by Chloe Walsh
"You don't need to worry about me, Dad," I assured him. "You just focus on handling your corner of the map and I'll handle mine."
"You're my daughter," he shot back, tone lighter now. "I'm always gonna worry about you."
The bedroom door creaked inwards then, startling me and causing me to lose my train of thought.
When I saw Jordan standing in the doorway, with a bunch of roses in his hand, my heart skipped a beat.
"Dad, I'm going to have to go," I mumbled into the phone. "I'll call you tomorrow. Love you."
I didn’t wait to hear my father's response before ending the call and dropping my phone on the bed.
"Flowers?" I croaked out, my entire focus latched on my husband. "For me?"
"Yeah," he said gruffly, still standing in the doorway. "They go with the apology I owe you."
"Well, they're lovely," I mumbled, tucking a stray curl behind my ear.
We continued to stare at each other, both frozen, until Jordan finally broke the tension.
"Christ, Keychain," he groaned as he closed the bedroom door behind him and walked straight for me. "I am so fucking sorry for how I reacted earlier."
Even though there was a part of me that wanted to make him stew in his guilt for how he treated me today, I still found myself scrambling off the bed and moving towards him.
"It's okay," I whispered, meeting him halfway in the room. "I'm sorry, too," I whispered, throwing my arms around his neck. "I screwed up telling them, but I never meant to hurt you."
"I know," he soothed, tightening his arms around me, flowers forgotten on our bedroom floor. "I get it now."
"I love you so much," I breathed. "I would never set out with the intention of breaking your trust or hurting you."
"I'm screwing this up, Hope," he choked out, burying his face in my neck. "Every day, we drift further away from each other and I have no idea what to do or how to fix it."
I could feel his body trembling and I ached to heal him. To make every bad thing that had ever happened to him disappear.
"I'm fucking terrified you'll wake up some morning and realize I'm a bad fucking idea."
"Are you serious?" My heart broke at his confession. "I’m not leaving you, Jordan." My voice was hoarse and thick with emotion and I meant every word. "I swear to god, I'm not going anywhere!"
"I am so fucked up in the head, Hope," Jordan replied, voice torn. "And I know I'm not treating you right… the way you deserve to be treated. Christ, I know it! I just don’t know how to fix it."
"Just love me," I whispered, eyes filling up with tears. "Just love me and be my husband and stop doubting us." My voice cracked then and I had to take a moment to compose myself before I could continue. "Because every time you doubt me, I doubt me!" I exhaled a ragged breath. "I love you. I do. And I know you love me back. Sex isn’t something you want with me, and that's okay because I get it. I do. But we can get past that part and still build a life together."
"You think I don’t want sex with you?" he asked, interrupting me.
"It's okay. I understand, Jordan." My cheeks burned bright with shame. "I'm not trying to force you –"
"All I've ever wanted my entire life, was to be with you," he interrupted, green eyes locked on mine. "In every single way."
I shook my head in confusion. "But I thought you couldn’t –"
"I want to be with you, Hope," he growled, green eyes piercing through me. "But I need to be in control. Of where you touch me, and how it happens, and what position I take you in. I need the assurance that I am the one with the power. That I can stop when I want. That you're not going to – " His voice broke off and he exhaled a ragged breath before continuing, "It has to be on my terms, all of it, and I can't expect you to be okay with being a fuckbuddy doormat for me."
"You can have me!" I blurted, nodding my head eagerly. "I'll be your fuckbuddy doormat. I’m just so relieved to know that you actually want me," I continued to blabber, ignoring his frowns and protests.
"Hope, you don't understand what I'm saying here." Jordan frowned at me as he said, "If you did, you wouldn’t be agreeing so quickly."
"I do," I urged, feeling unhinged with how excited the thought made me. "I seriously do and I'd be happy to do it…More than happy, actually. Fucking delighted is more accurate."
"Hope…" he shook his head and exhaled another ragged breath. "I can't be… I can't handle gentle."
Rough sex?
Hell fucking yes!
"Where do I sign up?" I breathed, forcing myself not to break out and do the happy dance in pure joy.
"Are you sure?" he whispered. "I'm not the boy you remember, Hope. I'm different now…rougher."
Fuck me…
Without a word, I took a shaky step back from him and reached for the hem of my shirt and yanked it over my head in one swift movement.
"I'm all yours," I whispered, standing before him completely bare. "If you want me."
"Oh, you better believe I want you," he groaned. "Badly." I watched as he pulled his shirt over his head and closed the space between our bodies. "Are you sure you want this?" he asked, tone gruff and thick as he pressed his body to mine.
"I'm want this," I blurted out, panting. His erection strained against me, making me feel weak with want. "I'm ready –"
Jordan's lips landed on mine harshly, painfully, and I loved it. I relished in the feel of him punishing my mouth with his.
I wanted to erase the demons of his past, but not nearly as much as I wanted to take him inside me again.
