Why the hell couldn’t this shit be easy, because honestly, I just wanted to be the one that fucking broke through that wall and get to the good shit.  There I said it.  I wanted to be that one, the special one. Tag me a stupid emotional clichéd girl, but I wanted that man to look at me from between my legs, lick me utterly senseless and to make me forget my name.

“Get the fuck out.”

“You need a hardcore fucking detox for assholism.  Let’s lay it all out, shall we?  Something horrific happened to you.  There is no doubt about that.  You had innocent children, friends, classmates and teachers slaughtered in front of you.  A teacher, whom you admired and loved, who had a husband and children at home, jumped the fuck in front of you while a madman was taking out his sociopathic crazy on you, to shield you and save your fucking life.  You suffer from flashbacks, yes?  Medically, that’s called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and you can heal.  Trust me. If you want to, you can deal with this, deal with it, and I can help you.  But to bind yourself to your house, to leave your brother worried and missing you…You hide yourself off from the world, from a woman whom you can’t take your eyes off of, and complain that life has whipped you hard.   You don’t know me, Kade. Maybe I’ve danced with the same monsters you have. I know it all.  Let me help you.”

He slammed his fists against the steering wheel, “GET THE FUCK OUT!”

Shaken, I did what he told me to do.

He peeled out of the driveway, kicking up dirt and rocks in his haste, and I didn’t see him again.

Chapter 8

I spent five days locked inside my den.

Five days.  A great portion of them were spent in the dark, lying face down on the couch with my face pressed into the cold leather cushions, wondering how long it would take for my depression to kill me.

Monday. Entire day, face down feigning the flu, or plague…maybe a bit of walking corpse syndrome.  If I thought hard enough about it, I felt warm, but there was no one there to ask so, yeah, whatever.  I ate nothing.  There was a half empty bottle of brandy next to me, so at least there was some sort of consumption of something.

Tuesday.  I Googled everything and anything on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.   Then I inserted myself back on the couch, trying to sink myself deeper into the cushions and springs.  I paid $200 for a delivery of chicken soup from the diner.  It was ice cold when it arrived.

Wednesday. I turned over on the couch, lay on my back and watched my ceiling fan oscillate around depressingly.  Spinning, spinning, spinning…always in the same exact circles.  Just.  Like.  Me.

I snapped the blades off.

Of course, this is my life, so I also sliced my arm open while exacting my rage on the innocent propellers of air.  Tore my arm to shreds actually, making me have to use all those pathetic supplies Lainey had me buy at the store weeks ago, because she worried about me getting an infection.  The supplies weren’t pathetic, I was.

 Thursday.  I was so angry that she was right. Everything she fucking said was right, which led me to punch a hole through the wall in the den.

Friday. I was back, face down on the couch.  Groaning.  I missed following her.  I missed seeing her smile and hearing her snappy quick comebacks.

Life had made me really good at being a douche.  Since I was sixteen, I’d been on a one-way track to self-destruction, mowing down everyone in my path. Then I met Lainey, who pulled me out of myself and made me feel normal for a few moments in my life, and I had lost it right in front of her.

She must have felt as if she was pulling my teeth out, trying to get me to make small talk at the diner. My brain was in a fog being so near her.  The entirety of the night was spent with me talking myself from sliding my splayed fingers up the back of her neck, fisting them through that silky hair and pressing my lips to hers, savagely.  What she said in my truck…how could she know the things inside me?  Thinking that someone felt the same as me, understood me, made me want to fuck her and to over indulge myself in her flesh. The need overwhelmed me.  There was an overbearing realness to her that lay heavy on my chest, and if I never saw her again, I swore I would succumb to its weight.

Thrumming softly into my ears, the raspy vocals and music of Simple Kind of Man by Shinedown, held back the phantasms of my horrors, and showed me only my bitter longing to listen to the cadence of Lainey’s soft calm voice and taste the sweetness of her soft pink lips. No matter how badly it was going to hurt, I didn’t want to be anywhere but with Lainey.  Let her crush me.  Let her destroy me.  There wasn’t much good left of me, but I wanted her to take every last bit.

In those green eyes, yelling at me, holding up that metaphorical mirror that showed me some of my actions against her, I knew I’d come undone.  And she was fucking right; I couldn’t do this anymore.  I didn’t want to.  I knew the true impact of my trauma was me just shutting myself down, quitting life.  I stayed up all night, thinking and rethinking if I should ever see her again.  Questioning if I could be capable of some sort of normal to offer her.  ‘Redefine normal’ was what she told me, such innocent, brilliant words.  I stayed up throughout the entire next day and watched the sun sluggishly pass through the sky, as if it was toying with me and wasting and playing with my time.

Just to torment myself, when the sun finally set, I went to Dylan’s bar.

One of the guys from the trailer park was giving himself an impromptu bachelor party, bringing along a rowdy crowd of cave dwellers that had my panic set to high alert.

I wanted to haul Lainey over my shoulder and carry her out of the crowd.  The whole time I was watching her as I stood by the entrance, talking myself into going in, she didn’t smile at all.

Not even once.

I clenched my jaw and stalked toward Dylan’s office, slamming the door behind me, which caused Bree to fall flat on her ass, right off the desk where she was playing a full contact game of tonsil hockey with my brother.  “Coitus Interruptus!” I screamed.  “Stop and put your hands where I can see them.”

Bree stumbled awkwardly to her feet and walked out giggling. “Hello to you too, Kade.  Coitus Interruptus, that’s hysterical.”

Without a thought, I started wearing a hole into my brother’s rug, as he stood there, hands on hips, waiting for me to talk.  I felt like a cloud of smoke, just billowing into nothing. My lungs felt like they were tightening and drying out, and I couldn’t inhale enough air.  My throat was tight and dry when I finally spit out the words, “I want her.”

“She’s sort of crazy about me, mate.  And personally, I don’t think you’d ever stand a chance with your flagrantly charming demeanor,” he chuckled.

“I want Lainey, you dolt.”  He was just ridiculous thinking I could want the blonde perky one.  She was…well, perky.

“Kade, mate.  I think the girl has been through enough hell, okay?  Don’t drag her through yours,” Dylan replied.

“I can’t stay away from her,” I growled, raking my hand across my forehead and back through my hair.

He looked me dead in the eyes, “Try a bit harder, Kade.  It’s what you’re best at.”

I covered my face with my hands and then ripped them violently through my hair again.  “I don’t want to be best at that.  I’m sorry, Dylan.  I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever put you through.”

“What about someone like Natalie?” He asked.