Page 50 of Let the Game Begin (Kiss Me Like You Love Me #1)

Horrifying images began flashing before my eyes, sending my soul tumbling back down into the abyss. My stomach lurched, and I hit my knees in front of the toilet.

Why me?

The muscles of my abdomen contracted involuntarily and out poured all the hatred, rage, and frustration that surrounded me like an enormous dark veil whenever I remembered that evil year. The one that was now a part of me and always would be.

I wiped my lips with the back of my hand before curling them in disgust. Then I flushed and got to my feet with difficultly. It was hard to breathe. I could feel my esophagus burning and taste the stomach acid on my tongue. I blinked several times, trying to clear my head.

I bent over the sink and brushed my teeth, scrubbing hard until I saw blood oozing from my gums. I stared at my reflection in the mirror.

I was pale; my eyes were glassy and my lips were dry, making it obvious how unsettled I was.

My flexed biceps supported my weight as my chest heaved rapidly up and down.

“Fuck this,” I whispered. “Fuck this! Fuck this!” My voice got louder and louder.

I was so angry, and I hated myself so much.

My body, my eyes, every fucking thing about the way I looked.

I hated my mood swings, my weak moments, the times when the Boy emerged just to remind me how angry he still was.

I stripped off my jeans and boxers and tossed them furiously away from me.

Then I climbed into the shower and turned the water on as hot as it would go.

I scalded myself, punishing myself for everything that I had done, for everything that I hadn’t avoided, for what I was, for what I had become, and for what I would always be.

Why me?

“Why me? Huh? Why?” I lifted up my face, squinting into the water hitting me, and I addressed a God who probably had as much against me as I now had against him.

I could feel the fury crescendoing inside me, quickly outpacing my reason before snuffing it out entirely.

So I tried to vent the only way I knew how: I started throwing violent punches against the tile.

One after the other. I didn’t care about the pain.

I didn’t care about getting injured. I didn’t care about anything.

I could have died in there, and honestly, that might have been the best possible outcome.

“Neil! What are you doing?” Logan threw open the glass door of the shower and grabbed me by the shoulders, pulling me out. I collapsed to my knees, staring at my reddened, swollen knuckles and then…then I just started laughing.

Fuck, I was really busting a gut. I must have looked like an actual lunatic.

Or maybe I just was a lunatic.

Logan grabbed a bath towel and draped it over my shoulders to cover me. Then he looked at me, terrified and, bit by bit, my laughter died.

“Sorry, it’s all his fault…” The Boy’s fault, that fucked-up kid.

It was always his fault. My body began trembling, rocked by a wave of painful convulsions that I could do nothing to stop.

My head was throbbing, and my muscles ached from being held in tension for way too long.

My hands felt like they were on fire. I tried to move them, to close them into fists, but it hurt too badly and I grimaced in pain.

I was used to being hurt, though. It was hardly the first time it had happened.

My brother sighed and helped me to my feet.

“I’m going to go get you some ice,” he said, hurrying out of the bathroom as I trudged slowly across my room.

I sat down on the bed and looked down at myself.

I was completely naked with nothing but a towel around my shoulders like a cape.

The outlines of my muscles and veins showed clearly just how much my body had changed since I was little.

I had grown up but the Boy still lived inside me, more pissed off than ever.

With a heavy sigh, I got up and grabbed a clean pair of boxers from the drawer. I pulled them on and tossed the damp towel on the floor. My skin was still dripping and so was my hair, but I had no intention nor inclination to dry it.

“Logan…is everything okay in there?”

Selene’s soft, feminine voice echoed down the hallway from behind the half-open door of my room.

I stared straight ahead at nothing in particular and focused completely on her words. It was ridiculous how my entire body warmed to the sound of her voice, and it was unbelievable how the excitement rushed down between my legs, even in a shitty moment like that.

What would Selene have thought of me if she had known what I really was? A shitshow, a psychopath, everyone’s fucking problem. I smiled sardonically at myself and my warped personality.

“Don’t worry; everything’s fine.” Logan’s tone was reassuring, but I knew how worried he really was. He was always worried when I lost my head. Moments later, he came into the room with a bag of ice in his hand. He shut the door behind him with a small kick.

