My Kind of Crazy - Robin Reul Page 0,59

I just wanted her to stab me with the fucking scissors and put an end to it all.”

“We have to tell somebody,” I say, and she completely flips out.

“No! Please…you can’t say anything. It’ll only make it worse. Just…I can’t go back there. I didn’t know where else to go.”

She starts crying again. I wrap my arms around her and pull her to me, rocking her back and forth like my mom used to when I was a little kid. Peyton buries her face in my shoulder.

“I’m glad you came,” I whisper into her hair.

She looks up at me. “So you don’t hate me?”

“Jesus, why would I hate you, Peyton? How could you even think that? Your mother and Pete should go to jail for what they did to you. Nobody deserves to be treated that way, no matter what.” I’m so enraged and sickened I could put my hand through a goddamn wall.

And that’s when I put the pieces together in my head. The comic. Of course. It’s not like she had $275 sitting around.

I feel the blood drain from my face. “That’s how you bought me that comic, isn’t it?”

She turns from me, her voice quivering. “I wanted you to be happy, Hank. I wanted you to know how much you mean to me, and I wanted you to like me back.”

My heart shatters like a piece of frickin’ glass. The skin on her neck is so pale and white that it’s practically translucent in the pale light from my window. I can even make out the blue highways of her veins. I fight the urge to trace them with my fingers.

Instead, I touch her hair. I run my hand gingerly over the jagged strands, and slowly she turns back to me. I lightly stroke her reddened cheek with the side of my hand and then run my fingertips down her arm to the purpling bruise.

I move my fingers across her leg and up her other arm, then trace her collarbone, moving up her neck to touch her lips. She closes her eyes and I wonder if she wants me to stop. And then I’m thinking that I probably should stop because it feels wrong to touch her when she’s come here like this.

I pull back, and she opens her eyes. She must read my hesitation because the next thing I know she inches forward, closing the gap between us and pressing her lips gently against mine. I can taste the dried blood, but I’m not exactly complaining. She kisses me softly at first, then with more urgency. Her hands reach up to cup both sides of my face. She slides her tongue between my lips and teases my mouth open, and then she lies back on my bed and pulls me down beside her.

She looks right into my eyes, like she can see through to my soul, and says, “I love you, Hank.”

The words ripple through me like waves. I can feel that love, and it’s amazing. From the way my heart is racing, how much I want to protect her and how everything makes more sense whenever she’s with me, I must love her too. I don’t know. I’ve never felt this way before. She’s looking at me, waiting for me to say it back, and I want to, but I’m scared.

The truth is, I’m absolutely terrified of what will happen if I do. And I’m just as terrified of what might happen if I don’t. I don’t want to blow this or make her think I’m trying to take advantage of her in a vulnerable moment. I really care about her. In fact, I think I’m falling in love with her.

How could I have missed all the cues, the signs that she felt this way about me? I’ve been so caught up in my own crap that I’ve been completely oblivious to the way I feel about her.

The circumstances that bound me to Peyton when we first met are irrelevant now, and I could have easily cut ties, but I didn’t want to. And then there was that annoying, twisty feeling in my gut when she and Nick were into each other and I thought I might lose her.

She turns on her side and laces her fingers through mine. I look at her in the moonlight, taking in how beautiful she actually is. Despite her hacked hair, bruised body, and broken spirit, she is absolutely radiant, and I know I can never let anyone hurt