Thirty-Three Gemma #3
Rage filtered through his voice, filling with sharp smoke.
“So I’ll tell you again. What you’re saying is a lie.
It has to be a lie. It has to be because if it’s not, then I might as well carve out my fucking heart and be finished with it because I’m done.
Do you hear me? I’m done with this shit.
I’m done wanting you, craving you. I’m done with time-skipping and my head throbbing and the damn world never standing still. ”
He raked both hands through his hair, backing up as if my presence set fire to him.
Molten anger flowed in his stare as he bared his teeth.
“I have nothing in my head. Nothing about last night. Nothing but my past that doesn’t give me a goddamn break.
Why can I remember that, huh? And not have a shred of recollection about what you say happened? ”
He didn’t wait for me to reply. He wasn’t asking me. He was asking himself. Asking the prison inside him that would never let him free.
“I’ll tell you why.” He shook harder, looking as if he’d break apart. “I don’t have any memory because it doesn’t exist because it didn’t fucking happen!” His voice slipped into a harrowed breath. “It just...can’t.”
Something cracked inside me.
Something fragile and new and far too delicate to be pulverized so early in the morning.
I wanted so much to go wrap my arms around him, but my instincts prickled that I wasn’t safe.
He walked the edge of sane and insane. One push in the wrong direction, and I would pay.
“It’s okay, Kas. You can choose to trust me, even if you can’t remember right now. Trust what I’m saying is real and—”
“Stop.” Drawing himself up to his full height, his hands balled and eyes etched with anger.
Behind his anger lurked emotional carnage.
A sacking of his soul as he howled for help, all while incapable of asking for it.
“I-I’ve heard enough. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
” He shook his head. “Even if what you said was real, how do you expect me to believe that you willingly wanted me?” He paced in front of me, wobbling a little as he turned. “It’s a trick. It has to be.”
“There is no trick.” I kept my voice low, forcing myself not to meet his temper.
“Everything I just said was true. Everything we did affected me. It affected you too. And that’s why you can’t accept it.
Give your mind a chance to replace what you’ve forgotten.
Deep down inside yourself, you know what I’m saying is real.
That you feel something for me. That you’re afraid because things are changing between us. They’ve already changed—”
“I’m not afraid.”
I smiled sadly, my heart bleeding all over my ribs. “You’re so afraid, you’re willing to deny every incredible thing we experienced. You’re consumed with darkness. You’ve repressed so much evil that it’s killing you. It’s stopping you from living, Kas. It’s stopping you from loving—”
“Careful.” His tone was pure ice. “I’d be very, very careful. I’m hanging on by a thread. Push me any harder, and I won’t be responsible for what happens.”
He sounded like the man from a few days ago. The man who’d woken from a concussion with so many facets inside him. A man lost to me, to himself, to any love we might have shared.
It hurt.
God, it hurt.
I was in love with him.
And he wasn’t ready.
He might never be ready.
And that was the heartbreaking reality of what I’d signed up for.
Nodding once, I swallowed past the thick lump in my throat.
I tried one last time to fight for us. “Please, Kas. Stop being such a bastard for one measly second and think. Just one second, ask yourself why you left last night. Why you headed to that dorm without me after the best sex we’d ever had.
You did it to protect me. You knew, didn’t you?
You knew you’d forget. You’ve been keeping things from me.
Those moments you space...they’re getting worse, aren’t they? ”
He scowled, tripping back at my sudden shift in mood. “I already told you—”
“And I told you that this is real. What I feel is real. What you feel is real. Just search your mind and—”
“If you know anything about me, you already know that’s never going to happen. I just told you, I will never go rifling through my past.”
“In that case, you’re doomed to always be lost and alone.” My chest burst with pain. “The only way you’re ever going to heal, the only way you’re ever going to find happiness, is if you face what you’ve buried inside you.”
“I’m...I’m tired.” He suddenly stumbled, tripping to the large wingback and falling into it. Cradling his head in his palms, he muttered, “Just stop, Gemma. I need you to stop.”
“All I’m asking is for you to drop your walls,” I murmured. “To see the mess and the magic of what happened between us last night. I’m asking you to do it...for me.”
