Caught by Emma Louise

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Present…

Reliving that night and everything that came after leaves me with bile burning at the back of my throat. I haven't told anyone a word of what happened. Not once. Not ever. After I gave my statement to the police, I took Cassidy and did what I'd been trying to do before my world came crashing down. I ran. This time I wasn’t looking over my shoulder, expecting the bogeyman to jump out at any moment, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t just as hard.

This time I had to do it with the feel of him pawing at my clothes invading my nightmares, the agony of him invading my body. Visions of Jimmy’s lifeless eyes, still open with shock as he stared down at me. The unnaturally heavy weight of his dead body is still pressing me into the threadbare mattress.

All of that comes flooding back into my brain from wherever I’ve been keeping it locked up all these years. No matter how hard I’ve worked, I’ll never be able to run fast enough to escape it. I’ll always be beaten and broken Darcey Reierson. I’ll never truly be Darcey Walker, the person I’ve been pretending to be all this time.

I feel Max at my back. His hand reaches out to touch me, but I just ... can't. I can't stand the thought of having his hands on me when I'm still stuck in those memories. I just can't.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His words are a pained plea, rasping out on an agonized moan.

“When exactly should I have done that, Max?” I ask bitterly. “When you hated me and thought I was trying to play you? Or should I have waited until you were fucking me? Because I gotta say, there hasn’t been a lot of time in between to talk.” I’m being a bitch, but there’s no stopping myself; I’m not in control of anything right now.

“What we have isn’t just fucking!” he barks, once more stepping closer to me, backing me into the corner.

"Don't!" I manage to get the word out past dry lips as I twist out of his reach. "Can you please just..." He advances towards me again, and I have to step back.

"Darcey, baby, please." He looks down at me, and the pity in his eyes is enough to tip me over the edge. Skirting around him, I try to escape. The weight of everything is about to come crashing down on me, and I don't want to be around him when it does. It's bad enough that I've laid my shitty past bare for him. I can't let him see how weak it's left me.

"I'm done." I put my hands up to stop him from coming at me.

"Done?" he asks, his voice holding a softness that I've never heard from him, from anyone. I can't look at him. If I do, I'll cave and let him hold me. He'll try to comfort me, and I can't face that. Not when I can still feel the slippery wetness of Jimmy's blood on my hands. Not when I can feel that last, hot breath of his as it hit my cheek.

I need space. I need distance. I need time to process the thoughts and emotions that I've dredged up for myself. I need time to try to scrub the past away, something I can’t do with Max— beautiful, good, clean Max—staring at me like he is right now.

"I'm done, Max. You need to leave me alone."

"Why the fuck would I do that?" he asks, once again moving closer to me.

"Because I'm asking you to."

"Baby, you have to know that's not going to happen."

"Max—"

"No," he cuts me off abruptly. "No, Darcey, you can't tell me all of that and expect me to stay away from you." It feels like a warning, but I’m too far inside my head to pay attention to it.

"You don't have a choice, Max. I told you I'm done. I asked you not to push. I asked you to give me time to share with you. And I would have. I would have told you eventually. But you just couldn't do it, could you?" I lie, knowing that if I could’ve helped it, we would’ve never had this conversation.

"I just wanted to help." He reaches for me, his hand catching mine, a shock of electricity shooting through my skin at the contact.

"I don't need your help!" I cry, yanking my hand out of his. "I've done just fine all these years on my own, okay?"

"Baby, you're not alone anymore."

"I've always been alone," I fire the words out, and I immediately want to claw them back. I don't mean it. I don't want them to be true. I want to tell him I appreciate him, how he's looked after us. How he's opened himself up for us. But I can't. My defenses are drawn up. All I can do now is watch in morbid fascination as hurt seeps across his unfairly handsome face.

"What the fuck am I then? What the fuck are we doing, Darcey?" The rough way my actual name, not babe, baby, or sweetheart, escapes his lips has me fighting a wince.

"What do you want from me, Max? All of this is too much, too fast." I push my hands through my hair, pulling tightly and hoping the bloom of pain will help control the riot of emotions that are assaulting me.

"You, Darcey. I'm asking for you; that's all."

"I don't know if I can give you that." The words are like a knife to my heart. I can't look up at him as emotion clogs my throat. I'm warring with myself over what to do next. My brain tells me to end this. He deserves better than a mess like me. My heart tells me to run to him, to cling to him.

To never let him go.

"I think we're done here."

My stupid, stubborn brain wins the battle.

I feel the heavy weight of his stare for the longest time before he breathes out a sharp breath of humorless laughter.

"Fuck this," he grinds out before turning on a booted foot and leaving. I don't release a breath until the loud slam of the front door reverberates through the house. My knees give out, and I give in to the crushing weight of the mistake I just made.

Falling to the floor, I weep for myself and the fact that I’ve pushed away the best man I’ve ever met. The man that I’ve fallen completely in love with.

I weep for my daughter, because I just took away the chance for Cass to have a great man in her life. Someone who could love her almost as much as I do.