Even when I'm gone

“Let’s go,” Scott barked.

Mia snapped her mouth shut and dropped her towel. She stood stripped and bared. My first instinct was to snatch her up in my arms and remove her from hungry eyes. But then my gaze landed on her fading injuries. Her flawless skin had taken a beating, and my soul went cold. Yellowed patches marked her thighs and hips, and my grip tightened around the edge of the sink as my eyes continued their journey back to her face. “Who did this to you?” I asked, each word pained by the view before me.

“You did.”

No. I would never hurt you.

My head shook the nonsense away, and my eyes jerked in Scott’s direction as he looked at Mia who stood between us. The piece of rubbish had the nerve to look at her while I was in the same fucking room.

I swooped up her towel, wrapped it around her, and pulled her into me. She didn’t resist. Scott took a step toward me, and I held up a palm in his direction to stop him.

Mia shook in my grasp, and I couldn’t tell if it was because she was cold or scared of me. I lowered my head into the crook of her neck. “Tell me I didn’t do this,” I whispered out of earshot. My entire being hung on her answer.

“It wasn’t you,” she cried softly into my chest. “You weren’t yourself.”

Her words devoured me, shredded me to nothing. Absolute nothing. Chest pains so intense blurred my vision, and I held on to her tighter, digging my head into her neck. She was the only thing that mattered. She had always been the only thing that mattered.

A fierce sting fought its way through, and I pinched the bridge of my nose to control it. “I’m done saying I’m sorry. I’m going to make this right,” I quickly promised before I turned into a wreck in the bathroom. The words couldn’t come out fast enough in the little time we had. “I’ll show you. Please, wait for me. Just stay with me, Mia.”

“Even when you’re gone?”

I placed my hands over her face and pulled her away so I could see her as my eyes watered. Fuck, I was about to break. She still had belief—belief in the two of us. Somehow, she understood me. My lips met her forehead, and I breathed in the scent of her and buried it into my memory. “Especially when I’m gone.”

Releasing her, I pushed my legs through my sweats, grabbed my things, and walked away from her. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Emotions shredded me like a wild beast, ripping me apart. And it fucking hurt. I stopped in front of Scott and clenched my fist from putting it through his skull. “Don’t ever fucking look at her again,” my sick pride warned him.