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Hello, my lovely readers. I apologize for the delay. Unfortunately, I was quite ill these past couple of days and barely managed to write chapters. I will continue with posting now.
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Chapter 25 - Broken . Warning content: Mentioning personal trauma, violence, mental breakdown, and death. . .
Thomas stood up and went into the room he used as a study or his office. When he came back, he had a piece of paper in hand.
"What is that?"
"Names and numbers of people I know and trust. The top two are therapists."
I pierced him with all resentment I could muster. I was getting outraged now.
"You talk with them. I don't want that."
"I actually go to therapy. Not to fix something, just as part of my lifestyle. I believe that the mind needs to be cared for just as the body, if not more if a person wants to thrive. I also meditate if you want to try it."
"No thanks."
"I thought so," he shrugged.
.
"The rest are all dominants I believe are worthy of you. And I mean it with the highest respect for all of you."
"Ross is not there," I tried to hurt him, remembering his look when I was sure he was thinking about whether I slept with Ross.
"Ross is my friend, which would probably hurt me, but if you think he can help you, I will make peace with it."
Fuck, he just dodged that so fucking quickly!
"I don't want other dominants."
"Why?"
"I don't trust them."
"Trust is built, go for coffee with them, and you will see whether you would like any of them."
"I won't let any other guy touch me. I am not gay!"
"I believe that you believe that. That is the reason why there are women as well."
Now, this idea alone genuinely scared me. "I don't want a woman! I want someone I can fight with and either lose and be fucked or win and fuck them!" I was getting enraged more by the minute!
.
Thomas took the paper and marked one. "This one is active military, she loves fighting her subs, and she lets them fuck her if they are worth it."
"I am not a fucking sub!" I think I was screaming louder with each response. I started shaking with rage. He is just trying to get rid of me and throw me to someone else!
"Fine, clients!"
"I don't want another contractual relationship."
"Natasha was a contractual relationship."
"Yes, but you weren't, and I loved that; it was real for me! What killed my relationship with Nat was mainly that I started to view it as one."
"Try to get to know her. No one says it can't be real after a while. She can fight you, and you can fuck. She's got pussy and quite a collection of strap-ons."
"No!" I yelled. At this point, my hands were tight in fists, and I was shaking.
Thomas looked at me with concern. "Why don't you want at least try it, Matt?"
"I cannot hit a woman, damn it!!"
.
My voice was so sharp and loud that Thomas stepped back in shock. His eyes darted at me, and his pupils dilated with worry. I watched that from far away. At that moment, I saw my mother's face, and my body started shaking rapidly. Then it suddenly stopped. Everything stopped!
I couldn't move my body... as if I was a little being locked in a huge cage and the world started closing on me. I saw her face, and I couldn't even cry for help.
"Matt." I heard him, but I couldn't reach him. I couldn't turn my face to look at him. I couldn't even move my eyes. It was as if my body had shut down in a position I was in, and I couldn't access it from deep within. I was drowning, and I couldn't move to get a breath.
"Matt, please look at me."
I tried, I screamed inside my head, trying to convince myself to move a muscle, any muscle! Move! Please! God damn it. Move! I was trapped, and her image was still here, right in front of my eyes.
.
"Matt, look at me now!" His dominant voice was like a whip! It made me shake and snap. My eyes turned to him.
"Breathe! Now!"
I couldn't remember how...
"In!"
I took a sharp breath in.
"Out!"
I exhaled.
His lips were shaking, but his eyes were resolute. He kissed me. "Good boy. Again!"
I pleaded with my eyes.
"In." I inhaled.
"Out!" Exhale.
I felt his lips kissing mine. "Good boy. Again!"
.
I don't know how many times he did that... Five, six, ten, twenty? Slowly I was able to move my lips and kissed him back. My eyes filled with tears, and I began to cry and scream. Thomas held me tight, and I realized we were on the carpet. I was hugging him while he was rocking back and forth with me, caressing my hair and repeating.
"I am here."
"Good boy."
"It's over. I'm proud of you."
.
Time lost any meaning for me, and I just watched my mother and cried.
"Look at me, Matt."
I did. He smiled with relief and hugged me tighter.
"I'm sorry," I spoke up, ashamed.
"Don't! Never apologize for something like this, Matt!"
We sat there in silence until I calmed down and stopped crying.
.
"How long you've had panic attacks, Matt?"
"I haven't got them in a long time."
"That's not true, Matt."
"It is."
