Breathe Me (A 'Me' Novel) (17 page)

“I don’t give a shit about ‘being a Kane,’ and you don’t know a goddamn thing about Harley.” Whoa, those fucking feelings were gearing up for a fight. Over a girl. I was so fucked, and I hadn’t even smashed yet! I grabbed my dick to adjust it and to make sure I hadn’t lost it when I heard the precise steps of someone I hated more than my brother.

“Deklan, before you go and say what I’m sure is your final good-bye to your mother, we need to clear up some things,” Royce’s voice rang out. Why was everyone being so fucking talkative all of a sudden?

“When you leave,” he continued, “know that it will be with nothing. I will not be including you in my will, nor will I leave you money in a trust fund. You have been nothing but a disappointment with your life choices, and I will not allow any part of my hard-earned money to be placed in your hands just to be thrown away on that car of yours or the shitty-ass lowlifes you choose to associate yourself with.”

The thing about Royce was that he could always sound like he was cutting other people down while cutting you down at the same time. He was a special kind of dick that way. I gave literally zero fucks about what he gave me and didn’t give me in his will. I stopped wanting anything from him the first time the fist flew, and there was nothing he could do to get me to budge on that. I was going to say good-bye to my mother because she loved me, and I loved her and I would miss her, but after? He was about to get the business.

Gritting my teeth, I turned and stared directly into his eyes for a hard-ass minute. I gave him my most intimidating look, like the look he used to give me, and I waited for him to say another fucking word. When he only looked at me expectantly, I nodded, then pushed my way into Ma’s room, where I found Greta adjusting the bedding.

“She’s really weak today. It will happen soon,” she said to me quietly before exiting the room, leaving me alone with my mom.

Susan Kane had been a beautiful woman. I know everyone thinks their mother is beautiful, but mine was. She had dark brown hair that had once shone even on her worst of days and warm eyes that always crinkled at the corners when she laughed, even those fake laughs she did at functions or when someone told a stupid-ass joke. That was Ma. Always polite and doing the right thing. I loved her despite what she may have thought, and even if she couldn’t hear me, I had to get this shit off my chest before she faded away.

I grabbed her hand and stroked it for a few minutes, working my throat to get this shit out. I had never said this out loud to anyone, not even myself.

“Mom, I want you to know that I love you and you may think that you didn’t do right by me with all the shi…stuff that went on here, but you did and I know you loved me. I know you tried, and for that I’m better for it. You were all I had, and for that I will always love you.”

I choked back emotion in my throat as I bent down and kissed my mom one last time. She breathed heavily but didn’t open her eyes. I stayed for a few more seconds, memorizing this moment, her features that were now gaunt, and then lowered her hand and walked out.

I was greeted with a sneering Royce and my somber-looking baby brother and let the emotions and anger that I suppressed a moment ago loose and clocked the shit out of Royce, then walked the fuck out of that house and away from Royce and his fist and the words that couldn’t fucking touch me anymore.

First thought when I woke up this morning: I needed to see her. I felt free. I didn’t care what people said about not feeling something when you finally let loose on the person who had wronged you for years. I couldn’t even lie; that shit felt good. I rode up to Har’s job, figuring I would pop up on her and make my day, only when I got there, she had a big-ass black cloud over her head—her hopelessness was that fucking palpable. I watched her for a few, letting my decision that wasn’t even a damn option at this point sink in when a blonde with big albeit fake tits popped in my line of sight.

“Hey, you ready for that full ride?” she asked in some sultry, whiney voice girls think makes guys hard. It doesn’t. It took me a moment longer than she probably liked for me to know who the hell she was.

“Juicy.” I knew that wasn’t her real name, but fuck if I knew what it was.

“Ashley,” she corrected, then placed her hand on my chest and moved in closer. “I can be juicy, real juicy.” She threw her head back and laughed a throaty laugh that at any other time would have had my dick primed and ready, but not today. That shit wasn’t even remotely funny. Not when I was focused on something else, someone else.

