Page 38
Story: Did They Break You
I swallow down the tightness in my throat, my hands by my sides, my head resting against the wall. His scent is overwhelming, and I hate that I don’t hate it.
That feeling of warmth grows.
I meant what I told him. There hasn’t been anyone since that night, save for my own hand.
Part of me hates that. I want to fuck someone just to get him off of me, and I’ve tried, but it ends with me mumbling apologies, feeling ashamed. I’m terrified. I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know if it’s okay anymore. I don’t know how to be with my body around someone else.
Sometimes I want a new one. I want to start over.
But with him, in the graveyard, it was almost… easy.
I shove that thought from my mind.
“Cortland,” I say on a ragged breath. “You need to go.”
“Is that what you want?” he presses, dropping his head close to mine. I feel his clean breath dance on my mouth. “You want me to go? Is that what you really want, baby, or have you been lying to yourself, too?”
“Too?” I whisper, my breath catching as I stare up at him.
His hands come to my hair, tangling through my orange strands, his fingertips grazing my scalp as he softly pulls my hair down so I’m looking up at him, just a shadow in the darkness. My entire body is wound tight, heat flushing through me with his hands on me.
“Have you hurt yourself again?” he whispers, his breath along my lips.
Discomfort eats at me, but I can’t run from him. Not with him pinning me against the wall. “Cortland?—”
“It’s okay,” he says, nudging his nose against mine. “It’s… you feel alive when you do it, don’t you?”
My entire body flushes hot. I’m glad he can’t see me in the dark. “Yes,” I breathe, honest for once.
He groans, dipping his head to my neck, his fingers still tangled in my hair.
“I want to be that for you. I want to make you feel fucking alive.” He shoves his body further against me, and it’s hard to breathe, but I don’t know if it’s from the pressure, from the ache in my scalp, the angle of my neck, or this conversation.
“This past year, Remi, you haven’t left my fucking head.
And I hate you for that, you know. I hate what you did to me, because I don’t have time to think about you. ”
Those words hurt.
His thumbs graze the side of my face, close to my ear, and a shudder runs through me. “And I need to know, baby. It wasn’t all bad, was it?” he asks, and his voice is almost desperate.
I hear my own shallow breaths between us, feel my chest rise and fall. I can’t see him at all, and in some ways it makes it easier to stay here, like this. To pretend this is all a dream. This is all a nightmare.
I can say what I want like this. In the darkness.
“Did you hate every minute of it?” he whispers. “Or just the parts that weren’t with me?”
That warmth flushes through me again and I close my eyes, shaking my head.
“Tell me the truth, Remi. I need to know.”
I don’t say anything, clenching my jaw shut. He doesn’t deserve my truths.
“Do you know how long I would’ve gone to prison?” He presses his brow to mine.
That question, I can answer. “Hopefully, a long, long time.”
He clamps his hand over my mouth. “I could’ve gone for ten years. Ten fucking years.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it as he slides his hand down my mouth. “I wouldn’t have gotten out until I was almost thirty, Remi.”
“And I’ll carry this for the rest of my life, so I think we’re even, don’t you?”
His fingers tighten in my hair and his grip is nearly painful, pricking at my senses, right on the verge.
But I don’t want him off.
For once, I want him to stay right here. I want him to face what he did to me.
“You never wanted me?” he counters, an edge to his words. “You were mine.” I can feel his breath skating across my face, minty and warm as he keeps talking. “Who did you want?” he presses, his body shifting closer to mine. His thigh coming between my legs.
“Cortland…” I whisper his name, but it still comes out as a moan. His fingers prick over my scalp, causing the little hairs on my body to stand on end. I only wanted you. I only ever wanted you.
“Is this how it’s always going to go?” he demands.
“Is that what you’re always going to be, baby?
” Those words aren’t harsh. They’re quiet as he runs his fingers through my hair, my body drenched in sensation.
His lips are hovering over mine, the cool metal of his piercing scraping my bottom lip. “My little victim?”
My face heats with those words, and I’m thankful for the darkness, but I don’t speak.
“Yeah,” he scoffs at my silence. “You’re not afraid of me. Stop being weak.” His mouth touches mine. “You know I won’t hurt you. You’re not fucking afraid of me, pretty baby.” I hear something like anger in his words.
My heart is in my throat and I don’t know what to say. Am I afraid? I was that night. I was terrified. But this isn’t that night. And I’ve spent an entire year being afraid, of everything. The dark. Strangers. The smell of alcohol. Horror movies. Being alone with my thoughts. My stepdad.