"Matt, you maybe didn't have a major one like this, but I've seen you have minor ones. You tend to freeze or burst. I can spot a panic attack, trust me. I never wanted to pry, but this one was serious. You need to treat that!"
"I don't need a shrink."
"Matt..."
"I cannot harm a woman. Not even if she'd be willing."
Thomas was quiet. He just brushed my hair and rocked with me slightly back and forth.
.
"I could never hit a woman. I think if a woman was holding a knife at my throat and the only way for me to survive would be for me to hit her, I would let her cut me. I would see my mother in her every time. I couldn't stand that."
"Did your mother hurt you?" his whisper was like a feather. It soothed me like nothing ever before.
"No, dad was a cop and unsuccessful boxer, he was good when life was fine, but there were days before the matches when my mother and I were afraid for our lives. Especially if he lost, which was a lot. He would never give up, no matter how unsuccessful he was. My mother took most of it, and when I got older, I just wouldn't let her. But I was too young to make any difference."
.
"I begged her to leave him, but she was afraid of what would happen if he found us. And she kept saying that it's only after those fights and he will not have so many. She kept hoping and enjoyed the happy times when he was only training. I was angry! How could they try to play happy family when he could just snap one day and beat us for weeks until he got it out of his system? It was bullshit!"
I felt Thomas shake and squeeze me harder.
"When I was twelve, I saw a bunch of kids jump in the park one day. They were doing parkour, and I joined them. We became fast friends, and I kept coming there. It was something I could lose myself in. I could be looking forward to seeing them the whole day at school. We would jump and fall, laugh it off, and worst-case scenario, come bruised up or go to the hospital. In a way, it was a good cover-up for what was going on at home."
"Some kids left as we were growing up, and new ones joined us, but, in the end, five of us stayed tight. We became inseparable!"
.
I smiled a little as I remembered us back in those days. "We had vastly different backgrounds, and we all had our own issues at home, but we just became a rock for each other and refused to let go no matter what!"
"One day, I was seventeen, I saw a woman. She was running. Bag in hand and she tried to reach her car desperately. I knew that guy was beating her. I could see it in the way she put on her makeup, how her eyebrow was slightly swollen."
"Back in the day, the means for covering something like that was far from what it is today. Today, if Natasha were bruised all over, no one would know. But back then, I knew."
"The way he ran after her was pathetic. He was nothing like my dad, he was lanky but overall small, yet he had much more strength than her. Her arm must have hurt. I could see that when he grabbed her by it, she hissed. He tried to stop her, tried to stop her from leaving him."
.
I hugged him tighter, and Thomas responded immediately.
"I don't remember how but at one point, I was sitting on top of him, beating him senseless, and guys were tearing me from him, so I won't kill him. She then took us all, and we drove away."
"Her name was Michelle, and I fell in love with her that year. I was seventeen, and she was thirty-two. She refused to touch me until my eighteenth birthday, and then we were like rabbits. It was the best four months of my life until she broke up with me... That's the weirdest part... she got back with him. I don't even remember his name. But since that day, I was thirsty for blood."
"I used to pick up fights with random guys, and I became a bully. My only luck was that those four guys never left me. They tried to calm me down again and again. We tried most of the things that made our blood rush hard, but nothing took the edge for me more than beating up someone my size, or preferably bigger."
"We were at the police station more than I could count, but Nate's and Dan's parents were fucking rich and more afraid of a scene than anything else. They bailed them out every time, and Nate and Dan wouldn't let them leave the rest of us there. They would blackmail them if necessary. I had dad there, and he was proud of me in a weird twisted way, which helped our case many times. We felt untouchable at some point. And we were tight!"
"When we were nineteen, we rented a house, and all five of us lived there. I had a room with Brandon and John, and Nate and Dan were in the second. I wish you could meet them. They are more of a family to me than my parents ever were. We spend the whole college years like that."
.
"One day, I met this little, strong-headed guy. It was like he could see deep into me, and I was able to breathe for those moments. Like I was more than a weak copy of my father. Luke used to come over to our house with his girlfriend cos his parents wouldn't approve. I was excited every time I saw him coming. Once he told me that I could be as good a person as I let myself be..."
I squeezed my eyes shut and forced my head into Thomas's neck. "He died that night..." I cried now.
"It broke us all..."
.
"That was when my panic attacks started... but since that day, I decided to be the best person I can be!"
"Which is ridiculous as there is no way one can scratch every trauma and become a whole new man. But I got quite close! Whenever I felt like giving up or beating someone, I thought, how would I want to act if he could see me at that moment? It helped a lot. I was struggling, but I pushed through, and I really did build myself from the ground up eventually and buried that rage as deep as I could."
