door.
“Kat!” A scuffle. “Get the fuck back, asshole. I have to talk to her.” I heard more wrestling and then the door banged again.
And again.
And again.
I heard the second it gave way to the pressure, the wood splitting and the door hitting the opposite wall. Then footsteps.
I jumped when the knocking started on the bathroom door, but it wasn’t pounding and forceful. It was soft and gentle and that made it worse.
“Baby. Please. Talk to me.” His voice was quiet and yet still threaded with tension. “I swear. What you saw … Jesus, baby, that wasn’t real.” I heard a low curse and his fist hit the door. “It was real, but it wasn’t me. Let me explain.”
I heard a slight thump and it was either his forehead against the door or his palm. I held my knees tighter to my chest, willing all of it to go away. Begging it not to be true, just like I had when I was ten years old. But it had been true. Just like it was now.
Ream cheated on me. He’d lied to me, he fought to open me up, and when he did, it was beautiful. And then he ripped apart the beautiful and made it ugly.
“Christ. I love you. I can’t lose you. Please. We need to talk about this. I’ll tell you, baby.”
His words struck me. It was as if he’d been right in front of me and slapped me across the face. I threw the sheet aside and stormed to my feet. Fury encased me. Love wasn’t lies and broken promises. It wasn’t opening someone up and bringing them into your heart and then tearing their heart out.
The anger burned so deep that when I opened the door and faced him, it was with a red haze of blurred tears. I curled my hand into a fist then swung, cuffing him as hard as I could across the jaw. His head tilted back at the force, but he didn’t move. His hands were braced on either side of the door frame and I could see Emily and Crisis a few feet behind him.
“Did you fuck Molly too?”
He flinched then reached for me. I heard Crisis move toward us and then Ream stepped to the side and slammed the door, blocking out Crisis and Emily. The lock clicked.
“Ream. Open the goddamn door, buddy, or I’ll break it down.”
“Crisis, give me five minutes. Five fuckin’ minutes. You know I’d never hurt her,” Ream shouted back.
A thump on the door. “Sugar? You good with that? If not, I’m breaking down this door.”
Was I? Not really, but Ream standing in front of me looking haphazard, eyes wild, and … yes, there was fear there. I needed to hear this, not to find an excuse to forgive him, but to find more reasons to hate him. “Five minutes.” I heard Crisis walk away, but he swore the entire time.
Ream stepped toward me and I held out my hand. “Don’t you dare fucking touch me.”
He nodded then stepped back until he was against the door. His eyes were glassy and red, he reeked of alcohol, and his T-shirt was on backwards and inside out. The tormented look on his face … guilt. Well, he could rot in that guilt for the rest of his life.
He rubbed his hand back and forth on top of his head like he always did when he was agitated. “Baby—”
“Call me that again and this conversation is over.”
His face contorted as if he’d just been whipped by my words. Then he straightened his shoulders and met my eyes. There was a sudden hardness there and it was dark and cold, and it made me want to escape.
“When I was a teenager … I was a prostitute.”
His words hit me like I’d been punched in the stomach with a battering ram, and I fell backwards until I hit the wall, my eyes wide with shock. The wave of pins and needles that already plagued my body tripled, and I slid down the wall until my butt hit the floor. It was either that or I was collapsing.
Oh God, what? How? Why? He’d cheated on me for money? He ruined us for money? No. No. It didn’t make sense. Ream didn’t need the money. Why would he do that? How could he hide something so … so totally fucked up?
“Bab—Kat, it was a long time ago when I was a kid. Jesus …” He exhaled a long breath of air. “It was to pay off a debt. I didn’t … Christ, Kat, I’m not proud of what I did.”
“So, what? You’re doing it again?” God, I couldn’t even talk about this. What he’d done didn’t make me sick; it was that he was doing it now. That … that he hid it from me after I let him in. I picked up the small stainless steel garbage can and threw it at him. It missed, but it made a loud crash as it hit the wall. “Fuuuckkk. I let you in! I gave you all of me!”
He put his hands on either side of his head and curled his fingers around the short strands before slowly sliding down the door until he sat on the bathroom floor, his knees bent and his head in his hands. “No. Fuck no. Last night …” He looked up at me and there was confusion and bewilderment in his eyes, like he was lost in a nightmare of memories. Like me. “I don’t know what happened last night. I can’t remember shit. I left the bar earlier than the guys. I wanted to get back to you. I planned on cabbing it back to the farm and then I saw Molly outside and we shared a cab. Her place was on the way, but then …” He closed his eyes, brows lowered as if he was thinking. “She was crying about her ex-boyfriend being back, and she w
as scared he was in her place. So I went inside to make sure he wasn’t there.” He looked up at me. “Kat, I can’t remember anything after that. I swear. We may have had a drink together, fuck.” He hit his head with the heel of his hand. “Maybe I said I’d stay a while because she was scared.”
