Page 126 of Broken Daddy

“That’s not what I meant. You don’t seem yourself.”

“Maybe this is the ‘me’ now. After being attacked by gang members who robbed me, stabbed me, and carried off my asshole father. Yeah, perhaps this is the new me. Perhaps the new me sounds like this.”

He shook his head. “No, you’re just in shock and overwhelmed. You’re going to find yourself again. Your happiness. You always see the good side of life, Devi.”

“I used to do that. I used to think that everyone had good in them. But they don’t . . . some people are just bad. And sometimes, bad things happen to people who are trying to be good. And it doesn’t seem to matter if you live your life trying to be nice to everyone and see the good in those around you. It doesn’t matter if you’re positive and helpful and cheerful. People still take advantage of you. Horrible things happen to you. So I’m kind of thinking I might just stay like this, you know? Dead inside.”

He hated this.

Hated that everyone had done this to her.

“I know it must seem that way right now,” he told her. “You’ve been through some horrible stuff, baby. However, it isn’t always going to be like this.”

“So far this is what my life has been. One terrible thing after another. And just when things seem to be going well, something happens and boom, back to square one.”

He didn’t like that for her. And he understood why she sounded so exhausted.

But he wanted to make everything better for her. To see her smile again, to see her act carefree, without worry.

“Why would you pay for all of this? It’s too much, even a friend shouldn’t cover all of this. It would take me so long to pay it back.”

“Good thing you’re not paying any of it back then,” he said in a low voice.

“Friends don’t give their friends huge amounts of money.”

“Yeah, they do. I’m paying for the bills and your rehab. No. Arguments.”

End of story.

Devi wasn’tsure what to say to that statement.

He seemed to have taken a crazy pill today.

He hadn’t known her long.

So why would he want to do this for her?

And he expected no arguments?

Lord, if she had more energy, she’d totally argue with him about his ‘no arguments’ dictate.

Only problem was that she couldn’t really seem to gather up the energy to breathe, let alone argue. Emotion just took so much energy.

“Devi? Do you have anything you want to say?”

“You can’t.”

“I can, but don’t worry about it now,” he said as though he could hear what she was thinking.

“I have to talk to Rohan.”

“Gwen will want to visit him soon. We might be able to call him.”

“He’s going to be so upset. He’ll probably blame himself when he really shouldn’t.”

“He’ll feel guilty that he wasn’t there, that he didn’t protect you,” Hayes said.

“Yes.” She should have guessed that Hayes would understand. He and Rohan were similar in a lot of ways.