I saw the moment this little scene went to shit. It was the moment I looked up and caught sight of Harley and the look in her eyes right before she turned on her heels with the wrong idea in her fucking head and jetted away from me. I removed Juicy’s hand and, without an explanation, took off after Harley.

After getting in the break room where she’d closed herself up in and finding her right before she totally passed out on me, I knew the decision I’d made earlier to ask her—no,
demand
her—to tell me what was going on with her was the best fucking decision in the world right now.

Chapter 25

Deklan

After making up a bullshit explanation to her boss, I deposited a still passed-out Harley in the passenger seat of my car and took off to my hotel.

She remained passed out the whole ten minutes it took me to get to the shitty hotel and still when I laid her on the unmade bed from this morning. I stared at her, trying to work out what the fuck she had been babbling about before she passed out, something about the doorbell and that she was sorry. I knew something wasn’t chill with her, and after what had just gone down, she wasn’t leaving my fucking sight until I knew. She stirred and let out a small whimper that made me want to punch shit. I needed to square up with someone or put my dick in something wet to deal with all these emotions today. I stalked over to the bathroom and ran a cold shower, because even though she was passed out, she was in my bed, and shit, that did make me think of other reasons why she would be in my bed, why she should stay in bed.

I needed to clear my head. I didn’t get like this, all soft and shit over a girl. A girl who clearly had more issues than I was comfortable dealing with. But all of that drew me to her more, and fuck me if I didn’t want to take her and hold her on one arm and fight the fucking world with the other, and that shit was…scary. After taking a longer shower than necessary, I threw on some clean clothes and walked out, only to find Harley awake and looking like she had just been kidnapped by some asshole. Asshole? Part true. Kidnapped? More like saved.

“Where am I?” she asked, moving slowly into a sitting position like I would pounce on her if she made any sudden movements.

“My hotel.” I leaned against the bathroom door, making the exit clear to her. If she wanted to run, she had a chance.

“Why did you bring me here?” She looked cute confused. Cute? What the fuck.

“You passed the fuck out on me,” I explained, and I saw the recognition on her face followed by humiliation, then shame. “Nope, that’s what you won’t do with me,” I said.

“What?” she asked distractedly. Trying to fall into herself again? Negative.

“You’ve got shit to be ashamed of, so stop. Shit happened, I dealt, it’s cool. What is not cool is how you keep avoiding my questions as to why. And who, that’s what I’m about.”

She sat there and said nothing, and I thought about staying true to my earlier declaration of fucking it out of her, but I saw now that that wasn’t the way to go. Not that she wouldn’t let me. Nah, she wanted this, but she would just close up more once it was over, and for some strange reason, I didn’t like that shit.

So I waited for her to decide whatever she needed to decide about confiding in me, which took a whole twenty minutes, and when she finally looked at me with a mixture of resolve and sadness, I thought I heard her mumble a good-bye before she blew my fucking mind.

She sighed and pulled one arm through the sleeve of her loose-fitting T-shirt, then did the same with the other, and looking at me, she lifted the shirt over her head, and I lost absolute control over my anger.

Someone was getting their shit split the fuck open.

Chapter 26

Harley

I must have done something horrible in my past life to have been dealt with this one. I must have been a baby murderer or something, because I never understood why I was born. I didn’t see the big picture my life had or would have, and it must have meant that there wasn’t one. There were no hopes or aspirations I strived to be, other than free from this horrible life I lived, and I thought college was out of the question to try and make myself a part of the bigger picture. So the only thing I had to offer the world was to tell people how to take blows to the face and stomach without blacking out and how to effectively hide bruises. Oh, and how to lie. I could teach people how to lie through the pain and fake normal. Looking at my life as a whole, I had nothing.

I am nothing.

So I decided to throw away my last chance at normal, because who was I kidding? I was not normal, would never be normal. I whispered good-bye to normal and took my shirt off for him to see just how broken I really was.

I expected him to curse; it seemed as though he equated cursing to breathing. I also expected silence. There was a lot of that when he took in what I was sure looked like a hot mess. The cuts were all scabbed over, but they were still red and angry, and the hate that was behind them was visible in each one. I expected him to look away because it was gross, I was gross, but when he didn’t, I figured it was because he was fascinated but disgusted and
couldn’t
look away.

