February

I couldn't remember the last time I wanted my dad.

It must have been years, but sitting here, opposite the man who'd broken my heart repeatedly, I really wanted my dad. I needed his strong arms around me. Telling me that everything would be okay. Promising to make things right for me. But instead, all I had was the source of my pain.

I couldn't figure Jordan Porter out.

Why he'd come here or why he hadn't left already.

It didn't make sense.

He'd run all too quickly out of my life many years ago, and now he wouldn't go.

"Are we going to talk about anything important?" I asked when Jordan attempted to bring up the past for what had to be the tenth time. "Because our past is a hard limit for me, Jordan."

"There's no shame in loving me, Hope," Jordan whispered and I balked.

Oh no he didn’t…

"No shame in loving you?" I shook my head in disgust. "You married me and then you abandoned me!"

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed heavily. "I didn't do it on purpose."

"But you still did it. On purpose or not. You still broke my world. You self-destructed and you took me down with you," I hissed. "I think that's pretty damn shameful."

The mixed signals he was sending me weren't doing my heart any good. I was up in a heap trying to figure out what he wanted from me. He was gone for so many years that I'd learned how to cope. How to adjust to life without him, but he was back now. What the hell was I supposed to do with these feelings?

It wasn't as if I'd gotten over him.

We'd been so young. I'd fallen so hard for him. My feelings hadn't changed. I was broken inside because I seemed to be solely programmed to love Jordan Porter. But I knew what I needed to do. I needed to make him go away. For the sake of my sanity, I had to break free from the chains he had wrapped around my heart.

"You were always with me!" Jordan roared, chest heaving as he finally rid himself of that infuriating cool demeanor. Standing up, he stalked over to the living room window and looked out. "Just because I wasn't with you in the flesh, doesn't mean you stopped being the pivotal fucking element of my world."

"Well that's too damn bad," I screamed. Standing up, I kicked the coffee table, my temper out of control. "Because I signed your papers. I've suffered enough and I'm tired, Jordan." Looking him dead in the eye, I said, "So do me a kindness and walk away from me because I'm not willing to put myself through another round with you. I always lose and it's too hard."

"I am leaving, Hope," he replied, eyes locked on my face. "I don’t have a choice."

"Why am I not surprised to hear you say those words?" I squeezed out, feeling like the air had been dragged clean out of my lungs. Blinking rapidly, I took several steps backwards. "Do you enjoy this?" I gestured to myself. "Do you enjoy hurting me?"

Overflowing with unrecognizable emotion, I stalked towards him, and unlike every other time, he didn’t shy away from me. "Why'd you come back here, Jordan?" I demanded. Curling my fingers in the front of his shirt, I resisted the urge to thump him, letting out a harsh cry instead "I mean, why bother coming back at all if you're leaving again, huh?"

"I came back because I realized I'd left something behind," he told me, voice gruff and thick.

He stepped closer to me and I shivered.

Achingly slowly, he placed his hands on my waist and dropped his brow to rest on mine. "Something I've spent a very long time looking for."

"What?"

"You." His hands circled my wrists. "I've been searching for hope."

"No!" I shook my head, rejecting his cruel words and torturous promises. "You don’t mean that."

"I do," he rasped, claiming the space I'd put between us. "I mean it so much I want to carve it on my body."

"You don’t." Tears filled my eyes. "You can't." I looked around aimlessly and shrugged my shoulders. "You left me."

"And I spent every waking moment regretting that," he choked out. He reached out and cupped my face with his hands. Immediately, I clenched my eyes shut, desperate to block this out.

"Look at me." When I refused, he shook me gently. "Hope, look at me."

Slowly, I opened my eyes and looked into his.

"I am so sorry," he whispered. "For lying to you and leaving you." He exhaled a shaky breath. "I swear to you, everything I've done has been for you." His hands moved to knot in my hair. "I know I don’t deserve you, but that doesn’t change the fact that I'm in love with you. I want you, Hope, and I'm too fucking weak to walk away again. So, I'm going to ask you the impossible." He pressed his brow to mine. "Come away with me, Hope Carter."

"You can't just say that and expect me to be okay with it, Jordan," I sobbed brokenly. "You can't just barge your way back in my life and ask me to go with you! I've risked it all for you before and look where it got me."

"I know I've fucked up," he countered hoarsely. "I know I've hurt you and screwed everything up. But I need to be honest with you, Hope –" His voice broke off and it took him a moment to continue. "If I don’t do it now, I'll never do it, and I can't fucking leave again with you believing that you're not the most important person in my life. Because you are. You always were and you always will be."

"Then why did you do all of this to me?" I sobbed. My hands reached up and cupped his face of their own accord. "Why did you break me?"

"I have a lot to explain," he whispered. "I know that."

"If I go with you," I said in a shaky voice – weighing up my options. "I want full disclosure."

Jordan cocked a brow and I stared hard back at him.

"You won't ever look at me the same," he replied.

I shook my head. "I don’t care. I want to know."

"You will care," he muttered.

Taking a step back from me, Jordan unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves.

"What the hell is that?" My voice was barely more than a soft cry as I stared at the insides of his wrists. I could hardly breathe. I wasn't sure why I was asking Jordan to explain something that I clearly already knew, only that I needed to hear it from his mouth.

"You know what that is," he choked out, green eyes locked on my face, imploring me not to pry.

Stepping closer, I took his left hand in mine and carefully rolled the sleeve up to his elbows. "These cuts?" My eyes were locked on the ugly crisscross welts on the inside of his wrists.

"Self-inflicted."

"Why?"

Jordan sighed. "Because sometimes the physical pain is easier to deal with than the emotional pain."