He stiffened in the chair, his long hair quivering on his shoulders. “Don’t try to twist this. Don’t make it seem as if you care.”
My temper flashed. “You made me care. You made me believe—” I cut myself off, glaring at the carpet, unable to look at him.
“You did some awful things last night, Kas, but you were also...kind and sweet, and...I wanted you. I wanted you so damn much.” I dared look up.
“I still want you, even while you’re hurting me. ”
He sucked in a breath, his eyes meeting mine.
That all-encompassing chemistry between us sparked and hissed. I felt a physical pull to go to him. A clench in my core. A tingle in my lips. I wanted to crawl into his lap, to kiss him, to claw my way inside that broken head of his and yank out the memories he was too afraid to analyze.
“You want me?” he breathed.
For a second, we hovered on a precipice that could fall either way.
Fall right, and we could fall into each other.
We could kiss and fondle, and tumble to the floor to repeat the rough ravaging of last night.
Or we could fall left, and trip even farther apart.
We could stay enemies; stay trapped in this terrible carousel.
I’ll lose him.
Lose the Kas who had the power to make me love, all while leaving me with a version of the man I hated.
The agony of that hurt me more than I could stand.
My anger sprang hot again, choosing war instead of words.
“Last night, when your body was deep in mine, I let myself dream. I dreamed that I was always meant to find you. That I would help you, heal you, and eventually take you home with me. I was willing to turn my back on my own life in order to save yours. I was ready to give it all up.” I laughed with utter exhaustion.
“Now, you’re making me feel stupid. I get that you’re not well.
I get that your concussion is still a factor and can cause mood swings.
And I get that medically, you have every right to be afraid if you truly can’t remember.
But what you don’t have the right to do is make me feel like an idiot.
Your denial—your stark refusal to even listen to me—goes to show how incredibly na?ve I was to think one night of affection would fix a decade of your problems.” I swiped at a lone tear.
“But you know what? You’ve just proved that regardless of your amnesia and all the stuff you’ve repressed, what’s really going on here is your inability to fight for something that could save you.
I’m trying to fight for you, Kas. But you... you’re not ready to fight for me.”
I swiped at another tear. “You’re still too conditioned. Too trapped by this place.”
He went deathly still. “You’re saying I want to be conditioned. That I’m choosing to be a worthless slave, still chained to this place? That I stayed because I was too fucking weak to run when I had the chance?”
I froze. “What? No, I’m not saying that at all.”
He swooped to his feet, stabilizing his balance by grabbing onto the chair arm for a second.
His eyes met mine beneath drawn eyebrows.
Rage I hadn’t seen since the first few days of our acquaintance glowed obsidian in his gaze.
“You think I don’t want this shit to stop?
That I don’t want to be free? Of course, I want to be fucking free!
I tried to run. And I would’ve succeeded if they hadn’t shackled me to the bed night and day.
I would’ve died trying to escape. But then they brought the others here. ”
He wiped his mouth with horror, seeing a past I didn’t want to know.
“They arrived and they were so scared and lost and...and I tried to protect them. I got to know them. I loved them, and then running wasn’t an option anymore.
” His voice dropped to a harrowed breath.
“If I’d run, they would’ve paid the price.
They would’ve been beaten, starved, sliced, burned, raped—the list goes on and fucking on.
I stayed for them. I stayed because I loved them.
So don’t fucking talk to me as if I’m too afraid to fight for love, Gemma Ashford.
I’ve been doing it my entire godforsaken life! ”
He stormed into me, his chest almost colliding with mine.
“You stand there and think it’s so easy for me to remember.
That I’m weak because I refuse to go rifling in my past. To you, with your mind full of safety and privilege, of course it’s damn well easy.
But what you don’t understand is, I don’t just have my own pain trapped inside my head, I have theirs too.
I have all of it. Every fucking tear. Every fucking bruise.
Do you want me to admit that I don’t have the stomach to recall their screams?
That I’d rather be alone in this valley than live a life knowing I failed them?
That I couldn’t protect them? All the nights when a guest wanted them over me, I curse myself.
No matter what I did to take their place, sometimes, it wasn’t enough. ”