Breach: The Boxset (23 page)

I couldn’t do what he asked. I wanted to take him in and let him see that everything was all right, that I was there for him.

Manic hands moved back to my waist, his fingers digging in, his passion and desperation increasing. He was clawing at the clasp on my suit pants before he moved to pick me up by my ass and walked us back inside.

He was hard against my stomach. The vibration of the groan that came out as he set me down and my body ran down his length sent an electric fire through me. He released me long enough to tug his own shirt over his head.

He picked me up again, and once we reached the bedroom, we fell onto the bed, his hands grabbing at me, unable to stay in one place. His lips were everywhere, his tongue lapping at any flesh he could find. He latched onto the waist of my pants, his mouth never leaving my breast, and pulled the zipper down before removing them along with my panties. He removed his own pants as well and was on me again, his hands using more force than usual.

He hovered over me for a small second as he lined up. I looked into his eyes and gasped at the nothingness I saw in them. The lights were on, but I couldn’t find Nathan inside their depths.

He pushed inside and I arched while I cried out in pleasure. My body welcomed him, my hips rocking up to his.

I wanted to help him, but the situation was rapidly spiraling out of control. Everything was harder than usual, and every time he pulled out and slammed back in, it increased.

It didn’t take long before I was screaming out his name as I came, my body reacting to his, the same as always.

His grip grew tighter, kisses rougher, thrusts harder. It was to the point of pain. Everything was coming to a head.

Nathan was breaking.

He was ending us in the same way we began, but harder. Ripping apart our connection with force. His anger, hurt, and pain laid bare as he took it all out on me.

“Please, Nathan. Come back to me,” I cried out, but I knew it was useless. I couldn’t pull him out—he was too far gone.

I grabbed his head, a gasp forced out of me at his blank and glazed over eyes.

My blood ran ice-cold. His eyes always held a fire when he was with me, but it was gone.

He was dangerous, dark, and was scaring me. I whimpered another soft plea for him to look at me, and to come back. My palms stroked his chest as tears threatened to leak out of my eyes.

His hands tightened around my arms, squeezing so hard I cried out in pain. He was shaking, tearless sobs rocking his body.

He kept his mouth away from my neck and shoulder—he wasn’t going to mark me.

This was it. The end.

A tear slid down my cheek.

His grip was harsh, bruising. His nails dug in deep at my hips, much stronger and harder than ever before. I tried to pull away, the pain intensifying, but I couldn’t and he was too far gone to notice.

I couldn’t fault him for it. I asked for what was happening. I let the beast inside of him out, allowed him to be fully unleashed upon me.

My muscles went lax, and I gave in to the sensations, unfolded myself so his needs could be sated and the nightmare could end.

The tears of anguish, both physical and emotional, poured from my eyes. I could feel it, his fingers so tight on my flesh. It was too great. We would not survive his pain, survive the night.

I shouldn’t have come.

Words from the past came crashing down on me.

It’s your fault. You shouldn’t have provoked him
.

I lay beneath him, tears streaming down my face. Hoping, praying, he would return to me. His muscles tensed, and I felt him empty inside me, collapsing on top of me.

After he had regained somewhat-normal breathing, his head rose from my chest. I could hardly see. My eyes were slits as I fought for consciousness. But it was enough for me to see recognition return to his eyes, followed by shock, then overwhelming sadness before I passed out.

I awoke sometime later in my familiar bed. It was neither comfortable nor warm. It was cold and empty. Just like I was.

He wasn’t there, and I didn’t need to call out to know for certain. His side of the bed lacked body heat.

Gone.

A shiver ran through me. I moved to sit up, but my body cried out in protest, and I looked down to find handprint-shaped bruises blossoming on my arms. There was a stinging sensation on my waist where I found crescent shaped gouges from his nails, along with more bruising and dried blood from where he’d broken skin.

There were other yellow spots forming on my flesh. I sighed and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. As I stood up, my legs wobbled and I stumbled, swaying back into the bed.

A piece of paper crinkled beneath my hand, and I looked down to find Nathan’s handwriting across the page.

Lila,

I can’t do this any longer. I refuse to hurt you again. Please keep your distance, and I promise I won’t come to you anymore. We’ll act like we never happened.

Nathan

I read and reread the words on the page, though I had already known. His mind was made up.

He left me.

Weak. You’re weak.

Stupid. You actually believed he had feelings for you?

I stopped breathing, and my chest felt as if it was being ripped apart from the inside. The pain was excruciating, doubling me over.

I wasn’t strong enough. Strong enough to fix him, strong enough to heal him, strong enough for myself, or strong enough to hold us together.

Another wave of pain lanced through my chest.

Oh…this is what a heart breaking feels like.

