Brutally Beautiful(85)

The world was trying to change me, telling me I was broken and damaged inside. I decided I was better off on my own, where people wouldn’t assume I was going to turn into the monster that attacked me, like it was a contagious disease.

I ceased to be a person, and instead, became a case f*cking study in violence. I became mute, voiceless for months, not wanting to give them anything more than what they took from me. So I wrote in one of those composition notebooks. It was an outlet for my adolescent aggression, my violent thoughts… I was alone and learned to live with the gruesome imagery in my head, by writing. The doctors kept telling me that it was all in my head, but what they forgot was that it had been in front of me. All of it was laid out brutally for my eyes to see the last breaths of my classmates, for my skin to feel the warmth of their blood, for my ears to hear their cries and pleas, for my nose to smell gun powder and acidity of iron, for my soul to feel damaged beyond repair. This wasn’t in my head, this wasn’t in my fantasies, it was chillingly and viciously real.

I spent years building up walls around me to keep people out…If I go to my brother’s, I have to sit in the back, near the exit, in view of everyone, where escape would be quick. The tension coils tightly in my body all the time, I’m constantly in a strained state, my muscles are always working against themselves. I never had to spend too long in a gym, because I get more of a workout just standing somewhere thinking.”

The tips of Kade’s fingers traced a soft line on my jaw. One lone tear quickly slipped over my lashes, then more followed, streaking sadness down my cheeks. He curled his right hand possessively around my throat while the other wiped away my tears. “Kade, I’ve seen nothing in you that show madness, only your very understandable anger. Bad therapy can mess up the rest of your existence if you allow one person whom you think holds a degree in something use their opinions to change you into the person they think you should be.”

“Enough about me. Now,” he breathed against my skin. “Now it’s your turn, Samantha Matthews. I just laid my life out for you, so don’t be scared, because there’s nothing you could say that would make me think differently of you.” The fingers at my throat stroked my skin and added pressure.

“Kade, I’m very happy with the person I was and the person I am. I accomplished more in my life at thirty-two than most people do in their entire lives. I’m not ashamed or guilty of anything I’ve ever done. There’s nothing that I think I’ve done that I regret. Oh, yeah maybe one,” I laughed bitterly. “I guess I didn’t check my husband’s pulse after I thought I killed him, because the sick son-of a bitch is still after me.”





Chapter 12





“So what did you do to him? Fuck, Sam, you tried to kill him?”

Her skin blanched, turning bright alabaster white. “Nah, I used my mega brain power to make him self combust,” she tried to joke, and then tears poured down her cheeks, because she knew it wasn’t funny.

“What happened?” I asked. Did she really try to kill her husband? Husband? She was married? She was a killer? Attempted murderer?

“I stepped out of the train wreck. Battered and bruised, but free. It all started in a heartbeat when my world shifted right out from beneath me and everything I’d ever believed was one huge lie.”

“Fuck, give me one night of truth. One f*cking night of truth for the both of us, before you run for the rest of your life and I get left here wondering why I let you go.”

Samantha opened her mouth, about to share something then closed it tightly. Averting her eyes to her hands, she shook her head in frustration. She wiped the stream of tears off her cheeks and struggled to find the words. Her pain was killing me. She sat in silence, and I thought to offer her a bit of space to gather her thoughts together, so I excused myself to change out of my wet pants and get us both a drink. Brandy was always my choice.