Page 46 of She's Like the Wind

The sound cracked through the quiet like a whip, sharp and echoing against the velvet-draped walls.

My other hand trembled at my side. My breath was ragged. My heart was wrecked.

“Naomi—”

“No.” My voice came out raw, almost unrecognizable. “You don’t get to do this to me.”

He took a step forward.

And like it was a choreographed dance, I stepped back.

“You don’t get to come in here like a bull in a China shop, bark at me about who I can date, then put your hands on me like I’m—” I choked. “Like I’m some…toyto amuse you.”

He looked like he’d been punched in the stomach. “I didn’t mean?—”

“I don’t care what you meant.”

He tried to speak again, but I raised my hand to stop the words I couldn’t afford to hear.

“Get out.”

“Naomi—”

“Get. Out.”

For a second, he didn’t move.

And I thought, God, he was going to fight for me. He was going to say something—anything—that would make this okay.

He didn’t.

He nodded.

Swallowed.

Backed away.

And left.

The moment the door clicked shut behind him, I collapsed.

I slid down to the floor like a rag doll, knees drawn to my chest, my body still tingling from the orgasm he’d ripped out of me like a thief stealing from a shrine.

And I cried.

Not the elegant kind, not the single-tear-down-the-cheek kind. But the ugly kind that makes your chest ache and your throat burn, that leaves you curled on the floor gasping for breath like you’ve just come up from drowning.

I cried for the girl who’d thought love would look like safety.

For the woman who’d convinced herself that being wanted was the same thing as being valued.

For the fool who let a man back into her body even after he made it clear she’d never have his heart.

I pressed my face to my knees and whispered, “I love you,” like it was a confession and a curse, “and God, it hurts.”

I loved a man who treated me like a sexual toy. Who couldn’t say the words I needed. Who disappeared when I showed him the softest parts of myself, then came back and took from me without offering anything real in return.

I wanted to be mad at him.