All the walls I had built to hold the crushing dark abyss gave way, trapping me in its suffocating black depth. I was sent spiraling into the dark, the light fading, my strength gone.

I wasn’t strong enough.

I wasn’t enough.

Never enough.

CHAPTER 24

Day.

Minutes.

Weeks.

Years.

Hours.

I didn’t know how much time had passed, nor did I care. It was peaceful in the black.

Voices called to me, whispered echoes surrounded me. I could make them out, if I concentrated. But I didn’t want to concentrate. I wanted the peaceful black.

Most of their words were lost in the depth, mangled, but I could hear the murmurs all the same.

Caroline, Andrew…
and
Nathan.

I could make out the tenor more than the actual words. Nathan didn’t say much, for which I was thankful, but I could hear Andrew. He was angry, screaming and cursing while Caroline was pleading.

I shook every time I heard Nathan. His voice threatened to pull me back.

I didn’t want to go back. The calm darkness held the pain at bay. I didn’t have to feel my heart shattering in there.

Though the pain came through anyway every time he spoke.

It wasn’t often, but it was there. He stayed silent, and I couldn’t help but wonder why he was there. Didn’t he leave
me
? Break me? Wasn’t that why I had resigned myself to the darkness?

More voices came, an urgent tone, unknown. I couldn’t feel my body, but I could tell I was being moved.

More time passed, and voices came and went. Some familiar, others not.

Dr. Morgenson? He was angry, yelling at someone.

No more Nathan. He was gone. I couldn’t feel him anymore. He left.

A feminine voice, smooth and soft, showed up at some unknown point. She didn’t talk around me, or about me like the other unknown voices did, but she spoke
to
me. I couldn’t make out most of her words, but I could tell they were sweet and encouraging. There was a hint of sorrow in her voice as she apologized, but I couldn’t understand why this unknown woman would do something like that.

My chest tore a little more, and I slipped back deeper, away from the pain.

Darkness prevailed. Up, down, day, night—I didn’t know any of those. But I did know I was safe. The pain, the loneliness, and the worthlessness was unable to touch me in my own black world.

Nathan didn’t want me.

I rose again, something pulling me. Not a voice. I couldn’t quite tell, but it pulled me from the darkness, calling out to me. I could hear the beating.

Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

No voices, no sounds, just the beating, calling to me, pulling at me.

There was nothing but the darkness and the beating. And it was constant, unrelenting.

Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

Nathan?

It drew me closer to the surface, and I heard the voices again. They spoke medical terminology—gibberish to my ears.

Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

It was so close. There in the darkness.
He
was so close.

I began to shake, fighting against his call. I knew it was him. Only he pulled at me. He wasn’t in the room, but he was close.

The unknown voices were still speaking, but I didn’t understand them. I only heard him.

Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

“…ven Palmer.”

One of the voices broke through, calling out the name of the man who helped to conceive me but would never be my father.

All sound stopped. A ringing began along with the voice, growing louder like a raging siren.

“Emergency contact. This paperwork is about thirteen years old, but it does say next of kin. Perhaps we should call him? He would want to know about his daughter’s condition.”

No. No. No. Please. You can’t call him. Don’t. No!

I thought I had been screaming in my head, but before me were two wide-eyed doctors, staring at me in shock.

I began to scream, begging them not to call him, thrashing in the bed, tears streaming down my face as I yanked on the tubes in my arms in an attempt to flee.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Dr. Morgenson’s voice rang out through my screaming. “Lila. Lila. Calm down!” He called out to me, his hands stroking at my hair.

“Please, please, Dr. Morgenson, don’t let them call him. Please. He doesn’t want me. No one wants me,” I cried. “I can’t listen to him tell me again that he hates me.”

I trusted Dr. Morgenson. He knew my past. He’d worked with me before and knew I had no one. That turning to my former family would be worse than death to me.

“Shh, no one is calling anyone, Lila. It’s just you and me here now. You need to calm down before you make me give you a sedative, which I really don’t want to do.” His voice was soothing.

I made my body relax back into the bed, but my breathing was still labored, tears streaming out of my eyes uninhibited. It was then that everything came crashing down on me. The pain in my chest seared like a red hot poker. I stared up at the ceiling in an attempt to calm myself, but it didn’t help. A sob ripped through my body, and I turned to the side, my body curling in on itself as sob after sob poured out.

“Not enough. I’m not enough. Not strong enough. Now…I’m nothing. Nothing. Just like they always said.”

“Lila, I need you to focus on me now, can you do that?” Dr. Morgenson asked.

I turned my head to look at him. He was blurry through the tears, but I could make out his black hair and the look of concern on his face.

“How do you feel?”

“L-like there’s a h-hole in my chest. It h-hurts so much,” I stammered, gasping for air.

