by Chloe Walsh
"We can fix this, Keychain," he soothed, pulling my panties down my legs. "I can make this better again."
"Stop," I begged, but my voice betrayed me. I tried again, "Jordan, please don’t," but all that came out was a low, strangled moan as he pushed himself inside my body.
My heart was slowly freezing in my chest.
Each breath that blew from my lips was frostier than the last.
I was dying inside.
His touch was loving and gentle, and I wanted none of it.
My skin crawled with deceit and shame.
But I didn’t stop him.
I just laid there.
He wasn’t hurting me.
He wasn’t.
But I needed him to stop.
"Please," I whimpered. "Please don’t do this…"
"I love you," was all he continued to say. "Love me back. Please, just love me back."
I do, I tried to say, but I don’t want this.
Nothing came out.
Trapped in my own skin, and burning with self-loathing, I bit down hard on my lip, and tried to make sense of what was happening to me.
Why was this happening?
Why wasn’t he stopping?
Couldn’t he hear me?
The feel of his bare flesh, the weight of his body, as he pressed heavily down on me, screamed danger!
And still, I remained motionless, my body numb to his frenzied onslaught of affection.
"I won't let him ruin us," he choked out, as he thrust inside my body over and over. "I won't let Paul break me." His soft breaths and grunts quickened. "Tell me you love me, Hope." His movements grew faster and deeper. "Please, tell me you love me."
Shaking violently, I turned my head to one side, clenched my eyes shut, and whispered, "I love you," as the tears spilling down my cheeks drenched the pillow.
****
Chapter Twenty-One
Hope
I felt hollow inside.
Like someone had thrust a jagged piece of glass inside of my body and scraped.
Like my freedom had been taken from me, along with my dignity and choices.
Physically numb and emotionally paralyzed, I tried to make sense of what had happened.
How I felt?
What he had done?
I couldn’t comprehend it.
No.
I said no.
But he didn’t stop.
But I didn’t push him away either.
Did that mean I wanted it?
Did my body want his touch?
Because my heart and brain had screamed no.
And still, I didn’t fucking move.
The only thing I knew for certain was that I didn’t want to put another thing inside of my body for as long as I lived.
He was sleeping beside me, passed out in a heap on the mattress just inches from where I lay.
Tilting my head to one side, I stared at his face.
You did this, the darkest part of my mind hissed, this is your fault. You made him do this.
Blinking away the steady stream of tears that were still falling from my eyes, I continued to stare at him – just trying to figure all of this out.
Did I make him do this?
Were my actions to blame?
This was Jordan.
Jordan.
He would never hurt me.
He didn’t hurt me.
He tried to love me.
Tried to show me he loved me.
Why was I shaking so violently?
Why was I feeling so robbed?
Because he raped you, my common sense urged, you said no, and he didn’t stop.
But he wouldn’t.
He would never rape me.
And I wasn’t hurt.
There were no bruises.
No pain.
This was…. I didn’t know.
He was drinking heavily.
It was the alcohol.
He wasn’t thinking straight.
He would never behave like this sober.
He would never take my choices away from me.
I must have laid there for hours until the life floated back into my frozen limbs.
Finally, when I had regained control of my own body, I scrambled out of the bed and straight across the hallway to the bathroom. Switching on the shower, I adjusted the settings to the maximum level of heat, before climbing inside.
The water washed over my body, scalding my skin to the point of blistering pain, and I was glad.
Sinking to the shower floor, I wrapped my arms around my knees, bowed my head, and cried.
Too ashamed to think.
Too afraid to feel.
Too broken to breathe.
****
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jordan
I wanted to die.
I needed to not be here anymore.
I needed to not feel the horrendous fucking pain in my heart
My mind was attacking me.
Hope's face was crushing me.
Paul's voice was taunting me.
I had nothing left.
Pulling on the edge of the tie I had knotted around my arm, I squeezed until a tingling sensation rolled through my fingers. Taking the needle from between my lips, I hunted for a vein, the urgency growing inside my body making my movements clumsy.
The sting of the needle was indescribably welcoming as I slowly pressed my thumb down on the syringe, taking a full hit.
Within seconds I felt my body growing lighter.
All my problems floating away.
Peace washing over me like a blanket of pure fucking ecstasy.
Tossing the syringe down on the coffee table, I unwrapped my arm and laid back on the couch.
Melting away.
All the pain.
All the thoughts.
No thoughts.
No…nothing.
I was floating away from the world.
And it was fucking fantastic.
