Broken Girl(68)

“That’s not true.”

“Shane, I’m a girl who whores herself out in the piss filled dingy alley between the Stop and Wash and the Iron Hog Pub. I keep gasping for a breath nobody has the ability to give. So don’t stand here and tell me you love me, or think a kiss will heal me. You will never understand, and don’t tell me that you don’t care about my past! You’ll never know what it feels like to live in my skin, or make sense of all the f*cked up situations I deal with that made me who I am. You’ll never understand where I come from or what I have to overcome every f*cking day of my life.”

“YOU. NEVER. LET. ME. IN. Goddammit, Rose, let me in. Let me know who you are? I want to understand, I want to try.” Shane reached for me; I yanked my arm back away from his massive fingers.

“Do you want to know why I know you’ll never understand?”

He didn’t respond, he stood silently pleading for my heart.

“Do you?” I snarled.

“Yeah, I want to know why.”

“Forget it!” I whipped my arms around pulling out of his grasp. He caught me, pulled me back and pinned me again.

“Tell me, Rose. Tell me right now why you think I’ll never understand,” he said in a low heartbreaking growl.

A weighty pause, thick and painful suspended between us. I looked into his eyes, his beautifully broken eyes, and I saw the sparks of a future that didn’t belong to me.

“Because you keep asking me for something that I’ll never be able to give to you. I can’t give you a clean past. Every time you touch me you will think about all the men I’ve been with before you, and every time I make love to you, you’ll be questioning if I’ve done that with someone else. It just won’t work. And I don’t think I can bear the day you will wake up next to me and find out I wasn’t worth it. I can’t give you something I’m not.”

“I’m not asking you to,” he whispered. His eyes cast down. When he looked back up at me they glistened with a deeper sorrow I’d never seen in his eyes before.

Dragging my fingers against his face, I traced the sharp edge of his jawbone, memorizing the texture of his five o’clock shadow. His slight Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“It doesn’t matter; it’s a hopeless battle you’ll never win. There’ll always be a part of me I keep hidden away from you and you’ll always be pushing for more. Please, Shane, you have so much to give to someone who deserves a great guy.”

“I don’t want someone else, Rose. I want you.”

My body gave way to his words, my heart pounding so hard its echo thundered through my veins. I wanted to crash into him, taste the lips of a man who wanted me more than all the reasons he shouldn’t.

“That night in the alley, where I first saw you . . . I was drawn to you.”

My head spun as his words snaked their way into my mind.

“What?”

“I know most people don’t believe in that love at first sight bullshit—”

“You knew it was me in the alley that night? I was whoring myself out the entire time and you didn’t call me out?”

“No, I mean, yes. No, no, no, Rose, I didn’t know it was you at first!” He shook his head, the words shot from his mouth. I recognize the frustration that raged behind his eyes.

“What is it, Shane? Either you knew I was a hooker or you didn’t?”

“Don’t say that!”

“What do you want me to say? It’s what I am. You can’t paint a Pinto Ferrari red and expect it to win the race. It’s who I’ve had to become to make it in this world.”

“That’s not the person I see standing in front of me.”

“Stop it, just stop!”

“No, I can’t. You’re not the woman from the alley that night. Your eyes, when they met mine, they told me everything I needed to know about you, Rose. The more time we spent together the more I discovered the woman I was falling in love with. You can’t deny it, and even if you try, you know I’m right. Nothing else matters to me when I’m with you. I can’t exist in my skin without you.”

I stood there, frozen by his words. I knew how he felt. I felt the same way too. But I was afraid and I hated being afraid. I pulled away and struggled to collect myself. I looked at him, memorized the man I was going to walk away from forever.

“Please, Rose, you know I’m right.”

“I can’t. I’ll always have a past that’ll chase me, and you’ll always second guess when I come home late. What kind of relationship would that be? I’ll never stop looking over my shoulder waiting for the demons to catch up and you’ll always wonder why I keep fighting. I am not your girl, Shane.”

He leaned down, his mouth collided with mine. His lips were desperate and hungry to convince me that we were worth fighting for. Goddammit, what if he decided I wasn’t worth the investment? His arms cradled me, protected me and took the weight of my world as he pressed his warm fingers across my spine.

Was he right?

I almost caved . . .

I was already saying goodbye and he didn’t know it. One last kiss. One last taste to keep his flavor in my mind before I walked away from him forever. Concerned he would pull away from me too soon I weaved my fingers into the back of his hair. He pushed harder, urging me to open up to him. Different to my world, I haven’t had this, a personal and painful goodbye which lingered a little longer than I anticipated.