“So you were too drunk to know that you were fucking another guy and a woman?”
“They were her roommates, Kat. I don’t know shit. I can’t fuckin’ remember shit. I woke up an hour ago and Molly told me you and Crisis had been there.”
An ice cold hand gripped my chest and yanked—hard. Lies. To save himself after he ruined me. “Bullshit. Did you fuck Molly first? Who else, Ream? How many other men and women have you fucked since we’ve been together? Were you lying when you told me you hadn’t been with anyone since we were the first time? Drinking too much doesn’t cut it. And you say you used to do it for money? Well that doesn’t get you a fucking pass to cheat on me now. Thank fuck we used condoms because you’re a rotten piece of shit and I want nothing of you left inside me. Ever.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time and I was huddled with my knees to my chest, afraid to look at him, not wanting a single reminder of who he was. I wanted to erase him from me.
“Yeah. I am.”
His husky whispered words made me look up and it was a mistake. I witnessed the tear teeter on the edge of his right eyelid then in slow motion, it dropped onto his cheek. The debilitating ache in my chest tore a scream from my throat, and I scrambled to my feet.
I needed out of here. I had to get out of here now. “Let me out. I want out.”
Ream slowly stood and the devastation was clear on his face, the pursed lips, the drooping eyes, the trembling in his hands as he raised his arm to run his hand through his hair.
He moved to the side and I approached, weary and afraid he’d touch me. Because I couldn’t handle him touching me again, the last pieces of me tentatively held together would crack. Who was I kidding? I’d already cracked.
I turned the doorknob and his whispered words hit me. “You always did deserve better than me, beautiful.”
I don’t know why his words hit me so hard, because I did deserve better than a guy who cheated on me. But it was more than that. He’d always said that to me. He never thought he was good enough for me and now I knew why.
If he hadn’t cheated on me, if he’d told me of his past … I knew with everything in my heart that I would’ve loved him still. I’d have accepted that part of him because it made him who he was today. I understood why he’d said women were always just objects to him. It made sense. He used them; it had been a job. Had? No, it was.
I walked straight into Emily’s arms, and she wrapped me in her warmth as she led me away. I don’t know where we went, just that she held me for a really long time until I finally slept.
***
Days went by in a haze of grief stricken pain. Matt stayed at the farm the first few days leaving the bar to Brett to look after. Between him, Emily, and the guys I was forced to get out of bed every day and function. Georgie even came over and slept in my bed with me for two nights, holding me in her arms and never saying anything—so unlike her. Somehow she knew the silence was what I needed.
Ream disappeared. He’d even left his new phone on the kitchen counter. Everyone knew what had happened, that he cheated on me, but I didn’t mention what Ream said about his past. Maybe it was because I owed him for keeping my secret.
My symptoms were bad, the pins and needles affecting my hands and sprinkling across my stomach as well as my legs. I woke up every morning uncertain whether I’d be able to wash my hair because I’d lost feeling in my arms if I held them above my heart for too long.
I took the pills in my nightstand, the valium to help settle my nerves. Some people took marijuana to help calm the symptoms, but the few times I tried it my heart started racing like mad and I didn’t like it. The small amount of valium was enough to calm the tingles and relax the nerves that were short-circuiting.
After a week Logan asked if I knew where Ream was. I asked him if he’d checked Molly’s. It was a sassy remark and Logan wasn’t impressed, although he let it slide. I think he got what I was going through because he ended up pulling me into his arms and hugging me.
I was hurting and knew I would for a really long time. The only reason I even stuck around and didn’t move to Matt’s condo to get away from everyone was because of Clifford. He was the only one I could talk to and often at night I’d slip out of bed and go into his stall and sit and cry where no one would hear me. There was no judgment. Clifford just nudged me with his nose or stood and quietly munched on his hay.
It was three weeks and still no one had heard from Ream, and even I was getting concerned. I hated him for what he did, but love didn’t die in a moment’s reckoning. Love was too powerful to just vanish.
I heard the creak of the barn door and then the soft footfalls on the cobblestone coming toward me. I didn’t have to look up to know it was Emily.
“Kat, it’s been three weeks.” Emily put her hand on Clifford’s shoulder and he curled his neck around so he could nibble on her shirt. “No one’s heard from him. Please. If you have any idea where he might be …”
I continued to brush Clifford’s barrel then moved to his red dappled rump. Emily yelped and I knew Clifford had nipped her. My horse stomped his foot when she shoved his muzzle away.
