Page 37

Story: Did They Break You

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

REMI

I’m tucked away in one of the study rooms in the library, poring over my developmental psych book, reading about Freud versus Jung, music blaring in my headphones—Bring Me the Horizon—when the lights go out.

I flinch, ripping out my earbuds, clenching them in my fist. It’s nearly midnight on Wednesday, and while the library is open 24/7, it’s definitely not full. Most students don’t even use these rooms, tucked away down a narrow hallway upstairs.

In the dark, I’m frozen, my eyes shooting to the door.

I can’t see anything though, and I don’t hear anything either. Maybe the power went out in the entire library. A thunderstorm.

I swallow, hearing my pulse pounding in my head, and I reach for my phone, at the edge of the desk. My fingers brush along my binder, a notebook, a highlighter, but I can’t find my phone.

I can’t find my fucking phone.

Panic tears through me, fear like ice spreading down my limbs. I stand, reaching my arms out further over the table, a scream bubbling its way up my throat.

My book falls to the floor, pens roll off and hit the carpet with soft thuds.

I straighten, breathing in and out evenly through my nose, deciding to fuck the phone.

I tuck my hair behind my ears, steadying myself.

I start to walk around the desk, my fingertips grazing the top of it, so I don’t run into it.

Simple, I tell myself. I’ll just walk to the door.

I edge around the table, my mouth dry, still blinking in the darkness, trying to make out anything at all, but it’s okay. The room is small. I’ll be at the door in ten seconds, and when I open it, I’ll either know the power went out or I’ll flip the light switch back on and?—

A hand clamps over my mouth.

Fight or flight is bullshit. Because I don’t do either in this moment.

I freeze.

Just like I did that night.

My chest is rising and falling rapidly, but I don’t feel like I’m getting any air, and my hands are in fists down by my sides. A hard body is against my back, and time seems to stand still.

I’m paralyzed for the second time in my life, when it really counts.

Then a low laugh sounds against my ear, deep and husky, and I feel Cortland’s breath on my neck. “You should pay more attention, Remi, baby,” he whispers in the dark, his other hand coming to the hem of my hoodie, his fingers slipping beneath it, edging against the waistband of my sweats.

I catch my breath, relaxing against his touch.

And I’m annoyed with myself that I am. That he feels safe.

He seems to notice the tension leave my body, my knees nearly giving out, because he stops playing with the waistband of my sweats. He bands his arm around my chest, dropping his hand from my mouth and pulling me close to him, hugging me from behind.

A strangely warm gesture.

“What are you doing?” I ask him quietly. I haven’t seen him since the bar. We haven’t spoken in nearly a week.

But did I really think he’d leave me alone?

Did I want him to?

My arms are pinned by my side by his, but I don’t care as I let my pulse settle.

At least… until I become aware of his cock growing hard behind me.

Fuck. Me.

“What if it wasn’t me that cornered you here, in the dark?” he whispers, his mouth still by my ear. “What if I was someone else? Someone worse?”

I roll my eyes. “Maybe they’d actually kill me and put me out of my misery.”

He doesn’t laugh like I thought he might, or even come back with a shitty comment. He just releases me, then he’s pushing me against the wall, his hand on my chest.

And with that movement, in the dark, I blink, and I’m not here in the library anymore.

Those memories in the basement rise up.

I’m back there. I feel him pushing into me. Telling me how good I felt, his hand around my throat as he trailed kisses over my chest. His teeth against my breasts, his friends laughing as he touched me. Storm watching me from that tree.

The room seems to spin, even in the darkness. I feel as if everything is closing in on me. Like there’s no more air in the room.

I throw my hands over my face and inhale, trying to swallow the sob that wants to escape my throat, the panic attack pressing in on all sides. I’m squeezing my thighs together so I don’t pee my pants, clamping my mouth closed so I don’t scream.

Then I smell him, the woods on a fall night. Dark and hypnotic.

Bringing me back there all over again.

I feel his calloused hands over my face, reassuring me as he let his friends… fuck me. And the next morning, I’m in his bed, full of shock.

Nothing but numbness. A hollow silence as I tried to process what had happened.

I’m still not sure if I have.

“Shh, baby,” he says softly, in this moment, my nightmare come back to life.

His arms go around me as he pulls me into his chest. I don’t bother fighting him this time.

I just sink into his warmth and he holds me tight, his chin on my head.

“You’re okay,” he whispers as my shoulders shake, a jagged sob ripping up my throat, past my lips.