.
"But you know what, Thomas?" I raised my head and looked at him. "Now, after all that, I realized why Michelle returned to that dick. It wasn't cos she was stupid or loved him. She was screwed up in her head, just like I am. And I can act all I want like I am better, but the truth is I am not. I never felt more alive than that weekend with you. I felt genuinely good then because, for one single weekend, I let myself be true to what I enjoy."
I looked at him. Pleading.
"So I beg you, don't take that from me."
Thomas's eyes were red, and he was crying. "Forgive me, Matt, but I honestly believe, with everything in me, that could hurt you more. What you try to have with me will not make it easier for you. I worry it may just destroy everything you managed so hard to achieve."
"Could I be the judge of that, please?"
"No. I am not taking this risk on myself. I appreciate your trust in me and that you told me that, but I believe you need to deal with this and not regress to aggression."
"Thomas, please."
"I will be here for you, Matt. I will always open those doors for you and talk with you, but I will not fight you, and I will not be sleeping with you."
"Why?"
"I will not fight you as I believe that is not what you need. It's just the easiest solution for you, but not the best. And I will not sleep with you because I need to protect my feelings."
.
I felt empty... Somehow his caring, calm tone had a more considerable effect on me than when he was angry. I was upset. I knew he meant it with all seriousness. I was broken and wanted to scream, but I wasn't even mad enough for that... Everything in me lost meaning, and I was in the void. I never felt like this, but I knew what it was... I gave up.
"I should leave."
"Matt..."
I turned to him and kissed him slowly. "I love you, Thomas Birns. Goodbye."
.
I didn't look at him again. I just went to the door and left. I sat behind the wheel and looked up. He stood at the entrance, and we just gazed at each other.
I drove away, empty...
.
At home, I sat down on the couch and only then realized I came barefoot, leaving my shoes at Thomas's. I didn't care. What does it matter now?
I lay down on the cushions and cradled there until I fell asleep.
. . .
My phone was ringing. I looked at the screen. It was Brandon. I picked up.
"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Matty; you are an old man, are youuu!" Brandon laughed at his little stupid song. I didn't move. I just let my phone rest on my ear, lying on my side.
"Are you at Thomas's? Did I interrupt, or are you tied up?"
"No," I said dryly.
"Oh, I am sorry. Are you all right?"
Right... I haven't talked with him since that morning after New Year's... he doesn't know anything.
"No."
"Matt, where are you?" his tone immediately changed.
"Home."
"I am coming over; hold tight."
I just ended the call.
. . .
I spent the time lying there. I watched the blue carpet under the couch and let tears run down. I told him that I loved him. It was true, wasn't it...? It may not be the kind of love he had for me, but it was real. I gave him up. What will I do now?
I didn't even have the strength to be angry.
.
"Matty?"
I didn't feel like looking up.
Brandon came into my vision field and knelt in front of me.
"Damn... he really did break your heart, did he?"
I just nodded.
"I'm so sorry, buddy."
.
Brandon patted my head and sat down next to me in silence. Just then, my phone started ringing. I ignored it. Brandon reached for it and showed me the screen. Nate called.
"I don't want to talk to anybody."
"Matty, it's Nate."
"I know. Wall," I growled.
"You sure?"
"Fucking wall, Brandon!" I screamed at him with tears in my eyes.
He looked upset but nodded.
.
Brandon picked up. "Wall," he said in a sad voice.
"Yes."
I just stared into the carpet as he talked with Nate.
"Sure. Would you pass that on?"
"Yeah, of course. There is no way he's getting rid of me."
"Thanks."
Brandon put a hand on my shoulder. "Matty? Time."
"Eternity!" I roared.
He sighed. "Month."
"Yes, I believe it is."
"Sure, you too."
Brandon put the phone on the table.
.
"I said eternity," I muttered.
"You know you can't keep the wall up for more than a month, Matt. We would bang on that door till you'd let us in. We would take turns sleeping in front of your house. You know we would! I know this is bad, but I will not let you brood here for I don't know how long and alienate us. Is that clear enough for you?"
I just growled.
I just closed my eyes.
Who knew how long we were there like that? I don't know. I don't care. But I was thankful that I wasn't alone.
.
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End of part one.
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With this chapter, we are ending the first book, and Matt's arc is slowly reaching its conclusion, and in the next, Thomas's will begin. See you in August! ---------------------------------------------------------------
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