Chapter Eight
Don’t fucking cry in front of her. Don’t you fucking dare! FUCK!
I lurched up from the seat, leaving the room as fast as I could, so she’d miss the first pathetic sob that tore from my throat.
What the fuck was going on with me? First with Lissa and now with Glory, the one person I never wanted to see me as weak, but what was the alternative?
That I hid everything from her and she thought I didn’t care or feel anything?
She grabbed my arm as I headed for my office, and I froze, staying as I was, facing away from her so she couldn’t see the fucking tears on my cheeks, the way my chest was heaving with repressed sobs.
“Lissa says if we don’t let things out, they eat us up from inside. She said letting it out isn’t weakness.”
Fuck.
“I’m sorry that my being here is messing you up like this.”
I spun on my heel, dragging the back of my hand across my face.
“What? Don’t do that! I’m glad you called me. You can always call me!”
She pointed at my face, a brief jab of her finger in its general direction.
“I’m doing this to you.”
I swallowed hard, lifting a shoulder like it was no big deal.
“Uh… allergies, you know…” I lifted a hand like, what, like I’m allergic to my damn house?
“Nate…”
Jesus. I dragged my hands over my face again because my eyes wouldn’t stop fucking leaking.
“I’m being a wuss, I know. I’m just… can you let me retain a little of my manly pride and let me cry in another room?”
Glory shook her head, stepping closer and hugging me.
“You helped me let it out, so now I’m doing the same for you. We’re friends, right?” Friends. Yeah. That’s all we are. All we can be.
I wrapped my arms around her, squeezing her against me as I forced slow deep breaths and fought the emotions, because there was no way I was doing this in front of her. I’m not a fucking crier, dammit.
“Nate, stop holding back.”
I cupped the back of her head and sighed, resting my cheek against her hair.
“I’m okay. I’m just… struggling with what you’ve gone through, and that’s with me not even knowing anything.”
“I… I don’t know if I can tell you.”
I kissed her hair, resting my cheek again. “Don’t need to. It’s not my business. I just have the worst possible thoughts in my head, and I know I’m probably right on some of it. It kills me. It’s… I should have stopped things. I should have done anything I could to keep you apart.”
Glory struggled out of my arms, not backing away, just wanting to look me in the eye.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything, Nate. I mean, I may have ended up losing you as a friend over it, because I was so sure about him. I was so fucking caught up in him, and you’d have lost. You shouldn’t have, but you would have.”
Ouch. “I should have tried harder,” I insisted, because I’m a stubborn bastard.
“You did. Don’t you remember?”
Did I? It wasn’t enough, obviously.
“Nate, you threatened to break his face, which was really out of character for you. You begged me not to leave with him that day. You swore he wasn’t right. I was just too blinded by love to listen to the one person I should always have prioritised.”
I was shaking my head because that wasn’t it. I didn’t need to be her priority, did I?
“No, sweetheart. You deserved better from him, and from me, because if I’d just been more vigilant I could have seen-”
“How could you when I didn’t? When everyone else we knew didn’t? Hell, there are still people in his life who have no idea. He’ll always be able to win people over because he’s so good at hiding the real him.”
“He fucking won’t. His days are numbered. I’ve called in the hit on him. Jesus, did I just say that? Like I’m some fucking mobster bastard who just does that?”
Glory cupped my cheeks in her palms, and fuck, all I wanted was to kiss her.
She was so earnest and sweet, and I had to force myself not to move closer.
It took every ounce of effort not to close the gap between us and assault the poor woman with my lips.
Fuck me, the last thing she needed was advances from the person she was relying on to be her safe place.
“You’re not any of those things, Nate. You’re a good person. I get that this is so far out of the norm for you, but thank you. Knowing he won’t be around anymore is actually giving me a little strength, and I need that right now.”
Of course she did. She needed everything I could fucking give her, and I would. I’d give her the fucking world if she’d let me. The air from my lungs. The blood from my veins. Why am I getting so fucking dark and creepy?
“Glory, I-”
“Do you know why I don’t go by that name anymore?”
I hesitated, because of course I’d noticed that she didn’t respond to it, and acted nothing like she had before, but I hadn’t wanted to ask.
