Alpha Damon (Sienna) novel Chapter 181

Damon:

She didn’t say anything at first.

Not since we left the office. Not since the two of us were inside the car.

We sat in the car with the silence between us stretched thin, tight like a wire pulled to its breaking point. I didn’t push her. I didn’t reach for her. I let her sit in it, breathe through it, because I knew if I touched her too soon, she’d crack in a way that wouldn’t be fair to her.

But god, it hurt to watch her like this. Stiff posture. Eyes out the window. Her knuckles white from how hard she gripped her purse.

I wanted to take her out, but I also did not know how good or bad of an idea that was going to be.

“I didn’t expect to see him,” she finally whispered. “If I knew, maybe I would have had a different reaction. Maybe I would have been ready to deal with him. I wouldn’t have been so impulsive or furious. But everything that I keep finding out and everything that keeps turning around and just hitting him, he is the center of every damage that has been done through me. I just find it harder to contain myself, to control myself and how I feel.”

I didn’t answer. Not right away.

She turned to me, her eyes not wet, but glassy. Angry. Lost.

“He looked at me like I was still the girl he could control. He looked at me as if he knew that he has taken so much from me.” she said. “Like everything I’ve built meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. And that he knows what he took, he knows the damage that he made, and he doesn’t even care.”

I reached across the console and placed my hand over hers. She flinched at first, then softened, her fingers curling slowly around mine.

“You are not that girl anymore,” I said firmly. “Maybe he has taken a lot from you. He’s done so with so many people around that he does not know the difference between strength, weakness and pain. He does not know what it is for someone to stand up to him. But now that you’re not the same weak girl that he met.”

“But he still sees me that way.” She said, looking away from me. “He still sees me as that weak girl who cannot fight for herself.”

“I feel like I’m going to break.” She whispered. “It’s just becoming too hard for me to be able to stand on my feet.”

“Then break,” I said. “And I’ll be here to hold every piece until you feel whole again. I will help manage your scars and your pain.”

I kissed her forehead, then her cheek. Her lips. Soft, lingering touches meant to remind her that she was not alone in this war. “I’m tired,” she said finally, resting her forehead against mine. “But I’m not done.”

“I know.” I smiled faintly. “You don’t give up. That’s what terrifies him. That is what puts him in place, the reminder that you’re not going to stop no matter how tired you’re going to be. That you are going to be his end and he knows it, no matter how hard he’s going to try and deny.”

“You are just going to need to allow yourself to understand it, to cope with it, you have to. And I will be there for you through it all, I promise you that…”