“Sit down.” He pointed to the bed, but I just kept standing there, staring him down.

“Don’t order me around,” I told him sharply. I hated it whenever someone tried to tell me what to do. My brother looked at me, and I held his gaze, making sure he knew not to fight with me about it.

“Your hands are already swelling up. I just want to help you.” He huffed and approached me. I didn’t move. At the same time, I couldn’t stop eyeing him warily, and I didn’t really know why. My body was acting independently of the rest of me.

“Calm down, okay? It’s me, your brother.” He said it with such intensity that it actually dissipated the dark clouds fogging up my mind.

It was Logan, my brother.

The same brother who played with me as a child; the only person who had never been afraid of me. The only person who actually knew me and accepted me as I was.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and let my hands rest on my bent knees. I was a big, imposing man, but in that moment, all I felt was vulnerable and tired. I was exhausted from fighting myself once again.

“How come my big, bad brother turns into a baby the moment he needs to get his owies looked at, huh?” he teased, pressing the ice pack down on the back of my right hand.

I shuddered at the burning sensation and tightened my jaw, not saying a word.

I always felt this way after one of my lost times: confused and unsteady.

I never remembered anything I’d said or done.

I probably could have committed murder and my mind would have repressed it, so powerful and uncontrolled were my outbursts.

Logan sat down next to me and let me hold the bag of ice in place with my other hand.

“Do you remember when we were little and we used to do pinky swears?” he murmured as I continued to study the backs of my hands, dotted with little red gashes.

Of course I remembered our pinky swears. My mind could easily travel back there, to those distant years that were still alive inside me…

“Logan.” I rested my hands on his little shoulders. We were hiding together under the kitchen table. “I’ll tell you what you need to do one more time, okay?” I said in a low voice as he watched me with terrified eyes.

“Okay,” he whispered, unsure.

“You’re going to leave the kitchen and run to the bedroom. You’re going to close your eyes while you cross the living room, and you’re not going to look.” I took a breath and then kept going. “Go in the room and lock the door. Turn on the TV and turn the volume way up.”

“Neil.” An adult woman’s voice echoed off the walls of the house. She had an odd kink: she liked to force me to hide and then come find me. My heart began pounding in my chest, and I looked back at my brother, waiting for him to repeat the instructions I’d just given him.

“Say it again, now.” He was only seven years old and already being tested in ways he couldn’t fully understand.

“I leave the kitchen, run to the bedroom, and then…” He rubbed the nape his neck and looked upward, trying to remember what came next.

“When you cross the…” I prompted him and he continued.

“Yeah, when I cross the living room, I close my eyes and I don’t look. Then I go into the room, lock the door, turn on the TV, and turn the volume way up,” he concluded in his faint little voice.

“Good pup,” I whispered, kissing his forehead. I was his big brother, and I would protect him at all costs.

I started to leave our hiding place. I needed to be found before she could catch us both here and perhaps hurt Logan, too. He held me back, though, tugging on my shirt. “And then you come back to me, right?” he whispered, knowing that we needed to be quiet. He was little, but he was smart.

“Of course, I’ll come back. You do everything I told you, okay?” I held his face in my hands and he nodded, though he didn’t understand the reason behind my orders. To be honest, I was glad he couldn’t understand.

“Should we do our pinky swear?” He stuck his little finger out to me, waiting.

“Pinky swear,” I smiled and hooked my pinky with his.

Then he ran away, and I went to meet my fate.

“I could never forget that,” I murmured, pressing the ice against my swollen knuckles.

“We’ve been through everything together,” he said softly, thinking of exactly the same things I was.

“You’ve always been my favorite pup.” I reached out and tousled his chestnut hair, cracking a spontaneous grin.

“Come on! Knock it off! You know I hate it when you mess up my hair.” He tried to squirm away, muttering like a sulky child.

“I used to do it all the time when you were little,” I pointed out.

“When I was little, you tormented me.” He threw me a dirty look, and I tried to suppress a laugh.

“That is not true,” I argued, pretending not to remember the many disasters I had visited upon him as a child.

“Oh yeah? You once peed my bed. On purpose!” he answered, narrowing his eyes.