“I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important, but … if he’s in trouble we need to help him. He’s an asshole. A low piece of shit for what he did, but he left here all fucked up and … Kat, we’re worried.”
Worried about him? I was going crazy without him. Insane. Hurt. I wanted to find him so I could hit him again. I wanted to find him so I could look at him and know without a shadow of a doubt that I hated him. That I did the right thing. Every single day it hurt to open my eyes and face another day without him. Knowing what he did to destroy us … for what? An unemotional fuck?
“I gave him everything of me. He took it and I can’t get it back. Do you know what that’s like? Waking up every morning and being faced with hating the man you swore to love for the rest of your life.” I leaned my forehead on Clifford’s flank, and his sides quivered like a butterfly’s wings against my skin.
Emily rested her hand on my arm. “Yeah, Kat, I do.”
I looked up at her and saw the tears in her eyes. Yeah, she did. She knew exactly what I was feeling right now because she’d hated Logan at one time.
“What he did was wrong. I hate that he did that to you, Kat. Christ, I want him to come back just so I can beat on him. But Crisis is his best friend and he says he’s never taken off like this before. It’s been too long, Kat.”
“Why do you think I’d know where he is?” But I suspected. It wasn’t like I knew exactly where it was, but the cottage was the only place I could think of that he’d go.
“You do, don’t you?”
I hid my face in Clifford’s shoulder and nodded. “He was in me, Eme. Now … God, I feel … I feel so empty and alone. He made me weak, and I hate that he did that to me.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Emily folded me into her embrace, her hands stroking my back. “You’re never alone. And you’re the strongest woman I know. You lost your parents, then given this disease, living every single day never knowing what will happen to you … you’ve never complained. Never felt sorry for yourself. Kat, just because you’re hurting over what Ream did to you doesn’t make you weak, it makes you human.”
I’d become his. I was his and yeah a part of me would always be his. But I wanted me back. He didn’t get to keep a part of me.
Footsteps entered the barn and I pulled away from Emily and put up my wall again.
Emily squeezed my arm then I heard her whisper, “Sorry, Georgie called him.”
Before I had the chance to reply, she escaped. When I turned around, I saw Deck striding toward me. Guess he was back. And he looked like shit.
Th
e barn door shut behind Emily.
He stopped across from Clifford and leaned against the stall door, arms crossed and his stance … yeah, impenetrable. Shit. His eyes were weary and tired with black circles beneath. His clothes were wrinkled and his usual shaved head was no longer. He had at least a week’s growth of hair on his face, and he still appeared hot with his lean muscular body and tats peeking out from the sleeves of his shirt. He was all darkness, brows, eyes, and personality. I was used to his scariness, but today … Deck looked murderous.
“What’s up, Deck?” I tried to act like I always did and put my hands on my hips but that didn’t feel right under his direct gaze, so I turned away from him and picked up a curry and started to brush Clifford with it. “How’s Georgie? Carry her out of any bars recently?”
“Came straight here from the airport. And you know exactly why I had to come straight here, so cut the crap. I have more shit than I know how to deal with right now.”
I fumbled with the brush and it landed with a thud on the cobblestones. Shit, he was seriously pissed off and it was directed at me. “Ream?”
“That should be a statement, not a question, Kat.” God, he was in a foul mood. Deck usually had a smidgen of sympathy in him, and yet he had none for me. Well, I didn’t want his pity anyway. I just wanted him to get lost. “Now drop the attitude. I have forty-eight hours to get back to my men.”
“Then I guess you better stop talking to me and go do whatever Georgie called you here for.” Yeah, I knew Deck wouldn’t have come back just for Ream’s sake; he came back because Georgie asked him to.
Deck didn’t move and from the corner of my eye. I cautiously watched him. I knew he killed people, and I knew he could do it easily without a second thought at ending a life.
“Ever seen your best friend blown up right in front of you?” The brush dropped from my hand. “It’s not fuckin’ pretty. Being too far away to do anything. Having to run for cover instead of running toward your friend to see if there is even the slightest possibility of saving him. But you can’t because bullets are like sideways rain and you have seven other men who need you.” I steadied my hands on Clifford, and the horse must have felt my nervousness because he started shifting his weight. “Then when you do manage to go back, his body is unrecognizable. Ashes. Not even dog tags to take back to his family.” I looked up at him, fingers curled into Clifford’s mane. I knew who he was talking about—Riot, Georgie’s brother and his best friend. He watched me, his gaze unwavering.