Chapter Eight #2
Wiping another tear that breaks loose, she smiles and nods. “Thank you, Marley.”
I roll my lips between my teeth as I hold her eye contact. “I have a question.” She gives me a small nod of permission. “Will he be back?”
Her eyes volley between mine for a moment before she gives a small head nod again. My heart sinks. Even if it’s not realistic, I hoped the guys scared him away.
She shuffles her feet nervously and turns her head to look at the horse still standing on the other side of the pen, his big black eyes watching us.
“Elly told me that every time she’s around Felix and Frost, it’s the best feeling in the world.
” Turning her head to meet my eyes, she says, “Is it true?”
It’s my turn to genuinely smile, and I nod. “Yes.” I drop my hands from her shoulders and turn toward the horse. “It is the best feeling in the world.”
Now facing the pen, her arms tucked across her chest again, she looks down and toes the grass at our feet.
“Would it be okay with you if I hang around some? Maybe help out in your stable an hour or so a day. I promise I won’t get in the way.
” She lifts her head and looks at me pleadingly as she finishes.
“I never turn down help, and it’s good for them to be around more people than just me.” I wave my hand at the other two horses in the paddocks next to the pen.
Her smile stretches and lights up her entire face. “After I clean up the breakfast mess? For an hour or so?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks, Marley.” She looks toward the house. “I have to go, it’s laundry day and if I don’t get an early start, it will put me behind for the day.”
“Okay. Tomorrow morning, then?”
“Yes, definitely!”
She waves as she walks away, but she has a pep in her step that wasn’t there before. I watch until she gets to the house and quickly walk to the stable and into one of the empty stalls, setting my palms and my forehead against the cool wood.
The threat of sinking sadness I was forcing back while I was talking to Hallie wraps around me like a dark cloud and I let the sob out that I choked back earlier. Listening to her express the same thoughts which have poked at me all these years brought it all to the surface.
Some people say time heals wounds, but I think that’s a way for some people to avoid an uncomfortable reality.
Maybe they don’t want to talk about the hurt that has been forced on someone else.
Maybe if they say it out loud to someone who’s hurting, it’s their way of putting an expiration date on their own unease.
Maybe it’s selfish, maybe it’s just self-preservation.
The wound may heal, it may look better from the outside, but it doesn’t go away. I think about the person I was before and the person I am now. Even after all this time, the pain and humiliation hasn’t gone away. I may look healed on the outside, but I’m still raw on the inside.
I’ll never be normal.
My dream of a happy life with a husband and children may never happen.
I try not to think about a future alone. I tell myself to focus on the here and now, or I’ll buckle under the crushing thought of never sharing the deep love that comes with a strong connection. That consequence is on me because I’m terrified of dealing with the pain involved in forming a bond.
What man would want to deal with all my baggage?
What hurts even more is trying to resign myself to never loving a child like my mom loved me. The bond between a mother and her child is one of the most sacred, and I may never experience that.
Sucking in air, counting my breaths, I try to stop myself from sliding down the icy slope of hopelessness and loneliness.
Sometimes angry, ugly thoughts slice through me like a red-hot knife, telling me I’m not good enough.
That I’ll never be... enough. Have enough to give.
Another sob chokes me, and then another, so I give in and let the tears flow. I let the anger and grief for a life I’ll never have pour out with each sob that surges from my chest. The hard wood is cool against my forehead and I fist my hand, hitting the wall with the soft pad on the side.
Warm powerful hands with rough callouses grip my shoulders and I jump, only to bump into a wall of muscle behind me. I spin around and look up into icy-blue eyes.
“Lepa, come.” He bands his arms around me like the strongest steel and pulls me to him. For the first time, I let someone besides my brothers or father hold me.
He feels good.
He feels safe.
My body melts into his and he sets his chin on my head as I sob into his shirt, my hands fisting the material on his hard chest. The smell of soap, leather, and something else envelopes me in warmth and safety.
“Let it out, du?o.” [sweetheart] He slides his hand down the back of my head and his palm rests on my nape. “You are one of the strongest people I know, tako jebeno hrabar. [so fucking brave]
Mumblings in a foreign language reach my ears in his soft voice, almost like he is whispering sweet nothings to me as his hand soothingly moves up and down my back. I don’t understand a word he’s saying, but I think it’s the most comforting thing anyone’s ever done for me.
Even if I can’t understand the words, his tone and the gentle way he holds me to him as she says them makes me feel like I’m in the safest place in the world, he feels sincere.
The sobs finally subside and have given me the damn hiccups. It seems like all my life anything can give me hiccups and I hate that. Just a small bite of something spicy gives me hiccups.
“What can I do?” His deep voice rumbles in his chest under my ear and the vibrations move through me like soft fingers playing a harp, tugging on strings that send warmth through my chest. That warmth spins in my chest and takes a nose-dive to my lower belly.
The shock of it makes every muscle in my body freeze. My first instinct is to pull away.
It’s bad enough that he’s my brother’s best friend, if Mason were to see this right now, he would probably lose his shit. Correction, if any of my brothers saw this, they would lose their shit.
“Please don’t pull away. Tell me, what can I do?” His arms tighten around me, he might as well be wrapping me in the most unrelenting shelter I’ve ever experienced.
Another flashing neon sign in my head is the realization that I don’t feel like I want to climb out of my skin. “You don’t make my skin crawl.”
For two breaths, he is quiet before a chuckle in his chest tickles my ear. “The highest of compliments.”