Were my eyes open?
Who fucking cared.
Didn’t need them anyway.
Didn’t need anything.
"Jordan… Jordan! What have you done?"
God was talking to me.
"Jordan, open your eyes."
God needed to fuck off.
"Wake up, dammit! Open your eyes and look at me."
"Fuck you, man," I laughed, smiling as the feeling of fucking and sleeping and happiness rolled through my body.
Mashing my lips together, I twisted my head from side to side as my body grew lighter and lighter.
My last thought before everything went blank; I'm never going back to before.
****
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hope
As the day passed by in a horrible, hurt-filled blur, I tried to heal the pain inside of me with music, food and writing.
But every song I listened to made me feel too much. And food?
I couldn’t taste it anymore.
Every time I sat down to write, I was bombarded with flashbacks of the two most traumatic nights of my life, which just so happened to be within a forty-eight-hour period.
The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t feel right anymore.
I was broken.
Nothing worked.
I couldn’t fill the gaping hole in my heart.
That piece I had left in Hunter's apartment that night.
I was in pain. I was burning up. The hurt and the anger, crushing my windpipe, making it hard for me to breathe, making it hard for me to get through each day.
Knowing I deserved the pain I was in made it so much worse, as I continued to hide from the world, covering his secrets, and burying my pain.
Hunter's phone was still off because of me, because he thought I might call.
I would.
I had.
And loving Hunter was what kept me in this house.
Curled up on the couch in Jordan's house, I forced myself to think long and hard a
bout what I had done.
I had tried to love him. I had. For years, I had forced myself into believing that this was healthy and good and what was right for me.
I was seeing clearly now.
And nothing could be further from the truth.
As for secrets?
I carried them like most women carried a purse.
I wanted to fall on my hands and knees and scream save me to anyone who would listen.
No one would, of course.
That was the price a woman paid for committing adultery.
I'd had an affair and lost myself in the process.
A knock sounded on the front door, stirring me from my reverie. Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I got up from the couch and made my way towards the front of the house.
When I reached the hallway, Jordan was there, standing with his back to the door, and a frenzied look in his eyes.
I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell he was doing, when he pressed his index finger to his lips.
Fear spiraled inside me.
Who was there?
David?
Oh, Jesus…
Panic clawed its way into my throat, causing my heart to beat frantically.
"Jord? Come on, answer the door, buddy."
I kept my eyes trained on Jordan's as Derek's voice filled my ears.
"Hope? Anyone home?"
I opened my mouth, but quickly snapped it shut again when Jordan gave me a death glare, shaking his head slowly.
"Come on, Jordan. It's been weeks. I need to see you…"
I flinched when I heard the concern in Derek's voice, but Jordan didn’t even seem to notice.
Finally, when the knocking stopped and Derek had given up, I found my voice. "You can't block him out. He's your father."
"Father?" Jordan snarled, tearing his fingernails up and down his arms. "What father?" He shoved off the door and stalked back up the staircase. "Don’t ever let him into my house."
"You need serious help," I called after him.
"And you need to mind your own goddamn business," he roared before disappearing back to his room.
****
Chapter Twenty-Four
Hope
"Jordan was fired today," Annabelle announced when she marched into the kitchen. She dropped her purse on the counter and turned to glare at me.
I wasn’t surprised by her revelation.
He hadn't shown up for work since our huge fight and had consistently drank himself into a stupor every day since.
The alcohol that he continuously poured into his body each day had turned him into a mean drunk.
A stranger.
It was no wonder he'd been fired.
She and Ryder weren’t staying at the house anymore, either.
Heroin needles and broken bottles of whiskey weren't exactly the safest thing for a baby to be around.
Protecting her son from this sewer of malignance and pain was her only redeeming quality.
"And they've relieved him of his duties at the halfway house." She waited a beat for me to respond, and when I didn’t, she clicked her tongue in disgust. "Don’t you care?"
I shrugged in response, turning my attention back to the screen of my laptop.
I didn’t care.
About him.
Or her.
About any of them.
The last morsel of love and remorse I held in my heart for Jordan Porter shriveled and died in my chest that night. And whatever compassion I still felt for him, faded with every passing day.
As for her?
I hated this woman with the fire of a thousand suns.
She was what Teagan would call a C U Next Tuesday.
Personally, I thought that word was too kind of a description for her.
That gut feeling I always had about her – the one that told me she was a manipulative shrew – was one hundred percent on the money.
I felt stupid as hell for not seeing her for what she was from the get-go.
