Page 12 of Carver (Satan’s Angels MC #8)

Carver

B ronte is on the floor, sandwiched between a folded over quilt.

I offered the other side of the bed, but she said that she didn’t want to risk rolling into me while she was sleeping and accidentally injuring me.

I was painfully aware of the looks she sent me all afternoon and evening. I know what desire looks like on her.

Beautiful .

She doesn’t trust herself to get too close.

I don’t trust myself either.

I killed my need for her the best I could. It made my blood toxic, a poison that I would have gladly chosen oblivion over having to endure. The memories of us together aren’t just sweet. They’re a torture.

From the side of the bed, Bronte’s breathing is even, but not deep enough to be asleep. She’s been silent for longer than half an hour, but she’s not faking it. Just lying there in the silence, same as me, struggling to find the right words.

There’s so much we need to say. My brain is churning as fast as my gut. Neither of us ate much at dinner after an afternoon of boardgames. It wasn’t so bad enduring them. At least they were something to do besides think .

Kael left a few hours ago. She told us Dravin was going to stop by her place to fix some security stuff and then he’d be back, but not until late.

Witnessing the playful, sizzling passion between them, it’s clear that the security issue doesn’t exist. Kael gave us a hopeful smile before she left.

She might have been through some shit recently, but she hasn’t lost her faith in things working out.

I don’t know how some people manage to find that damn light in all the darkness.

I’ve always been envious of that. Is it a learned skill? Something innate? Why and how the fuck do some people just want to live so badly? How do they make strength out of weakness?

I need to figure it out. I need to figure life out.

My own head.

I stare up at the ceiling, the neon blue of the sign below us that stays on all night throwing pale, stark shadows into the room because the blinds can’t keep it from oozing beneath and around the edges.

I take a breath and then another, and another, and now that I’m counting them and listening to them, I realize that they’re almost perfectly synced with Bronte’s.

She’s right beside the bed. We’re separated by four feet, but it feels like an endless chasm. I want to know what she’s thinking about. What memory is she churning over?

“Bronte?” My voice is wrong. It cracks on the last syllable of her name. I should be used to not sleeping, but I’ve never felt so exhausted.

I’ve cut her far deeper than that wound on her hand. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to let her in again. I don’t know how to want or be wanted.

“Are you okay? Are you in pain?” The quilt rustles and she stands up, hovering over me at the edge of the bed. “Do you want a drink?” She crosses the room and switches the light on.

My eyes water. I carefully angle myself up against the headboard. Any swift movement could cause my face to explode. Hopefully not literally. I’ve done too much today. The pain is more than a low grade hum. It’s like cattle prods under my skin, igniting a bonfire.

“I’m…” What am I? What of the thousand things can I give her?

“I’m sorry.” Trash words. Bronte already knows that.

I know it. We both know it will never be enough.

“I robbed you of so much of your life. I’ve been the worst. There’s nothing else for it.

No other word. Just- the worst in every way.

I broke your trust. I disappeared. I left you alone.

I said unkind things I didn’t mean. I wanted you.

I missed you. I was desperate to make everything okay and I couldn’t do any of that, so I tried even harder to ruin it all.

” Self-sabotage runs in my family, but that’s no fucking excuse.

She sits down on the end of the bed and pulls her legs up, crossing them.

“I don’t deserve you, Bronte. I certainly haven’t ever, but especially not since I imploded everything. You’ll say it’s not about that, but it is. There’s no groveling or apologizing, or actions that can undo this. It will always be a black hole in my mind.”

She bites her bottom lip, a pink flush creeping up her neck.

She does meet my eyes, but hers flicker, straying to the lamp and the wall before coming back.

“What if I told you that it’s forgiven? All of it.

I want to help you heal, not hurt you. We can move forward and that’s the end of it.

I don’t want more pain for you. I never have.

I want good things. I want them for you. For me. I want them together .”

