Ravenous - Helen Hardt Page 0,1
once more. Why torture myself?
I couldn’t help it. The words called to me like a gruesome accident I couldn’t look away from, no matter how much I didn’t want to see.
Because I did want to see. My rite of self-flagellation. Words would cut deeper than any blade ever could.
So I read them once more. Imagined his low and sexy voice uttering each one.
Marjorie,
* * *
I’m leaving, and I don’t want you to pursue me. I can’t deny our physical attraction, but I have no emotional ties to you. I’ll be working on the ranch and living in the guesthouse, but I’ll stay as far away from you as I possibly can. I need to be alone now. I can’t have my attention diverted by my best friend’s little sister. I need to give everything I have to my new position and to my son and mother. I don’t need an extra distraction in my life. Nothing happened between us, and nothing more will ever happen. You are Joe’s sister, nothing more.
* * *
Bryce
Such stilted words, as if he were addressing an audience of foreign dignitaries rather than a woman he’d just made love to.
A distraction? I was only a distraction?
Joe’s sister? Nothing more?
Such coldness. No sorrow. No pleading with me to understand. Nothing but hurtful and icy words.
Thank God I hadn’t told him I loved him.
Oh, I’d been thinking it. Through all those orgasms, I’d been saying it over and over in my mind.
Once more I let the blade hover over my scarred flesh.
How easy it would be to slice into myself, allow the physical pain to overwhelm the emotional.
No. No. No.
I rose, still naked, and ran into the kitchen. The refrigerator loomed white and tall. My savior. I opened it and stood in the corner between the door and the shelves, letting the cold air waft over me.
My nipples puckered and goose bumps erupted on my skin.
Nothing went away, but at least the cool air eliminated the need—for the moment, at least—to cut myself. Mel would be proud of me. I should be proud of myself.
But I felt no pride. All I felt was devastation.
When I closed the refrigerator door, the scar on my upper thigh throbbed, taunting me.
Do it. Do it. Do it.
The cold air is gone. You know what will give you peace.
Do it. Do it. Do it.
“No!” I opened the refrigerator door once more. Inhaled the cold air.
Inhaled it again.
Again.
Again.
Again and again and again. I didn’t stop when the urge to cut had escaped me. I continued to breathe in the cold air, ignoring the aromas of food, focusing only on the chill.
Finally, I closed the door once more, the scar still buzzing but no longer throbbing.
I could do this. I would be okay. For now, at least.
I tore the note into pieces and shoved it down the garbage disposal.
Not that it would do any good. I’d remember those words as long as I lived. Still, it gave me a sense of letting go of something I had no control over. Now to be proactive, as Mel said.
I’d get home to help Jade with the boys—anything to get my mind off Bryce and his cruelty. Jade had been ill last night after our talk with Colin. I dressed and hurried back to the main house to see how she was feeling.
The boys were still in bed, so I got them up and moving—Dale insisted he was fine to go back to school—and then I went to check on Jade.
I knocked softly. “Hey, it’s me.”
“Come on in.” She was up and sitting in a recliner, clad in sweat pants and a T-shirt.
“Feeling okay?”
“Physically? Pretty good, actually. Emotionally? I’m a wreck.”
I nodded. “Colin.”
“Yup. What isn’t he telling us?”
“I wish I knew. Where’s Tal?”
“He got up before the butt crack of dawn. He told me why, I think, but I was half asleep and can’t recall.”
“He’s probably in the orchard. The boys are up, and Dale says he wants to go to school today.”
“Really? I should talk to him.”
“Sure. I’ll send him in to see you. Then I’m going to fix breakfast for them. Do you want anything?”
“I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway.”
“Okay. Let me know if that changes.”
Donny was already dressed and in the kitchen when I got there. Dale stumbled in a few minutes later while I was frying bacon.
“Dale, your mom wants to talk to you in her bedroom.”
He nodded and left the kitchen. Dale still wasn’t much of a talker, and since he’d freaked