Gasping for breath, I wrapped my arms around his neck as he lifted me into his arms and walked us over to the switch on the wall. He flicked off the lights, leaving us in complete darkness, before moving towards what I presumed was the bed.
Seconds later, my back hit the mattress followed by his body landing heavily on top of me.
"Oh god," I moaned, opening my thighs for him to slide between them. He was rough and urgent and I loved every second of it, so much so that I cried out in pleasure.
The feel of this man doing the things my body had longed for. I pushed everything else out of my mind, concentrating entirely on this moment.
On us.
Everything about this moment felt surreal.
Having him crushed against me, straining against me, his hands on my body and his mouth on mine.
It was everything I had ever wished for.
"You sure?" he whispered. Pinning my hands above my head, he trailed kisses down my neck, stopping to suckle on my collar bone. "I'm not like before."
"I am beyond sure," I cried out, writhing beneath him with my legs spread open. We were trying again. I wanted fresh and I wanted him. In any shape or form.
He pulled away from me then, breaking our kiss, and the sudden lack of contact made me cry out in frustration.
"Please don't stop, Jordan," I heard myself beg as I shivered violently on the mattress. I didn’t care if I sounded desperate. I was fucking desperate, and I would say and do whatever it took to keep this man between my legs. "Don't do this to me again."
"I'm not stopping," he promised in the darkness.
Oh, thank god…
It was only then that I heard the sound of clothes ruffling and realized he was undressing. "Come back," I moaned, bucking my hips desperately. "I need you."
His weight landed heavily on me again and I gasped in delight from the contact only to lose the ability to breathe when he claimed my lips in what I could only describe as a soul-searing kiss.
I didn’t care that I was weighed down so heavily that I couldn’t move, and I didn’t care that my hands were pinned and I was unable to touch him.
I didn’t care about any of that, because he was about to give me exactly what I had wanted for so long.
"On your knees," he ordered, tone gruff and impatient.
"Wh–what?"
Not waiting for me to respond, he lifted off me, grabbed my hips, and flipped me onto my stomach.
Seconds later,
I was being dragged back onto my knees.
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
Oh my fucking good god!
I wasn’t sure about this position. I was quite literally face down and ass up on the bed.
It felt sort of degrading.
But I didn’t have long to ponder it when I felt the pressure of the head of Jordan's cock at my entrance and his voice in my ear.
"Open your legs," he growled, using one of his hands to press my upper body into the mattress, while he knotted the other in my hair. "Now, Hope."
Unsure of how I felt about this, but eager to please him, I did as he asked.
My entire body was trembling with a mixture of fear, lust, and anticipation as I spread my legs as far apart as I could.
And then he was inside me, slamming into my too tight entrance, impaling me with such aggressive forcefulness that I cried out in shock and pain.
"Fuck," I whimpered, breathing through the pain that was coursing through my womb.
I'd lost my virginity many years ago to this man, but tonight, it felt like I was losing it all over again.
"Oh god," I bit out as the burn inside of me felt like I was splintering in half. "Slow down."
He didn’t slow down.
Instead, he continued to fuck me like a dog, forcing my body into submission.
I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting when he said he needed rough, and I knew I shouldn’t be surprised, but this wasn’t it.
I didn’t like this.
There was no intimacy or love in this.
This wasn’t husband and wife.
This was man and whore.
This was dirty.
Closing my eyes, I forced my trembling body to remain in position and not collapse in a heap like I felt like doing.
My body protested venomously to the intrusion, and I tried to make myself enjoy it. I honestly did, but all I wanted to do was cry.
When the first sob finally tore from my throat, I felt him still inside me. It was the first of many tears I cried that night, because when Jordan pulled out of me and whispered, "I'm sorry, Hope. This is all I know," I came to the ugly, unwanted realization that this was it for us.
"I'm sorry," he choked out once more before shoving on his jeans and leaving me alone in the darkness.
This was it, I thought to myself.
This was all I would get from here on out.
This was all he could offer me – the only form of affection I would ever receive.
And I wanted no part of it.
Chapter Forty-Five
JORDAN
I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to break into any more pieces.
I was wrong.
The sound of Hope crying, and the knowledge that I was the one responsible, caused whatever was left of my black heart to shatter.
I sank to the floor outside our bedroom door, dropped my head in my hands, and listened to her breaking down a few short feet away.
I wanted to go back in that room and comfort her, but I couldn’t. Not when I was the reason she was crying.
Again…
Disgust filled every inch of my body as I listened to her hushed sobs. I didn't think I could ever look her in the eye again.
I wanted to erase myself from her life, and save her from the horror that was me and everything that I touched.
I should have known better than to take her like that.
I should have fucking known!
Seconds rolled into minutes and I remained exactly where I was, too ashamed and fucking shredded to move a muscle.
Tears filled my eyes and I let them fall, not bothering to wipe them away as awareness smacked me straight in the face.
Hope needed to be free. I loved her enough to spare her this pain.
This fucking torture.
She was the only thing that was right in my whole lifetime and she deserved better than this. She was the best person I knew and I loved her enough to keep my ugliness away from her light.