I know that we’re talking in circles here. The only way I can see to pull myself up from that chasm that I was raised in and held down in, is to make a break with everything.

I bury my good hand in the quilt and grip it tight, dropping my gaze there.

“I don’t know about joining anything, but I think I need to move here, Bronte.

The only thing waiting for me back home are the memories.

” I still feel chained to that place, but I’ve known for a long time that it’s just a weight.

A pit. A void of black nothing. An endless hell that unless I get away from, is going to destroy me.

I don’t believe in curses, but if I did, I might come to believe that the only thing that can prosper there is shit that can’t be stamped out anywhere.

Thistles. Weeds. Remnants of the marijuana plants my uncles grew.

I guess the land did support just enough corn for them to make their shine.

The old, dried up stalks still stand in the far field.

I didn’t even realize I was considering it until the words are out, but I’m completely fixated on the idea of coming here.

What would life look like?

Why did I think that someone like me couldn’t have a fresh start?

I can’t escape myself or my past, but I can leave the land.

It doesn’t mean I have to sell it. I could rent it, like Dravin suggested.

Just because it hasn’t been farmed in decades doesn’t mean that it can’t be.

The junk would have to be cleared away. The farmhouse knocked down.

Everything scraped away to give the land a rebirth.

It might be easier just to sell it, but I know that I could never do that. However many bad memories that the place holds, it’s also part of me.

Bronte’s silent while I think that all out. She knows that I’m not a big talker. I’m always up in my head, even when I’m trying to have a conversation. She said that in chess, she takes too long to make a move and the game drags. That’s me, but in every aspect of my life.

“Not that I can blame anything on land,” I say.

She nods, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.

“I can’t blame it on my dad or my uncles or even that fucking stone.

It was me. Entirely. Me.” I thump my chest. Her head snaps up at the sound.

“I need to be better. I need to figure myself out.” My palm is soaked with sweat, my knuckles aching, so I unfurl my hand.

“All those times I encouraged you to not be with me, it was because I knew I didn’t have the first clue how to live and you did. ”

“Dom—”

“Just- hold on for a second. Don’t try and make me feel better until I’ve got it all out.”

She doesn’t like it. She’s never liked when I’ve said terrible things about myself. She’s always been my truest champion. I couldn’t fathom why, but she knows her reasons. She always has. Always will. That’s Bronte exactly .

“I didn’t want to be the reason you couldn’t do the things you wanted to do or be who you wanted to be.

I know that you love me. You love all the versions of me.

The ones from the past, the me you see in the future, the person right now.

To you, I’ve always been who I need to be, but I- that doesn’t mean that it’s true. I’m not the man that I should be.”

Her lips thin out and turn down at the corners. I know that it hurts her to hear me say this. The feeling is electric in the room. Her distress bites into my heart with sharp teeth, tearing away another chunk.

“You’ve waited and waited, hoping that I’d realize that potential or just fucking materialize at all. You’ve been waiting all this time for me to do more than exist. I want to. I owe that to you, and I owe it to myself.”

Bronte gathers her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees and setting her chin on them. She looks so small and vulnerable, but even the smallest diamond is still one of the toughest stones in the world.

“I just don’t know how to do that.”

She doesn’t quote bullshit about just making a start. “I think moving here is a good idea,” she whispers, her chin tucked on top of her kneecaps.

She’s sad. She’s in pain. She’s waiting for me to tell her what I need.

I know that the only thing she’s ever wanted is me .

It sounds so stupid, but I’ve always been afraid to tell her just how much I need her too.

She knows, but that’s not enough. I haven’t given her nearly enough, even when I was giving her everything, and that was always the problem.

How could I want her when I’d never been wanted myself?

How could I love her when I was such an unloved child?

When you’re kicked enough times, you get to the point where you numb out and stop feeling it, but you also quit waiting for it to stop. You know it’s never going to stop. Life will always be a series of kicks.

But this time I take that first step to healing, “Would you come with me?”