“Is it going to make me want to hit something?”
She pulled back and I cursed myself. What a dumbass thing to say to a fucking traumatised woman!
“Not you! Oh my god, never you! I’m not that person, and I don’t do things like that. I would never-”
Glory raised her hands at me.
“I know. I know. Just… yeah, it might make you pissed off. I don’t go by it anymore because he told me there was nothing glorious about me.
That I was fake, and stupid, and pathetic, and ugly, and all the things he kept saying…
I guess I started believing them. I mean, I did.
I do. I’m having to fight a lot of things that are just living rent free in my head right now. ”
Jesus fuck. I wanted to tear his fucking skin from his body while he screamed for mercy. I wanted to do that creepy shit from movies where they pluck off fingernails, and cut off fucking fingers and toes.
“Nate,” Glory backed up a few steps as she spoke, and I realised she was seeing that rage reflected back at her.
“Fuck,” I breathed, squeezing my eyes closed as I searched frantically for anything resembling zen, anything that’d calm me down and stop her thinking I’m the threat now.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, still not opening my eyes, because I couldn’t look at her right now, “I’m not angry at you. I could never be angry at you.”
Gloria
Even at his angriest he didn’t scare me. Was it just because I knew he’d never ever raise a finger to hurt someone? Anyone? If not a stranger then definitely not me. Somehow I just knew it.
“I am,” I said in response to his words, surprising myself as much as him.
“What?”
“I’m pissed at myself. I should have listened.
I should have opened my eyes sooner. I should have had the courage to walk when it first started happening.
You know how men like that keep women tied to them?
As well as the fear, it’s the way they act so sweet after, so heartbroken, like you know this isn’t me.
I’m not like this. I didn’t mean to. And then it’s all you make me crazy, and that’s how you end up taking the blame for it. ”
I sighed, leaning against the wall, surprised at my moment of clarity, at the fact that I could say these things now, when I hadn’t even really absorbed them as truth before today.
Lissa’s talk with me today, or more accurately, her listening session, had really broken through to me somehow.
I’d started to look at myself from outside, like it was through her eyes, and I could see all the mistakes I’d made.
All the allowances I’d made for his behaviour.
All the times I forgave when I should have screamed back at him, and kicked his nuts so hard he choked on them.
“I always thought I was strong enough to defend myself against a man like him, but they do it so gradually that you don’t really see what it is until it’s too late.
First he isolated me from you, then my family, then everyone except him.
Once he was all I had, there was nowhere to go.
If not for Lenore and the charity, I’d probably never have had the courage. ”
“Lenore?”
“She’s the one who saved me. She took one look at me and asked me the simplest question, but the one that saved my life.
She lowered her voice and asked me ‘do you need help escaping him?’.
I don’t know how she even worked it out, because I wasn’t letting my trauma be seen, but she saw through the exterior and recognised the damage beneath. ”
“Thank fuck for her, whoever the hell she is. She sounds like an angel.”
I still thought that was what she was. She was beautiful, fierce as hell, and made me want to be like her. She had her blonde hair in a long bob, and wore little makeup, but she seemed to glow from within, something I realise she had long before she met that huge guy she’s with.
“She is. She still checks in, you know. Weekly calls to make sure I’m doing okay. They don’t just wash their hands of us. They keep supporting.”
Nate scratched his jaw, his eyes darting back and forth as he pondered my words.
“They sound like a charity I’d want to support. Can you send me their details? I mean… unless that makes you worry that I’m snooping. I’m not. I mean, obviously I’m not, I just-”
“I love that you still do that,” I said, interrupting him as usual, because he could talk forever when he got like this.
“Babbling like an idiot?”
I smiled at his bemused expression. He saw it as a flaw, but I saw it as a sign of all the warmth and kindness in him. So many things he wanted to say and do to help that they flowed out as many words, sometimes so fast I had to struggle to keep up.
“Not like an idiot… maybe just like a bit of a weirdo.”
“Hey,” he murmured, mock-glaring at me. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So, uh… since we’re conversating at last, you know I’m with an MC now right?”