But with Cortland around, it’s like I started to change. Like when I bit him. When I dug my nails into his skin. When I slapped him.
This past year, I’ve been thankful for his absence.
Thankful, and scared, and stunted.
Do I need this to grow?
Will facing him make it better?
“Say something, Remi.”
My voice is hoarse when I do as he demanded. “You ruined me.”
He stills, and it’s like neither of us are breathing.
His hand comes to the side of my face, his fingertips skimming along my jaw.
“Is that why you fucked me over?” That’s a whisper, soft and low, but he drops his voice to something like a growl when he asks, “Because you thought you were ruined?” He sneers the word, and nerves run down my spine, my skin tingling in its wake.
“You thought I’d judge you? You thought I’d leave you? ” He shifts his thigh between my legs.
The warmth in my belly travels lower and I close my eyes, knocking my head back against the wall as I tilt my chin up.
“Is that why you’re really mad? Because we shared you, Remi? Because your first time wasn’t rose petals and fucking candles and whatever bullshit you thought it should be in your head?” Those words are a snarl.
I don’t open my eyes.
Cortland presses his leg between my thighs, moving faster. The pressure feels good, and the pressure inside of me is building, growing.
I know I should stop. Scream, maybe, or at the very least, push him away. They asked me about that so many times, the detectives. “Did you tell them to stop? Did you scream? How did you fight? What happened when you did? Did you say the word ‘no’?”
I couldn’t remember. I didn’t know.
“Who taught you to believe in fucking fairy tales?” Cortland’s breath is on my neck and I shiver again, dig my nails into my palms as I close my eyes tighter, wanting to flee and needing him to keep rubbing his thigh on me.
Needing the material of my underwear shifting against my pussy with every move he makes.
“Life can be whatever you want it to be, Remi. It can be dark and chaotic and dirty. It doesn’t mean you’re ruined.
” He spits that word out with venom. “It means you’re messy.
And I fucking love messy.” His tongue comes over the side of my throat and I gasp, biting my lip.
It’s like I can feel him smile against my skin when he says, “That’s it, baby. Moan for me.”
He licks a line up to just under my ear, then he pulls my lobe between his teeth as he pushes his thigh further against me, stroking me up and down with his leg.
I clench my thighs around his, tilting my pelvis, wanting more. Wanting my pants off, and his too.
I’m burning up in this hoodie, and I want to cross my arms over my chest and pull it off. I want nothing between us, but I know if I open my eyes, the bubble will burst. We’ll go back to what we really are.
A girl that got fucked up, and a boy that got away with it.
He slides his hands down to my shoulders, his thigh still moving between us.
He runs his palms over my sides, then skims his fingers under the edges of my hoodie, against my bare skin.
I close my eyes tighter.
“Yeah,” he whispers, “keep your eyes closed.” I’m shocked he can tell, but I don’t dare open them.
“Pretend it isn’t me whose touching you.
” His words are full of venom, like he hates that.
The fact that I have to disappear inside myself, pretend his fingers sliding under the edges of my sweats aren’t his.
I press my palms to the wall, feeling clammy but full of need.
So much fucking need.
He yanks down my sweats, my underwear, then he’s on his knees.
I gasp, nervous, wanting to hide as I quickly cross my legs, almost opening my eyes. Almost breaking the spell.
“No, no, no. No.” I say it over and over, and even I can hear the thread of insecurity laced in my tone. This is too much. Too intimate.
“Remi,” he says, his voice full of disapproval as my hands find his hair, even though I know I shouldn’t run my fingers through it. I shouldn’t touch him at all. I shouldn’t do this. “Uncross your legs.”
I can’t. My knees are shaking, threatening to buckle. Guys have tried to go this far before in the past year, but I could never let them in. That familiar panic steals through me and I think I’m going to faint.
His hand is between my thighs, one on my hip, but he can’t go much further even though he’s trying. I know, though, he isn’t trying as hard as he could. If he wanted, he could force me again.
“Pretty baby,” he whispers those words against my skin, his hot breath causing my spine to straighten, my skin to tingle. His next words are closer to my center, skating over my thigh. “Let me.”
I shake my head, biting my lip, eyes still closed. “We can’t do this, Cortland. We can’t?—”
“I can do whatever I fucking want.” He licks up my thigh, just to the crease as he tries to pry my legs apart.
My chest tightens with those words.
I want to give in.
I want to break free.
Table of Contents
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- Page 38 (Reading here)
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