You Broke Something Inside Me

I stood frozen in the doorway, my brain refusing to process what I was seeing.

Xavier. Here. In my mother's house. Or rather my mother was in his house.

"Kira, honey, this is Xavier Sterling," Mom said again, her smile so wide it hurt to look at. "Your new stepbrother. Isn't this wonderful? We're a real family now!"

I wished the earth would open up and swallow me whole.

"This is a terrible idea." My voice came out flat, emotionless. "I need to go home."

Mom's face crumpled. "What? But you just got here. Why would you—"

"Why?" I laughed, and the sound was bitter enough to curdle milk. "You really have to ask me why?"

"Kira, please, I don't understand—"

"Of course you don't understand!" The words exploded out of me, three years of suppressed rage finally finding their target. "If you had paid one moment of attention during my entire childhood, you wouldn't need to ask. If you'd looked up from your bottles and your pills for even a second, you would have seen me come home with scars. With my uniform torn and stained. With my eyes swollen from crying."

Mom's face went pale. Xavier stood motionless on the stairs, his expression unreadable.

"If you had gotten your head out of your next fix for one goddamn moment," I continued, my voice shaking, "you would have known that this young man right here made my life hell for six years! He tormented me every single day. Made me hate myself. Made me wish I was dead."

"Kira, I didn't—" Mom started.

"Now you're married to his father?" I cut her off. "And you expect me to just smile and pretend we're some happy blended family? You think I can sit at a dinner table and play nice with the person who destroyed me?"

Tears streamed down Mom's face. "I didn't know. Sweetheart, I swear I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't know." My voice dropped to something cold and cutting. "Because you were too high to care. Too busy fucking strangers for drug money to notice your own daughter was falling apart."

"Kira—" Xavier's voice came from the stairs.

"Don't." I held up a hand without looking at him. "Don't you dare speak to me."

I turned back to my mother, and some small part of me hurt at the devastation on her face. But the larger part—the part that had survived everything she'd put me through—felt nothing.

"I don't give a damn what you do with your life," I said quietly. "You want this family? Fine. Have it. But count me out. I'm not playing this game."

"Please," Mom sobbed. "Please don't go. We can figure this out—"

"There's nothing to figure out." I grabbed my purse from where I'd set it down. "You made your choice. You always made your choice. And it was never me."

I walked out the door and down the front steps, my vision blurred with angry tears I refused to let fall.

Footsteps sounded behind me. Heavy. Determined.

"Kira, wait."

I whirled around to find Xavier following me down the driveway. "Stay the fuck away from me. As far away as possible."

"Just let me—"

"No!" I backed up, putting more distance between us. "You don't get to follow me. You don't get to explain. You don't get anything from me."

He stopped walking but didn't turn back. "I'm sorry for what happened. For what I did to you. I was foolish and cruel, and there's no excuse for it."

"You're right," I said coldly. "There isn't an excuse. And I don't care how many times you apologize—it will never be enough. It will never take away the pain you caused me. The trauma you gave me."

"I know—"

"Do you?" I pulled up my sleeves, showing him the burn scars on my forearms. "Do you know how you made me hate myself so much that I did this? Do you know how completely you shattered my self-confidence? How I still can't look in a mirror without hearing your voice calling me fat and disgusting?"

Xavier's face went white. He stared at the scars like they'd physically struck him.

"I belittled myself everywhere I went because of you," I continued, my voice breaking despite my best efforts. "Every room I walked into, I heard your words. Every time someone looked at me, I assumed they were thinking the same things you said. You didn't just bully me, Xavier. You broke something inside me that I'm still trying to fix."

"Kira, I'm so sorry—"

"Sorry doesn't fix this!" I pulled my sleeves back down. "Sorry doesn't erase six years of torture. So how dare you stand there and think an apology will make everything okay?"

"I don't think that," he said quietly. "I know I can't fix what I did. But I want to try—"

"If you truly want to apologize, then reject the mate bond."

Silence fell between us like a guillotine.

Xavier's jaw clenched. "You know I can't do that."

"Can't?" I laughed harshly. "Or won't? Because it sounds like you just want to hold onto the one thing that gives you power over me. The one thing I can't escape."

"It's not about power—"

"Bullshit!" I stepped closer, anger giving me courage. "Everything with you has always been about power. About making me feel small so you could feel big. And now the universe handed you the ultimate control—a mate bond I can't break. Must feel good, right? Having me trapped?"

"That's not what this is," Xavier said, his voice strained. "The mate bond is sacred. It's—"

"It's a curse," I interrupted. "Being bound to you is a nightmare, not a blessing. So if you really feel sorry, if you actually care about making amends, you'll reject it and set me free."

"I can't."

"Won't," I corrected. "You won't. Because you're still the same selfish asshole who cares more about what he wants than about the pain he causes."

Something flashed in Xavier's eyes—hurt, maybe, or anger. "You think I want this? You think I'm happy about any of this?"

"I think you're thrilled," I shot back. "I think you love knowing that I'm stuck with you. That even after everything you did, I can't completely cut you out of my life."

"You're wrong."

"Am I?" I crossed my arms. "Then prove it. Reject the bond."

"No."

The word hung in the air between us, final and unmovable.

"Then we have nothing more to talk about." I turned to walk away.

"Kira, please—"

"If you really think I'm still that scared little girl who would cry because of you," I said without turning around, "then you're very mistaken. I survived you once. I'll survive you again. But this time, I won't let you destroy me."