Break Me Down

by Tasha Gwartney

“What’s the matter?”

  “Brice, this was a mistake. How could I ever think I could be with a guy in that way? As much as I care about you, I’ll never be able to give you that.”

  “I don’t need that, if sex is what you’re talking about. I’m sorry if I pushed you, but don’t go,” he begged, his green eyes begging her to stay.

  “I can’t, Brice. It’s not what you did. That was perfect. I wanted it as much as you did,” she said.

  “Then what the hell is wrong?” Brice questioned. He couldn’t understand what was wrong with her. He thought everything was going perfect, but the reality was that it was only him who’d been enjoying himself. And for that he felt like a dick.

  “I can’t do this. I just can’t. I’m not capable of sex, Brice. It’s not in me.” As she spoke, tears began to fall.

  “Hey, calm down and talk to me, please,” Brice begged. The truth was she wanted to. She wanted to let it all go, to tell him everything about that night, she wanted to tell him the biggest, darkest secret that’s she’d ever have to live with, but she couldn’t.

  “Brice, I care about you so much, and I wish I could tell you everything, but I can’t. If I did, you’d never want to be around me again,” Shay told him.

  “That’s a lie and you know it. I care about you so much, more than you’ll ever know. You make me happier than I’ve been in my entire life, so why won’t you let me in? No matter what you say, it’s not going to change how I feel about you. Shay, I can’t be without you. We’ve come so far. Don’t throw that away.”

  “How do you know that? You don’t know my secret.”

  “Then tell me,” he challenged, hoping she’d finally open up.

  But she didn’t. She gave him a kiss on his cheek and vanished from the house. Brice fell to his knees while he watched the best thing that ever happened to him walk out the door.

  ***

  It had been two weeks since Shay walked out on Brice, and she was miserable. She couldn’t bring herself to call or text him. She missed him like crazy. He’d tried so hard to get in touch with her, calling, texting, and stopping by. Her father was more than happy to tell him to get lost. Even after all that he wouldn’t give up. When Shay woke up that morning, the house was empty, but outside the door laid a dozen roses with a letter.

  Shay,

  I don’t understand why you won’t talk to me. You’re the best thing that’s walked into my life, and I’m not ready to let that go. You can’t just push me away, not after you told me how much you care about me.

  We’re not over, and we’re not going to be. I don’t buy that breakup one bit. I don’t care what I have to do; I’ll make you talk to me. I can’t stay away from you. I just can’t. I need you so much it hurts.

  I know you think that whatever this secret that you’re hiding is going to change us, but it’s not going to. You’re always going to be my Shay, my love, my pretty girl. Come back to me. If you don’t, I’ll just be forced to come to you. T.

  Shay read the letter for the millionth time. He wasn’t making staying away any easier. She wanted to go back to him, to cry on his shoulder until she couldn’t cry anymore. She wanted to lie in his arms and let him take her pain away, but with all that being said, she couldn’t drag herself away from the darkness.

  But how could she stay away from him knowing how much she cared about him? How could she stay away from him knowing how much he cared for her and how much he was hurting? She couldn’t. The only way she’d ever be able to be happy is by letting someone in and she was far from ready to do so. She’d suffer in silence, no matter how much she was killing herself. She did know one thing for certain: she wouldn’t suffer here.

  Grabbing her sweater, Shay ran as fast as she could. She wanted to forget everything. She wanted forget the past; she wanted to just curl up in a ball and forget it all. She ran until she couldn’t run anymore.

  Forgetting that night, forgetting the awful person she’d become, forgetting how horribly she’d hurt Brice, she just forgot it all. She found herself in front of Brice’s house with no recollection of how she got there. She knew he was home; both his car and his bike were there. Ever the coward, she turned to run away. But it was too late.

  “Shay!” Brice called. Turning around, she saw him standing in a T-shirt and jeans. His eyes were dark. Like he was in pain.

  “Hi, Brice.” She smiled.

  “Do you want to come in?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why haven’t you answered any of my calls or texts,” he asked.

  “I’ve been busy.

  “That’s a lie,” he told her; he knew her all too well.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not even bothering to deny the fact that she was avoiding him.

  “Please come in.”

  “I shouldn’t have come,” she said.

  “Come inside,” he told her.

  “I can’t; nothing has changed. I have to go.”

  That was it for Brice; going to her, he tossed her over his shoulder and headed up the stairs. Finally making it to his room, he locked the door and tossed her on the bed.

  “What the hell, Brice,” she shouted angrily.

  “If you won’t talk to me of your own free will, then I’m going to force you to talk to me,” Brice said.

  “We can’t be together, not anymore,” she said, feeling her heart break as she spoke. Unwanted tears poured down her face as she tried to escape. She tried making it to the door but Brice was one step ahead of her, blocking it.

  “You’re not leaving. Not until you let me in.” He was no longer being the nice guy. If she wanted to suffer, he was going to suffer with her.

  “I can’t Brice. I can’t do this. Please don’t make me,” she begged, going into a full blown sob.

  “Talk to me, let me in. Why did you freak out?”