I can taste my own blood in my mouth, something salty, too.

The memories and the present seem to blur, because I can feel him trying to comfort me, even then.

Tears leak past my closed eyes, my hands still over my face as I lean into his hard body, both of us melded together.

I can barely breathe, the way the pain threatens to erupt, but he just squeezes me tighter, as if he knows. As if he’s trying to hold me together.

“It’s okay,” he says again, his words hoarse.

Another cry rips through me, an anguished sound of pain in this small room, and it’s like my lungs are collapsing.

I can’t quite let it out. I can’t do much of anything except make this pathetic whimpering sound.

“It’s okay. Just breathe, baby, just breathe. ”

I think of what Silas would say to me when I cried. I think of him coming up to my room after a fight, the door off my hinges, my head buried in my hands.

“You need to eat,” he’d said, a plate in hand.

I had looked up at him in shock. Since Mom died, he never much cared if I ate or starved. My eyes had refilled with tears, another sob breaking through, and with that, his face full of disgust, he’d thrown the plate full of food at me.

The edge of the ceramic had grazed the side of my head, the steak and salad all over my shirt.

“I don’t want to hear that, Remi.”

He’d walked out. Left me to clean up the mess he made.

In this moment, in Cortland’s arms, I cry harder.

“You’re okay, baby. Breathe.”

I try, dropping my hands by my sides and pressing my face to his soft shirt. Those memories in that basement are resurfacing.

And of course, it’s got to be here.

In front of him.

I try to breathe even as I taste the tears like salt on my tongue.

I take a shaky breath in.

Out.

Then I realize what I’m doing, like being drenched in ice cold water after waking up from a nightmare. I’m letting him comfort me. Just like I did that night.

Chase’s nails are running down my back.

“You like that, Remi? What a nasty whore.”

I close my eyes. I can’t feel him. I can’t feel what he’s doing to me anymore, even as my stomach convulses, even as I think his nails might’ve split my skin.

It’s so distant.

It’s like he’s miles away.

I’m being used, but I’m not even here. It’s someone else he’s driving into. Someone else whose hands are dirty, nails clawed into the ground. The scent of the night, hot and sticky around us, it’s all… vanished.

The only person I can feel is right in front of me, kneeling before me.

Cortland’s grip around my face tightens, his thumb pressing against my bottom lip as his pinky finger brushes away a lock of hair sticking to my forehead. “You’re okay, Remi,” he whispers, and I hear Chase laugh again.

Before him, Brinklin pushed his dick into my mouth.

I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t know what to do.

He took care of himself. Grabbed my face, told me to stick out my tongue. I can still taste him, past the iron of my own blood. I don’t think I minded.

It wasn’t until Chase that I started to feel sick. My knees hurt.

The night seems to spin around me, and everything is just so dead.

I feel heavy.

I just want to sleep.

“Cortland,” I whisper in the dark.

He presses his temple to mine. “Yeah, baby?”

Make him stop.

Take me home.

But I don’t say the words.

Here, in the library, I try to jerk out of his grip, and he loosens his hold on me, but when I back up, I hit the wall.

He steps forward, crowding me against it. In the dark, I still can’t see anything. But I feel his hand skimming my arm, over my hoodie.

I close my eyes a second, swallow down the rest of the tears. I wonder when I’ll be able to face all of it, or when I’ll just get the fuck over it. I wonder if having him so close makes it hurt that much more. Like a reminder every time I see his face.

But I thought I was growing stronger, that night in the woods. Facing all of them. I spoke up. I used my voice. Even the times he cornered me in the cemetery. Or when I took a shot as I stared him down.

I thought I was getting better.

Maybe it’s not him that broke you, a voice in my head says.

The same one that answered Silas in that car, after the hospital.

“Did they break you?”

I force the answer back and open my eyes in the dark of the library. “Get out,” I whisper, embarrassed over my panic attack, hurting over the past, and feeling angry. At everything.

There’s silence, then, “You don’t want that.” His voice is a low, quiet rumble.

My heart sounds loud in my head, my pulse pounding through my brain, heat spooling in my core from anger and maybe desire, too, but my body can feel what it likes. My brain knows better.

“I do,” I tell him, my voice strong now. “Stop fucking with me, Cortland.”

“Or what?” he presses, stepping closer, his body so close to mine, if I just inhale a little deeper, my chest will brush his abdomen. “What if I don’t? What if I can’t?”