And I was ugly now.
I was fucking rotten inside.
I had to give her up.
There wasn't any other way around it.
I was filthy. Dirty. Fucking infected with his scum. Dying from the inside out.
More than an hour had passed by when the bedroom door opened inwards and Hope appeared in the doorway, dressed in her pajamas with her eyes puffy and cheeks tearstained.
My entire body stiffened when she lowered herself to the floor beside me. "I'm sorry, Hope," I squeezed out. "For tonight…for everything."
"Me, too," she whispered, resting her head on my shoulder.
"How are you still here?" I choked out, unable to comprehend how she could stand to be around me right now.
She was devoted to me, her actions just now proved it, but I wasn’t sure if it was for the right reasons.
For the reasons that would last over time, over the course of a lifetime…
"Because I love you," Hope replied, shifting closer to me. "Always."
Yes, she still loved me, except it wasn't me she was loving. It was the guy I used to be.
Before…
Hope
"Do you still feel sad?"
He nodded.
"Can I fix it for you?"
He shook his head.
My heart sank.
"I want to help you."
"Nobody can help me, Hope," he whispered. "I'm beyond repair."
Up until now, I thought I could.
Until tonight, I thought he was wrong.
I had thought I would be the one to save his life.
I had devoted twenty-six years of my life on saving the un-savable.
The truth was, I had been wrong, and I wasted a lifetime on proving him right.
And now here I was, right back in the middle of his world, fracturing my pieced together existence, the center point of his breakdown.
Drowning with him.
"You deserve more than me," Jordan whispered brokenly. "I can't give you a normal marriage." He exhaled a broken sob and tears flowed freely down his cheeks. "I'm here, but I can't… that part of me isn’t there anymore."
He was giving me an out.
I should take it.
After what happened tonight, I needed to take it.
But I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t.
I refused to be another name on the long list of people that had given up on him and let him down.
He deserved so much better.
"I'm not going anywhere," I vowed. "I'm here, I love you, and I'm not leaving you."
"Do you…" His words broke off and he hung his head. "Tonight… did I?" Shaking his head, he forced himself to look at me. "Force you?"
I shook my head. "No," I sobbed, joining him in our united misery. "Don’t you dare think that wasn’t consensual," I choked out, sniffling when my sobs threatened to overtake me. "You warned me it would be different."
"And now you know," Jordan whispered brokenly, tone laced with self-loathing.
"And now I know," I agreed, nodding numbly.
Neither of us spoke a word after that.
We just sat side by side on the floor in his tiny hallway in heartbroken silence.
The events of tonight had signified a monumental fracture in our marriage, and we both knew it.
Chapter Forty-Six
HOPE
Jordan never touched me after that night.
And I never asked him to.
We never spoke about that night again, either; both of us either too embarrassed or too ashamed to put it into words.
At night, we lay side by side in bed, our entwined hands the only parts of our bodies touching, and during the day, we passed each other like ships on separate journeys.
I wanted to speak to someone about how conflicted I was feeling, about how distraught I was inside, but there wasn’t anyone to tell.
My family wouldn’t understand, and Noah and Teagan were finally happy for what
felt like the first time in forever. I didn’t want to bring them down with my bullshit drama, so I kept it inside, and told nobody about how absolutely broken I felt inside.
I didn’t feel like facing them anyway, and had avoided contact with them all week, choosing to stay at home and work on my book. I didn’t have the energy to pretend I was happy anymore, which, evidently, worked wonders for my work.
It became very clear to me that conflict and misery were an author's best friend. I had finally accepted that my life was shit, and it was doing amazing things for my writing. I had managed to finish on Tuesday.
It was with my editor now, who had emailed me every night since, raving about how this was my best work yet. I seriously doubted it, but took comfort in the knowledge that my work life was stabilizing.
I would have the book in time for the signing in Aspen next month.
Aspen.
My heart plummeted at the thought.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that I had been organizing the romantic hotel suite, with champagne and rose petals and all that bullshit I had thought, in my naïve state of mind, would heal the rift in our marriage.
Yeah freaking right.
"Are you hungry?" Jordan asked, stirring me from my reverie.
I looked up from where I had been daydreaming and saw him standing in the kitchen doorway with a brown takeout bag in his hand. "I got Chinese."
My heart broke at the sight of him.
He was so beautiful.
So beautifully broken.
It hurt to know that there was nothing I could do to make it better, but I accepted it now.
I couldn’t fix him.
I couldn’t heal the broken pieces inside of him.
Acknowledging that caused another piece of my heart to chip away.
Forcing the dark thoughts from my mind, I smiled brightly and said, "Starving."
Jordan
"I'm going to try harder, Keychain," I said, breaking the silence that had settled between us, as I watched her from across the table.
I'd brought home her favorite Chinese food tonight, hoping that I could somehow make up for the life I'd dragged her into. Make up for being me.
Hope looked up at me with those big, blue eyes of hers and my heart squeezed tightly in my chest.