  “I can’t tell you, please don’t make me,” Shay repeated, not wanting to say the words out loud. “I need to get out of here.”

  The tears began to fall harder as she realized there was no escape. She fell to the floor and sobbed just as she felt Brice’s arms around her. Rather than welcoming them, she punched him, and then repeated it time and again until finally he grabbed her wrists. She felt safe but alone. How could this be, how could he still want her after everything she’d done? How could he for one second still feel the need to be around her?

  “Stop it. Talk to me. It’s not going to change anything,” he tried to reason with her for what felt like the millionth time.

  “Stop saying that! Just stop. You don’t get it Brice. I can’t...” she began but couldn’t find the words.

  “Whatever it is, we’ll work through it together. We can get past it.”

  “No we won’t! You don’t get it. You don’t get past getting raped!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Brice froze in his spot after Shay’s confession. He watched her hold her head in her hands as she sobbed, kneeling on the floor.

  For weeks, she’d been hiding a secret from him and she finally let him in. But how was he was supposed to react to this? What was he supposed to say? He meant what he said; it didn’t change anything between them. However, how was he supposed to help her through something so horrible? He’d had his speculations about what the secret was that she’d been carrying, but never did he believe it was this bad. Raped? How could someone hurt such a wonderful person like her, and in such a violent way?

  “Shay,” Brice said, kneeling down beside her, but when he went to touch her she pushed him away.

  “Don’t. Just don’t touch me,” she said to him, but it was the opposite from what she wanted. She wanted to feel safe again, and in his arms was the one place she felt safe.

  “Don’t do that. Don’t you start pushing me away. I told you whatever secret you were holding in didn’t matter to me. I meant that. I’m not going anywhere and you can push me away all you want, but I’ll never stop fighting for you,” Brice told her as he put his arms around her again.<
br />
  “I said stop.” She said, pushing him away. “You can’t touch me.

  I’m no good anymore, Brice.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes it is. And it hurts so much. I want it to stop. When you found me on that cliff, I wanted to jump. I should have jumped. All these memories of him come racing back and it scares me. I can’t be happy, he won’t let me,” she cried.

  “Only you have that power to be happy. Don’t let him take that from you. Don’t let him ruin everything we have.”

  “He already has. What kind of guy wants a girl who was weak enough to be raped?”

  “Don’t ever say that again. That wasn’t your fault. He was stronger than you. Don’t you ever for a second think that just because I know the truth that I don’t want you, because I do. I still want Shay.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s the one person in my life that gets me. The one person I can talk to. And she makes me happy. I don’t care what happened in her past, I just care about her,” Brice explained to her in hopes that she’d finally let him touch her.

  Shay felt the world crashing down around her. She let her secret out, yet Brice still wanted her. Why? How could he possibly still want her after she told him what happened? He tried to comfort her by putting his arms around her, but she pushed him away and went into a hit fit.

  He accepted it though. He let her use him as a punching bag until she finally gave in and let him hold her in his arms as she sobbed into his chest.

  She didn’t know how any of this happened. Avoiding Brice, while it was hard, was bearable. How did she end up here? How did she end up letting out her biggest, darkest secret? No one was supposed to find out. She was supposed to hide it forever and she was supposed take it with her to the grave. The last thing that she ever wanted to do was burden someone else with the secret that she’d locked away for so many months.

  “Who did this to you?” Brice asked as they still sat on the floor, her in his arms.

  “It doesn’t matter. It won’t ever matter.” She didn’t want to relive the past any longer. Just the thought of his name made her sick.

  “It does matter. Tell me who do this to you, and we can get you justice.”

  “It’s too late. I showered and all the evidence is gone. I don’t want to relive that awful night, Brice. I just want to forget. I just want to feel safe again.”

  “How did this happen? I mean, how did he get a chance to hurt you?” Brice asked as he picked her up and laid her on the bed. She moved so that she was lying on his chest.

  “I was on the track team. One day after practice Heather and my other friends were supposed to be waiting for me because my car was being fixed from an accident that my brother got into while he drove it. They promised to be there, but they blew me off, not a call, not a text, nothing. The next day I found out they all went to a party. Anyway, I would have called David, but he was home sick with the flu. I called my brother, but he was an hour away. So I had to wait. I decided to go into the gym and work out. It was quiet, which confused me because I didn’t hear him coming. I knew him. In fact, I trusted him. He was my brother’s friend and David’s older brother. There he was telling me how beautiful I was,” Shay started, finally opening up for the first time about it.

  “He kissed me in the gym. I hated it. I was dating David, and I couldn’t understand how he could do that to him. I pushed him away from me, but he shoved me against the wall. I got away from him at first. I ran away and hid in the locker room but he found me, he grabbed me and he pinned me on the floor. I couldn’t move; I was too weak. I tried to fight him off, but I couldn’t. Brice, I said no, I swear. I begged him to stop but he wouldn’t. He covered my mouth so I wouldn’t scream and then he ripped open my clothes and raped me. I cried through the whole thing. I begged for my mom; I just wanted her to make it better the way only a mother could. It hurt so badly. He took everything from me that night. A part of me died that night, and I’ll never get it back.” She finished and Brice tightened his grip on her.

