She shook her head. “I c-can’t…I can’t breathe.” Tears were streaming down her face.

I was no expert, but it looked like she was having some kind of panic attack. I scooped her up out of the shower and sat on the floor, holding her in my lap. “Look at me.”

She did, gasping and crying and shaking.

“I’ve got you, Adds. I need you to slow it down, okay?” I massaged the back of her neck. “Breathe in for me, baby, nice and slow. That’s it.” I kept rubbing her neck and holding her panicked stare. “And again, another one. Slow like that, good girl.”

It took a while, but her breathing finally evened out. She squeezed her eyes closed, pressing her head to my chest. “I-I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, baby. But I need you to tell me what’s got you all worked up like this. Can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

She shook her head. “You c-can’t help me. No one can. I’m b-broken.”

“You think you’re broken?” My fucking heart was shredding in my chest. Something was hurting her, and I didn’t know what it was or how to help her.

She shook her head against me. “I thought I had it under control. I thought I was better, but I-I’m not.”

“Baby, you’re scaring me. I need you to tell me what this is all about.” Keeping my voice calm was damn near impossible.

She tried to look at me, but she was struggling to hold my gaze. “I’m sorry for scaring you…f-for being a jerk to you. You must think I’m such an asshole.”

“You’re not an asshole, and I told you, you don’t need to be sorry.”

“You don’t know me, Levi, not all of me.” Her eyes hit mine and they were full of pain. “I can’t do this…I can’t do this with you.”

“Yes, you can.” I swiped my thumb over her cheek. “Baby, you just have to let me in.”

Her gaze searched mine for several long seconds, round and fucking lost. “I told you I lost all my family, but I didn’t tell you everything.”

I hadn’t asked because whenever I’d brought her folks up, she closed down hard. I was waiting for her to feel comfortable enough to finally share with me. “Okay,” I said carefully.

“They died in a house fire,” she said and actually fucking flinched when she said it.

“Jesus, Adds.”

She motioned to the shower. “That’s what happens when I try to let people in.” She looked away from me. “Me and my younger brothers were in the house as well. It started upstairs. An electrical fault. It happenedsofast. My parents died trying to get to my brothers. I was the only one who lived because mine was the only bedroom downstairs. I got out, and when I realized they were still inside, I tried to run back in, to help, but our neighbor held be back. I remember every moment, every awful sound. Their panicked screams…”

Oh fuck.

“Afterward, I had nightmares, insomnia for a while, flashbacks, panic attacks. Sometimes I’d swear I’d seen them. I’d run up to strangers and think they were my mom or my dad or my brothers. Certain smells and sounds can trigger me, sirens or alarms especially, even now. I had counseling. My therapist said I had a grief disorder and PTSD.” She chewed her lip. “It’s something I learned to manage, until recently.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Christ, Addie, I had no idea.”

“How could you? I hide it from everyone. My friends only know because they’re relentless,” she said, and her lips actually twitched. “When I tried to pull away from them, they didn’t let me.”

“’Cause they’re good people.”

“Yeah, they are. But I was also in a good place when I met them.” She looked back at me.“I’ve spent most of my life refusing to plan for any kind of future, because what’s the point, right? I partied hard. I tried not to get emotionally invested with anyone. Then I turned twenty-one and I got the money my folks left me. It threw me for a bit, but I’d started to feel like myself again with the help of my therapist and medication. And Macy. I was solid. I thought I was better. I bought the cottage and turned it into a café. I met my girls and for the first time in a long time, my world didn’t feel so…so broken.”

She started to tremble, her pain saturating the fucking room. I wanted to hold her tighter, but it wasn’t possible and not hurt her. I couldn’t get her close enough.

“Then I lost Macy,” she whispered, and her breathing got ragged again. “I knew she was sick, but I didn’t deal with it. I lived in denial, refusing to face it.”

“Take a minute. Keep it slow and easy.”

She nodded. “Macy…was all I had left. I started having the nightmares again, the flashbacks. I started slipping backward…then I went home with you.” She offered me a shaky smile. “Her loss was still affecting me in a big way, but then you were all I could think about, and things didn’t feel as bad. I freaked out on you when we got back from Colorado, but still I thought I was managing it. Then you asked me to wear your property patch, and Macy’s boyfriend brought me some things. Jewelry that belonged to my mom and my grandmother, to Macy and…and the floor dropped out from under me.” She clutched onto me. “It was all…too much, and I freaked out again.”

My fucking heart seized in my chest. “You’re not ready for more, we won’t do it yet, baby, okay?”

Tags: Sherilee Gray Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net