Chapter Ninety-Nine
Lincoln
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask, pulling back from her slightly as I try to figure out what the hell is going through her head that would make her go there.
*Again.*
*I thought we were in a good place and that she knew that I’m not holding any of the things that happened while she was gone against her.*
“Why would you-where did-*what?*” I finally ask, my mind going wild with thoughts, as my heart feels like it’s going to rip from my chest from how hard it’s beating.
“I don’t know that I can do this, and you deserve *so* much better than me,” Raleigh explains, everything about her completely broke at the moment.
“Where is this coming from?” I ask, urgency lacing my tone, as hysteria that I might be losing her begins to fill me. “I thought that everything was good. That *we* were good.”
Raleigh begins to cry harder. Pulling away from me, she climbs off of my lap and stiffly walks over to the same corner of the room she went to the last time she got like this.
*But that was almost two months ago.*
*Has she felt this way for that long?*
*Did something happen to send her down this way of thinking, feeling, again?*
I close the distance between us, kneeling down until I’m on her level. “Baby, of course you deserve me. If anything, I don’t deserve you.”
“You’re just saying that but we both know that you don’t believe it.”
*What the hell?*
“Of course, I mean it.” I attempt to reassure as I shift closer to her. Reaching out, I grasp hold of her wrist, attempting to pull it away from her face as I say, “I love you.”
“Don’t touch me!” She shouts, which immediately makes me put my hands up and start backing slightly away.
“Okay, okay.” I say, my chest aching at seeing her like this. Her refusal to let me comfort her cutting me deep. "I won’t touch you, but will you please try to talk to me? Tell me what happened to make you feel this way?”
She’s quiet for several long moments other than the sounds of her crying before I finally hear her say, “I’m broken, that’s what happened.”
Her words confuse me. So, hoping to gain a bit more information, I try again by asking, “Why do you think you’re broken.”
It’s taking everything within me not to put my arms around her, pull her against me and give her the comfort and reassurance that I so desperately want to give her and need for myself.
“He. Broke. Me.” she says three words, barely above a whisper but hearing them both tears me open and causes a violent surge of anger to begin coursing through my veins.
“Who? Jax? What did he do to you? Brother or not, I’ll kill him, the fucking bastard.”
Raleigh shakes her head back and forth, her hair swaying with the movement.
“I’m sorry, baby. But if he hurt you, made you feel like this? He’s a dead man!” I growl out the threat, already moving to get to my feet when I feel her little cold hand grasp hold of my forearm.
“No,” she says with more conviction than she’s managed up until now. “Not Jackson.”
It’s then that I understand who the *he* is that she's referring to.
Brady.
It always comes back to fucking Brady and the hell that he put her through that she is *still* blaming herself for.
“Baby, I want you to listen to me, okay?” When she doesn’t respond, I reach out slowly and gently take hold of her hand, lacing our fingers together, then ask, “Can you do that for me?"
Slowly, she nods and angles her head so that she’s looking at me, even though it’s through the curtain of her blonde locks.
“I want you to hear me when I tell you that I *love* you and I don’t hold *anything*, not a single thing that happened while you were his captive, because that’s what you were was his captive, against you. I’m so damn proud of you for *surviving*.”
“But did I?” Her voice is weak as she asks the question, even if it comes out sounding more like a statement. “He kidnapped me, beat me, *raped* me.”
I don’t say anything as I continue to listen, unsure if she’s finished speaking. “He took *everything* from me.”
"Not everything, baby.” I tell her, wishing that I could kill the bastard for making her feel like this.
“Yes, everything,” she says, her voice urging me to understand. “He took away my choice, my control, my voice.” Tears trail down her cheeks, her lower lip wobbling with repressed emotion as she says, “He broke me. I’ve been trying to act like everything is okay. Pretending that I’m fine when I’m the furthest thing from it.”
“I’ve buried myself in you. Lost myself in sex with you in Jackson, trying to gain back some kind of control.”
“And if that’s what you need-” I start but she cuts me off with a shake of her head, blurting out, “It’s all only temporary. When the high of the moment wears off, I feel worse. Dirty. So, I chase that high, that good feeling, that control and drown myself in the both of you. But again, when it’s over, I’m even more disgusted with myself. Over and over again the cycle goes.”
“You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve broken.” At the word broken, she completely breaks, and I can’t hold myself back any longer.
Sidling up next to her, I wrap my arms around her and pull her tightly against me, until able to hold back my own tears as I hold on to her tightly, begging anyone who will listen to not let me lose her, a plan already forming in my mind as I vow to her that I will help her get through this no matter what it takes.
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