Watching her influence Jordan on a daily basis was disgusting.
The woman was toxic for him.
Coddling him and rushing to comfort him when what he needed was some cold, tough love.
I saw that now.
Problem was, I no longer felt the desire to care or intervene.
My feelings were void.
I was completely blank towards them.
My heart was back in Boulder, attached firmly to a man who was refusing to answer my calls.
For the past few weeks, every phone call, text message, and voicemail had gone unanswered, and it was killing me.
The concern I had for Hunter was so severe it drove me to the point of physical sickness. I had barfed on more than one occasion. I was going out of my mind with worry and need and pain and loneliness.
Being without him was crippling me.
The thought of the extensive prison sentence Hunter would serve if Jordan went to the police was the only reason I was still inside this house. I was completely committed to keeping him out of the state penitentiary.
The way in which I had to do it was crushing me, but I would suffer on.
To keep them both safe – the man I was in love with, and the boy I once cherished.
But I was so fucking disgusted with myself for staying.
For continuing to lie.
For not standing up and telling Hunter everything.
But most of all, I hated myself for still caring about Jordan. The way he had treated me these past two weeks was borderline abusive and I was fairly certain there were dogs on the street shown more respect than I had been shown.
I should have hated Jordan, and a huge part of me did, but I could never wholeheartedly hate him. Not when the memories of our life together still flashed behind those green eyes.
That was what tortured me the most.
Being weak.
I was trapped in this house.
With the exception of one hasty visit to urgent care, where I had lied through my teeth in order to get my stitches out and wound treated, and then a hasty trip to the pharmacy to pick up Plan B, I hadn't been outside the four walls of this house.
I missed the book signing in Aspen, which had cost me eighty plus readers and had blackened my professional name.
I hadn't seen Teagan, or Noah, or my brothers.
I was completely isolated.
My only saving grace was my phone.
Text messaging had become my best friend again, my connection to the outside world.
My parents were still in Vale with the twins, but they wouldn’t stay there forever.
Eventually they would come home, and then I would have to face my demons.
I knew from the countless texts and phone calls I received daily from Teagan that she knew something was up.
I'd spoken to my father several times on the phone, but I knew that once he got home, a phone call wouldn’t suffice.
I would have to figure this mess out.
I just… didn’t know how to tell them.
How to face them.
Everything that had happened had warped my mind.
I was scarred, and scared, and drowning in deceit.
There was only one person I needed, one person I knew could fix this.
And he was gone.
"This is all your fault," Annabelle spat, drawing me back to the present. "I hope you realize that. He's in this mess because of you."
"You've said," I replied flatly, not caring what she thought anymore.
"So why haven't you tried to do something about it?" she hissed, furious.
I had.
When I had broached the subject several weeks ago, I had been told to mind my own goddamn business, and when I had tried to intervene and take the bottle from him, I had narrowly avoided a glass bottle to the head when he threw it at the fireplace – that I had been standing in front of.
After that, I had given up and decided that Jordan could do whatever the hell he wanted to d
o.
It wasn’t down to me to save him anymore.
I had devoted too many years of my life to a man who didn’t want me to save him.
He just wanted me to be there.
Well, here wasn’t enough for me anymore, and if that made me a bad person, then so be it.
And if I truly was, as Annabelle had called me on countless occasions, a selfish, cold hearted bitch, then that's what I was.
Lying to myself, hiding who I truly was, and trying to please everyone in my life had gotten me into this damn mess in the first place.
"Hope!" Annabelle hissed, trying to gain my attention.
She couldn’t.
I was void.
Without a word, I popped my earphones attached to my laptop back in and pressed play, drowning myself in the lyrics of Damien Rice's Rootless Tree.
****
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lucky
Four counties.
Six kills.
One week.
Moving like a ghost.
No tracks.
No fallback.
Getting shit done.
That's what my life revolved around now.
Fuck me.
I never wanted to become the man staring back at me in the mirror.
The man with more blood on his hands with every passing day.
I didn’t set out with the intention of becoming soulless and cold, but life happened and I evolved.
Shit like that happened more frequently than people realized, and I was not a good man.
But if someone wanted to hurt her, I was going to fight.
I was going to kill.
I wasn’t eighteen years old anymore.
I could keep her alive.
All I wanted to do was protect her.
That was my purpose now.
I promised her that I would keep her safe and I planned on honoring that promise, regardless of all the consequences and sacrifices I would have to make to keep it – and hell, I'd made plenty so far.
I was constantly bending my morals for this woman.