  “Shh. It’s going to be aright, pretty girl. We’re going to get you better. We’re not going to let that son of a bitch who did this to you ruin the rest of your life. We’re going to make the pain go away. I promise.”

  “It won’t go away, Brice. I’ve tried, but it always comes back to haunt me,” Shay explained through her tears. The truth was, no matter how hard she tried, it always came back.

  “Shh. Just sleep, okay? You’re exhausted. Now get some rest and we can talk about it later.”

  “I’m sorry, Brice,” Shay said just as she drifted off into unconsciousness.

  Brice watched Shay sleep for what felt like hours. He could see the redness on her face, the evidence of old tears and all that pain. He could see it all and it broke his heart into a million different pieces. He wanted to take it all away, to make it all better for her, and as hard as he wanted that, the reality was that he couldn’t.

  She had to face this fear on her own. The only thing he could do was be there for her. He hated what this was doing to her. He hated seeing her so broken up inside. She’d been living in Chandler for months, so she’d been carrying around this secret for even longer.

  He couldn’t imagine the pain that she was inflicting on herself by keeping quiet. She needed to tell someone, to get it all out in the open. Brice felt his heart breaking even more as he thought about the reason she couldn’t bear to be touched at first, the reason she was waiting for their relationship to end. It explained why she always wore that oversized sweat shirt, why she never wore a bathing suit that day they went cliff jumping.

  He was unsure of how to take in any of this. It was a given that his past wasn’t perfect, but it was a walk in the park compared to hers. She was all alone in this. She was scared, horrified, and completely alone in the dark.

  Brice vowed for it to all end there.

  No longer would she be alone. Nor would she suffer in silence with the pain of this secret or be afraid of the man who betrayed her trust. He was going to break the control this had on her life. He would do whatever it took to make her see the light. Even if it meant resorting to his old ways…

  He felt a tear run down his cheek as he thought about everything that she had to go through. He’d take her pain for her if it was possible, anything so long as she didn’t have to deal with it. He hated seeing the one person he cared about most in this life such a mess.

  “Brice?” Shay said, opening her eyes. She saw the tear that ran down his cheek, before he was able to wipe it away.

  “Hey, how are you feeling?” He asked.

  “Are you crying?” She’d never seen him cry before.

  “No, I’m fine. You didn’t answer my question,” Brice stated, trying to take the unwanted attention away from him.

  “It’s because of me, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not. It because of him. He hurt you Shay. And I pushed you the last time you were here. If I had gone any farther… I’d be just like him,” Brice started, but she cut him off.

  “Don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself. Brice, I wanted to be there with you as much as you did. I didn’t freak out because of what you did. I freaked out because of what you said. You called me Shay. No one ever called me that except for him. It just brought back that night like it was yesterday. I’m sorry that I freaked out on you, but you have to know that it wasn’t you,” Shay explained to him. She hated the man who did this to her. She hated the man who was ruining her chance to be happy with Brice, but she wasn’t going to let him compare himself to her rapist.

  “Shay –”

  “No. Stop Brice, you didn’t try to rape me. What we were doing was consensual; you’re not anything like him. Please don’t ever think that you are.”

  “I hate this; I hate thinking that you’ve been carrying this secret around with you for months, all alone. I don’t want you to be alone,” Brice told her.

  “I’m not alone anymore. I have you. And that m
eans more to me than anything else.”

  “I’ll always be here for you, but I think that you should tell your parents and your brother.”

  “No. I can’t tell them,” she said. How in the world could she tell her mom she was raped? She was the most positive person Shay knew; she wasn’t going to take that away from her. Her father was acting like a complete and total stranger; there was no way to tell how he’d take the news. As for Chris, it was his friend who raped her. How could she possibly tell her brother that one of his best friends forced her to do something she begged him to stop doing? How could she possibly tell her brother each and every last detail of that night? She couldn’t.

  “Why not?” Brice asked her as he framed her face between his hands.

  “I just can’t, okay? I haven’t told you the worst part of it all,” Shay said. She’d been honest with Brice already. She knew that the only way to finally be able to put it all in the past was to finally admit the one part she allowed herself to forget.

  “How could it get any worse?”

  “After the rape, I became pregnant, Brice,” she said, looking away from him. He was probably disgusted with her.

  “Pregnant! You have a kid,” he asked. He was angry, not at her but at the low life that had done this to her. Not in any way did he blame her for this.

  “No, I didn’t even know until it was too late.” She said, remembering it like it was the previous day.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was five weeks after the fact, I was cramping really bad and I didn’t understand why. I didn’t want to go to the doctor because I felt dirty; I thought that they’d figure out my secret and tell my parents. I was vulnerable. I went to the bathroom and I was bleeding really bad, so I had no choice but to go to the doctors anyway. They told me that I miscarried a baby. It was so much to take in.”

  “I know the feeling. Shay, you didn’t tell anyone?”

  “Not a soul, until now. It was a tragedy and a blessing,” Shay told him, her tone soft.

  “What does that mean? How could any of this possibly be a blessing?”