Meet Me Halfway(64)

He didn’t reply, but his face had lost its hardness. He almost looked lost as he stared at me, and I wondered if he was thinking about his mother. I pushed through, determined to explain an unexplainable situation.

“When things were bad, they were really bad. But when they were good, they were amazing. Over time, I’d gotten so used to the bad times, that the good ones seemed almost euphoric.” I stared off into space, contemplating my next words.

“Being with a manipulative partner is like an addiction. But instead of a drug, you’re addicted to them, to making them happy because it’s the only time you can be happy. You acclimate to their behavior a little at a time, until you grow numb to it. Until it’s no longer the worst day you’ve ever had, it’s just Monday.

“Then one day they stop giving you your fix. They leave you writhing on the floor, screaming out into the void, all the while knowing, even through the pain, you’re going to wake up and do it all over again. Forever chasing the high of making them happy.”

Tears were now streaming down my face. The reins I’d had on my emotions completely gone. I was too emotionally exhausted and physically drained from the morning I’d had to hide how much the admission broke me.

Garrett walked around to the opposite side of the bed and sat, leaning back until we were shoulder to shoulder. He set the papers between us, his fingers twitching toward me as if he’d almost reached for my hand.

I stared at the pages that documented my history. My pain. My humiliation. “I know it may not make any sense. It’s not something you can understand unless you’ve lived it. Men like Aaron manipulate and gaslight and wear you down so slowly you don’t see it. You don’t even realize your bar has lowered until it’s fucking non-existent.”

“Why do you still have them?”

I sighed, brushing my fingertips up and down the corner of the papers.

“Because there were days, usually when a roach crawled across our apartment or when somebody degraded me at the store for using EBT, that I’d get so depressed I considered going back to him. Back to a beautiful home in a clean neighborhood.”

“And now?”

I leaned my head on his shoulder, needing to soak up my friend’s comfort and warmth. “There is no now. They were sitting in my drawer because I pulled them out the day he showed up, but I didn’t look at them. I realized I didn’t need to.”

Garrett rested his head on top of mine, finally reaching over to cage my hand in his. “You are the strongest woman I’ve ever met, Maddie.”

I huffed a breath through my nose, but he just tipped his face down and kissed my forehead.

“You are. There’s no one in the world quite like you.”





Chapter Eighteen





I woke up to something poking me.

I grumbled, slapping at the irritation. It came again, more insistent, stabbing into the flesh of my shoulder. Throwing myself onto my other side, I tried to ignore it, but it came again, this time on my back.

“Mom!”

My eyes snapped open, and I shot up, turning to look at the child who stood at the head of my bed like a scene directly out of my nightmares. “Of all that is holy, bud.” I rubbed at my eyes, looking at the clock and trying to remember what year it was. “Why are you awake? What’s wrong?”

“Somebody’s at our front door.”

I blinked, trying to focus more on what he was saying. “What?”

“Somebody’s banging on our door. It woke me up.”

I moved my legs around the useless dog sleeping near my ankles and dropped my feet to the floor. It couldn’t be Layla. She took Sadie and went to Rick’s tonight, and even if she hadn’t, she obviously had a key. Maybe someone had the wrong house?

Then I heard it. Jamie was right, it wasn’t knocking. Someone was banging on our door, incessantly. That wasn’t the knock of someone who was accidentally at the wrong house.

It was no surprise it hadn’t set off Rugpants, the sound was so hard, it sounded more like road construction than someone at the door. Whoever was there was determined to wake the dead from the graveyard down the road.

“All right, I’ll go check it out. Go back to your room.”

I grabbed a sweater from my dirty clothes basket, tossing it over my sleep tank and heading down the hall. The banging started again, almost in sync with my footfalls.

“Maybe you should call Garrett?”

I stopped near the couch, twisting to look at Jamie, who had absolutely not gone to his room.

“I am not waking Garrett. It’s not his house or his problem, bud.” I hadn’t seen him much this last week, but there was still a chance it could be him. He’d never sounded like he was trying to tear my door down before, but he certainly wasn’t a quiet knocker either.

Maybe something had happened to Sarah, and he’d had a drink and couldn’t drive, or maybe his house was on fire, or maybe he cut his finger off chopping carrots at midnight. Suddenly, I was walking faster. I didn’t even bother glancing out the window before yanking the door open in my haste to make sure he was okay.

He wasn’t.

And he wasn’t Garrett.

Aaron stood before me, propped against the door frame. Wasted. His shirt was soaking wet down the center and a chaotic halo of auburn hair surrounded his head. He blinked at me in surprise, his eyes looking more like glass marbles.