Page 22 of Sac-rifice (RBMC: Cleveland, Ohio Chapter #7)

I FORGOT…I REMEMBER

COR

I chucked something else—a boot this time—at Shane’s head, and he dodged it.

“For fucks sake, Cor! Quit throwing shit at me,” Shane warned, picking the boot up off the floor and shoving it into the trash bag beside him.

“Quit telling me what to do. You’re nothing to me.

You hear me? Nothing!” I shouted the lie, hoping to release myself from all of the anger I had pent up inside me.

I thought seeing him again had been hard, but that was before I had to be alone with him.

I was so stupid. Every time I looked at him, I didn’t know if I wanted to kiss him senseless or knock him out.

In the end, I chose option three. Throwing shit at him.

Swiping my pillow off the bed, I sent it soaring in his direction before turning away from him. I couldn’t look at him anymore.

“Little Dove.” Hearing the nickname made my heart hurt. I faced him as if I didn’t have any choice in the matter. He’d caught the pillow, and when he saw me look at him, he hurled it back across the room, and it bounced off my stomach.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I asked him. I’d hoped maybe he would take the hint. He’d left once, why couldn’t he do it again?

“Because.” He crossed the room, grabbed my wrist, and lifted it in front of my face.

“You’re mine, and I’m yours. You might not like it, but I’ll always belong to you, Corinne.

I’ve never stopped loving you. I’ve tried.

Believe me. I tried so fucking hard to forget you, but I can’t do it,” he breathlessly admitted as if his truths had stolen all of the air out of his lungs.

I gritted my teeth. I didn’t want to hear this.

But once the words were out there, I wasn’t able to ignore them, despite how much I wanted to.

And I did. Feeling my broken heart swell with love as life was pumped back into it from his sweet words was absolute torture.

I tried to dig my claws into the hate I’d told myself I felt for him, but they slipped out, losing their hold.

“Say something,” he ordered, staring at me, willing me to bend to his command. I shook my head out of spite.

“If you don’t open your mouth and speak, I won’t stop myself, Cor. I swear, if you don’t stop me, I’m going to kiss those lips I’ve wanted for longer than I can remember.” His voice sounded deeper than I remembered and made my knees weak.

I didn’t have it in me to stop him. I missed him as much as he missed me.

Kissing him would only complicate an already extremely complicated situation, but my mouth wouldn’t open.

I’d spent years blaming him for leaving me, never considering he did it to respect my wishes.

I thought back to the time we wound up in the shower together and he left me under the water.

He left then because he said it was the right thing to do.

If I really thought about it, he always had.

There was only one time when he hadn’t walked away, and that had been the turning point in our lives.

Looking back on it, he was doing what he thought was best and did it to protect me.

Since I didn’t answer, he kept his word. He slowly lifted my chin with his finger, and I closed my eyes. His lips lightly brushed against mine at first, and an unintentional moan left my mouth. He sucked air through his teeth and cussed.

“You’re so fucking beautiful.” His tongue swiped between my parted lips, and my mouth opened for him. I was putty in his hands at this point.

I forgot how to hate him.

I forgot how to love him.

I think I even forgot my own name.

For the first time in a long while, my mind was completely free of the never-ending internal monologue that overwhelmed my brain every waking second of my entire life.

Shane’s lips stilled, and he pulled away, but only slightly. He rested his forehead against mine, both of us panting as we recovered from what had just happened.

“Please forgive me, Cor,” he begged in such a grief-stricken tone that made it sound like he was actually in excruciating pain.

“I don’t know how to,” I earnestly admitted.

I remembered how pissed I had been.

I remembered the reasons.

I remembered he left…

Only now, I had a new piece of information to throw into the mix.

After kissing him, I now knew I didn’t ever want him to leave again.

I was still pissed; it would take a lot more than this to change that, but our past wasn’t something that could be erased.

Doing that would wipe away all the good with the bad.

Clinging to those memories were sometimes the only thing that kept me going.