I lowered my head and focused on my trembling hands and wadded-up T-shirt, too ashamed to look him in the face while he pitied me. I didn’t need to see the regret written all over his face for pushing me to talk or kissing me and making me feel things. I had come to the conclusion in the bookstore that he was exactly like all the bad boys in my books; he was just looking for a quick fuck, and when I didn’t give that to him at his house or failed to make plans to finish, he had moved on to someone else more willing.

I waited.

I waited for him to say he would take me home, that he was sorry, because everyone always says they are sorry for things they couldn’t have possibly helped with. I waited for him to say what his father had said, that I was trash, and eventually that I wasn’t worth it. I waited for him to reject me, for him to regret his touch, his attention, himself. But he didn’t say anything.

So, I waited. I wanted to put my shirt back on as his eyes roamed over my body. I wanted to cover up and make my escape. I felt myself wanting to zone out again, but unlike all those other times, I wanted to remember this, and to remember that this was the reason that I didn’t fit in the world, that I didn’t really belong anywhere, to anyone.

“Get up.” He spoke so softly I wasn’t sure I heard him.

He couldn’t be speaking with so much quiet anger in his voice toward me, could he?

“Get…up,” he said again, harder.

I slowly rose to my feet and met his eyes and gasped. They were dark as obsidian. I expected him to be angry or revolted even, but he was…“angry” wasn’t even the correct word for it. I had only ever seen one person this mad, and that usually followed with a fist to the back or head. I wasn’t good with anger, and even though he had told me not to, I flinched.

“Goddammit, Harley, stop fucking doing that shit around me. I told you I wouldn’t fucking hurt you,” he seethed.

“I’m sorry.” I turned my head away and tried to focus on the shitty hotel wallpaper while preparing myself for the onslaught of emotions that was sure to come. I had clung to him in the short amount of time I knew him and formed a one-sided emotional connection with him that I was going to regret having ever done.

“And stop fucking apologizing!”

“I don’t know what you want me to say or do. I can’t help but to flinch or apologize. I’ve made you angry.”

“No, you’ve pissed me the fuck off,” he stated matter-of-factly, but I didn’t miss the waver in his voice, his fight for calm. “Who did this to you?” He pushed off the wall and stalked over to me with intent, and I knew that if I backed away, I would piss him off even more.

He stopped inches from me, arms at his sides, his stance wide and expectant. If I was going to do this, I might as well go all in, right?

“My mother,” I said, and it hit me that I’d never told this to anyone, not even admitted it to myself, because up until this moment, I had let myself believe that she wasn’t really like that; a mother was supposed to love and nurture you, not the other way around. But admitting it aloud was…hard.

“What?” he asked, as if asking me to repeat it would be cake.

“I said—”

“I heard you. I just…how long?”

“How long what?” I asked dumbly.

“Harley,” he warned.

“Since I could store memory, all right?”

“And you didn’t tell anyone, a teacher, a friend, a family member?”

There it was, the judgment. The accusation that I didn’t want it to change. No one would understand why I stayed, why I continued to stay. Unless they lived it, they wouldn’t get it. I heard people say all the time that they would leave if something like what I lived ever happened to them, only they couldn’t know that unless they actually lived it.

So I shrugged my shoulders and gave him a lame “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit,” he spat.

“Why are you so angry?”

“Why are you avoiding the question?” he countered. When I only shrugged and turned my head away, he moved in closer and did something that shocked and warmed me. He gently reached out and caressed my chin and pleaded softly, “Please?”

Ever had a gorgeous man plead with you? If you have, you’ll find that you’ll give him anything he asks for. Despite me not wanting to tell him, I found my mouth moving and my voice telling him everything.

“Because I have no one. I have never had anyone. No one to complain to, no teachers or family or friends. No one cared about me enough to ask, not even my own mother. I was a no one, am no one. And to answer your follow-up question before you ask, that’s why I stay. Where does one like me go? My life has been nothing but hurt and pain and disappointment. How does a person live after that?”