let it all out. I’m alone. No one can see me. I’m allowed to fall apart when the only company I have is agony.
I’m not as strong as everyone makes me out to be. I hold a lot inside because I don’t know how to deal with half of the emotions that I feel. Strength isn’t only about physical ability but mental too. Mentally, I’m torn in pieces.
“Fuck.” I drop to my knees and pound my fist against the sand.
I’m picturing cancer, my father, club enemies, and beating the shit out of it. My eyes cloud as I keep hitting, punching. I throw small rocks and dried twigs from dead plants. I cry, silently, and try to work out a way to come to terms with this on my own.
If I want to be honest, I’ve been lucky. I’ve never had to do anything on my own before, not really. I’ve never been alone. I’ve always had my mom and my MC. The only torment I’ve known is the kind I give myself and what my dad has done to me.
I sound like a momma’s boy, I know, but no one understands what she did for me all those years ago and now, the one time I could have been of use, I’m worthless. I have to sit back and watch her die.
My fingers dig into the sand, curling around the granules as they embed under my nails. I feel like that little boy at sixteen-years-old, tied to the bed, my back split open from my dad; only this time, Mom doesn’t come to save me. I have to sit through the torture and hope the pain stops.
But it never stops, does it? Life is a carousel that never stops spinning.
“Eric…” Jo’s hand lands on my shoulder, and the sudden touch has me opening my eyes. She’s seeing me raw, unhinged, and broken for the first time. She’s going to see how weak I really am. “I’m so sorry,” she says, climbing into my lap and wrapping her arms around my neck. “I’m here for you. I’m right here. Just like you’ve been for me. I’m here.”
My arms tangle around her waist, and I hold on tight, holding on to the woman I’ve been anchored to in some way. I bury my face into her neck and inhale, my wet cheeks rub against her skin, and I do my best to hold in my emotions.
I have to be strong for her.
“Let it out,” she says. “It’s okay. You’re in a safe place.”
This is why I’ve been so drawn to her. My heart knew he only place I’d be able to let go and be myself is with her. Jo is my safe place.
“I’m not picture-perfect, but I know what it is to hurt, Eric. It’s okay to hurt, right? That’s what you’ve taught me.”
I lean back and brush my fingers across her neck and bury them in her thick hair. I flinch when she wipes my cheeks off and realize she’s the one cleaning my tears away.
“It’s okay to be sad when someone you love breaks you.” She lays her forehead against mine, and I tug her closer to me. Jo wraps her legs around my hips, and her touch has my soul settling.
Someone I love might have broken me, but someone I’m falling in love with just might heal me too.
The drive back to the clubhouse is silent. The devastation pouring off Eric is choking me, so I can’t imagine how suffocated he must feel.
“She killed for me,” Eric says in the silence, the headlights eating the black pavement as we drive down Loneliest Road.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“My mom,” he clarifies, gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles turn white, but his grip on my hand is gentle and loose. “My dad, he was an abusive asshole. I wouldn’t get a good grade, or I wouldn’t say the right thing, or I wouldn’t clean the kitchen floor until he could see his reflection; he’d tie me to the bed and cut me. He was a doctor, so he’d use his scalpel.”
I gasp and remember the tease of scars I saw on his back earlier today. “He did that to you? But, there are so many, and they are so deep…”
“He did it all the time. He’d wait until I healed just enough and then punish me again. My mom, she was great. She was everything a mom should be. She was a criminal defense attorney, so she worked a