And while I wasn’t certain where this put us, I was certain one kiss—no matter how earthshattering it might have been—didn’t have enough power to fix what was broken.

Every puzzle had to start somewhere when it was taken from an old dusty shelf and poured from the safety of its box to be rebuilt, though.

I hoped this was our first piece and a step in the right direction.

It would kill me if we were torn apart again, even though it shouldn’t.

* * *

“I hope you know this doesn’t mean I agree to this.

It’s still considered kidnapping in my book.

” I stared out the window, afraid if I looked at him, he’d see right through me.

Maybe I wasn’t as upset with him as I thought I was anymore.

I should, without a doubt, be. Really, though, I wasn’t sure of much.

Was up actually down and down now up? Until a few weeks ago, I would have laughed and confidently answered that with a big fat no.

Now, nothing seemed to make a bit of sense, and that included my feelings for Shane.

Had I been wrong to hate him for all those years?

Should I give him the benefit of the doubt now?

He was still the boy who I turned to time and time again, but his ocean eyes held an unrelenting storm behind them that wasn’t there when we were kids.

He was clearly different, both physically and mentally.

Men and women left their partners all the time, coming up with their best excuse when they tucked their tail and wanted to get together again.

I knew the vicious cycle well. Mom did that exact thing my whole childhood.

She stayed with someone who was absolutely undeserving of her, giving him most of her good energy as he happily drowned her in his toxicity.

One of my biggest fears was becoming her.

Not because she was a bad person, but because she was weak.

She should have stood up for herself and her kids.

Actually, if I was being honest, there were a lot of things Mom should have handled better than she had—being a better parent for starters.

But most importantly, she should have been strong, if not for herself, then for her kids.

I loved her dearly and missed her even more, but I didn’t think the love I had for her resembled what it should.

I didn’t love her as a daughter should her mother.

She put her love life above her kids, but I was old enough to now know when someone made a decision it rarely came with a ten-year plan.

No one could predict the exact outcome of how their choices would impact the people around them.

At least, not all the time. Mom did love Isaac and me, but she had never known what a healthy love was.

Her parents neglected her, and the only thing she was taught as she grew was toxic love.

Unknown: You can run off into the sunset with that asshole, but he can’t save you.

I read the words staring at me from the screen of my cellphone, glancing sideways at Shane.

Both of his hands were gripping the steering wheel, clearly too busy driving to tap out the text.

He hadn’t touched his phone since he took a call before we left.

He told me the truth. He really hadn’t been responsible for the borderline stalker texts.

I was pissed when I thought it was him who sent them, but I wasn’t scared.

Now, knowing without a doubt they weren’t from him, I was terrified.

Beads of sweat pooled in my palms, and I swiped my hands down the front of my jeans.

All of the sudden, it was too hot in here.

Was the heater on? I glanced at the thermometer, making sure it was set to cool and hadn’t somehow gotten switched to heat.

The tiny arrow on the knob was all the way to the left, pointing to the widest part of the blue line.

I held my clammy hands in front of the vent, wondering if my cooling system was crapping out.

Nope. Cold air blasted over my fingertips, and I huffed, cranking the window down a smidge. I couldn’t breathe.

Shit! The realization of what was happening inside my body whacked me with a hard truth. I was having another panic attack. I pulled a deep breath through my nostrils and blew the air out of my pursed lips.

“You okay over there?” Shane glanced sideways at me momentarily before his focus went back to the road in front of us.

I didn’t answer, stuffing my cellphone beneath my thigh. There was no telling what he would do if he read this text considering he slung me over his shoulder as a result from the previous ones.

“For fucks sake, Cor. I’m sorry.” He swerved the car off the road, slamming the gearshift into park.

“Look, I know you’re pissed. You can hate me for the rest of our lives later, but for right now, I need you to talk to me.

Why in the fuck did you hide your phone?

Yes, I saw that. What’s going on? I can’t protect everyone if I don’t have all of the information,” he sternly said, and then steepled his hands together, scrubbing his face with them afterward.