“Breathe, Lila. You need to calm down. Take a deep breath,” he instructed.

I complied as best I could. It was difficult with all the things I was suddenly feeling.

There was a pinch on my arm and coldness slipping up my veins and then nothing. I ceased to be. The blackness took me. Thank God…

When I came to, an unknown amount of time later, Dr. Morgenson was there, waiting for me and waiting to explain what was going to happen.

“Lila, I had to sedate you. Do you understand why I did it?”

Yes, I knew why, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. It hurt too much, so I resorted to basic communication through facial expressions and head movements. I nodded and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes. Not his too. I would listen to anything he had to say, but I couldn’t bear to see that look.

One of the things I loved about my doctor was how perceptive he was and how he seemed to believe in me.  If it wasn’t for him in the past, I wouldn’t have made it. And here he was again, bandaging me up so I could pretend to exist enough until…what? Until I decided I was done. Until I left and found something better or…

“Here’s the plan. I’m giving you a new prescription. You’re going to take it exactly as I prescribe it. And if you’re still having insomnia, you need to start taking the sleeping pills in conjunction. You will go to bed at ten p.m. each night. You will get up at six and shower, get dressed, eat something, and go to work. I want to see you every Friday after work at six p.m. No drinking, no bars. Friends are allowed to see you, but only if they’re supportive of you and don’t interfere with your therapy.”

I swallowed hard. What friends? Caroline? Andrew? Would they even want to be around me when I was a black hole of a being? I didn’t care. What would I say anyway?

“If you agree and sign the release paperwork, then you can go home afterward. Any questions?” he asked, patting my arm.

He was being firm but also empathetic, and I didn’t deserve it. Any of it.

“How long?” I asked in a whisper of a breath so I didn’t crack in half from the pain.

He knew what I meant, and gave me a sympathetic smile before dealing my fate. “Indefinitely. You’ll be on the medication until we get you going with some serious trauma therapy. This episode, this ‘parataxic distortion’ you experienced, it will come back. It always does until it’s dealt with. But with how fragile you are right now, we have to wait until you can handle it because it will dig at your core and bring up all sorts of nasty memories you’ve suppressed and buried for years.”

Just say it…say the word… Broken. A step away from being institutionalized.

But he didn’t. There was no way I could come up with a better plan, and I was scared to do the trauma work. I’d avoided it in the past with him, because I didn’t want to go that deep… because I knew I couldn’t survive it. So, I did what I always did. I nodded my head like a good little girl, swallowed my terror, signed a damn paper, and went on my way.

When signing my release, I looked at the date on the form and was stunned to see it was Saturday. It didn’t seem like that much time had passed to me. Hours, maybe, but in actuality it was a little over three days.

Dr. Morgenson called me a cab after he gave me my personal belongings, and I stepped back into the ninth circle of hell: my condo. An empty inferno where I would suffer alone.

Two days without Nathan, and I had nothing but my pain to keep me company…at least until Monday, when I returned to work and entered a whole other, deeper level of hell.

The pills did their job, though I didn’t end up needing the sleeping pills. Sleep was something my mind begged for so I could shut out the pain. I didn’t dream much, for which I was thankful. The other pills kept my mind groggy, and I felt like I was sleepwalking through the day.

It didn’t take it all away. It only dulled the edges of the sharp, stabbing pain. Now it was a general ache, a dull, throbbing sensation as I zombie-walked through existence.

I parked in my regular spot, noticing Nathan’s car was also in his normal spot. Creatures of habit. My breathing was even, the medication not allowing me to hyperventilate, but it didn’t stop my mind from dreading what I would see in Nathan’s eyes. Rejection. Absolute repugnance at a woman who was not worth talking to, not worth thinking about, not worth having in his life. Only worth fucking until he was done.

Now he was done. He got what he needed, what he wanted, and we were over. I was expendable. I would have to go back to what I knew, fading away into the background.

With quiet steps, I walked into the confined space I’d shared with Nathan over the past five months. It was with great trepidation that I placed one foot in front of the other and moved forward. My eyes avoided his desk as I sat down at my own.

I turned on my computer and put away my purse. I didn’t look at him, didn’t speak to him, and tried to ignore his presence entirely.

A difficult task, because I could still smell him and, per usual, he smelled divine. No medication could block that out.

I wanted to drown myself in liquor every night, but I knew it would make things worse. If things got worse, Andrew and Caroline would tell Dr. Morgenson, and he’d have me committed faster than I could blink.

However, if I remained lucid enough, I would still be allowed outside, could still work. I’d be left alone. At work, I could still see him.

“Good morning, Delilah,” he said in a whisper.

I cringed against his words and ignored them, turning my attention to anything that wasn’t related to him.

Nathan didn’t blink or move, but he breathed. In and out. So did I…only just.