My fingers trailed over the scars on his wrists. I touched the lines of his marred flesh. The purple swell of his bruised and battered veins. The marks on his veins caused a tremor of unease to roll through me.

This was evidence of his lifelong pain.

"When did all of this start?" I asked, not trusting myself to say any more and scare him back into that shell he loved to hide in.

"Not long after I left The Hill," he replied. "I was…struggling with some stuff." Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair. "I wanted to forget. It started off with alcohol and a little weed." He laughed harshly. "But I obviously have a lot of Derek in me because it wasn't long until I was out of control."

"Out of control," I repeated numbly.

My world felt like it had been pulled out from under my feet.

"Heroin, Hope," Jordan explained, tone flat and cold. "You think I fucked you over by leaving, but I was toxic. I left to protect you from my bullshit."

"Bullshit?" I shook my head in confusion. "You're no druggie, Jordan."

"Aren't I?" he countered. "Because I have a file as long as your arm saying otherwise."

"I can't believe this," I whispered, struggling to take it all in.

"She was my sponsor," Jordan whispered, finally breaking the horrible silence that had been suffocating us.

I looked up at him. "Annabelle?"

Jordan nodded. "I never slept with her."

Now I was the one to recoil. "You're lying." He had to be. She was his fiancée.

"I'm not lying to you," he countered, stepping closer. "The only woman I've ever been with is you."

"How?"

"How?" he shook his head in confusion "What do you mean how?"

"Sex, Jordan," I spat. "Are you honestly trying to make me believe that you haven't slept with that woman?"

"You gave me everything I ever needed," he growled, sounding oddly offended. "Why would I be with her for sex?"

"Because you're a man," I hissed, pressing my fingers to my temples. This was too much to take. "So why were you engaged to her?"

"Because she needed me."

"I needed you."

"I know, Hope. God, I know. But Annabelle…. I helped her out of a hole with an abusive ex by pretending to be her fiancé and she helped me out of a hole with….

"Me," I deadpanned. "Go on. Finish your sentence."

"I needed you to move on," he choked out. "It was a horrible fucking lie, but one I thought you needed to hear."

"Why?" I demanded. "And why the hell would you put that crap in your body?"

"Because I wanted to forget and I didn't care if I killed myself in the process," he replied honestly. "In fact, I was sort of banking on it."

"That's what I don't understand," I admitted, feeling torn between my emotions.

One part of me wanted to throw my arms around this man and comfort him through his pain.

The other part of me wanted to slap him silly.

"You don't need to understand," he whispered. "Just know that I did you a favor by leaving."

"No," I hissed, shaking my head. "You don't get to call the shots and leave me hanging like this." I tightened my ponytail and struggled to reign in my emotions. "You ruined me. I had to live these past seven years not knowing what I'd done wrong. You broke me so bad. And no amount of success or money could fill the void you left inside of me. You took my heart away, Jordan. I can't go on not knowing why. It hurts too much."

"I was going down, Hope," he hissed. "I made a decision not to take you down with me."

"Liar."

"I'm not lying to you," he ground out through clenched teeth.

"You've been walking around pretending I'm a freaking stranger, Jordan!" Every time I looked at his stupid, beautiful face, another smidgen of my dignity slipped away, fueling my rage, and igniting my wrath. "Tell me why you left me that night. Tell me or I'll walk. I swear to god I will walk away and never come back!"

"Because I was raped, okay!" The words tore from his chest, bringing with them an onslaught of emotion. "I was fucking raped and I couldn't bear to look you in the eye afterwards!"

My hands shot to my mouth. "Jordan…"

"My stepfather raped me, Hope. Over and over. For days. He tied me to the bed and the bastard raped me with his body. He raped me with…Fuck, I can't even say it…" Pulling on his hair, Jordan backed away from me, chest heaving. He looked like he was struggling to breathe. "And when he was finished, he left me there." He dropped his head in shame. A sob tore from his throat when he said, "By the time Derek found me, I had almost bled out."

I couldn't hold back the scream that ripped from my throat.

This was a nightmare.

I was having a nightmare and I so desperately needed to wake up…

"Afterwards, I wanted to die." Jordan continued to talk, filling me in on a lifetime of painful memories. "I wanted to be fucking dead, Hope."

Meanwhile, I sank to the floor and wept.

"I left you because I loved you, not because I didn't!"

"I could have helped you…" I began to say but he cut me off.

"How, Hope?" Jordan demanded. "How could you have possibly helped me?"

"I…" I felt sick. I didn't know what to do or say. "I'm so sorry."

"That day I left you?" Jordan sank down on the floor beside me. "Derek took me to a facility that day." Wrapping his arms around his legs, he hung his head. "I stayed there for eight months."

I gasped, appalled. "He locked you up?"

"I locked myself up!" Jordan corrected. "I didn't want to be near anyone. Derek was against it, but he did what had to be done." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "He signed the papers."

"Why didn’t you tell me?" I cried.

"What?" he demanded, crying too. "What was I supposed to tell you? That I tried to fight back and I couldn't?" He grabbed his hair and pulled, clearly in pain even talking about this. "Do you have any idea how that feels? To be a grown man and unable to protect yourself?"

"It happens to men, too," I whispered, blinking back the tears.

"Yeah," he laughed humorlessly. "It does."

"Would you have left me, if it had been me who had been raped?"

"It's not the same thing."

Shifting onto my knees, I crawled over to him and wrapped my arms around him. He stiffened under my touch, but he didn’t push me away. "Would you have left me because of something I was a victim of?"

"No!" he hissed. "Of course not."

"Then you should have told me."

"I couldn't," he whispered.

"Why?"

His green eyes were glassy and full of self-loathing when he said, "because it wasn't a one-time thing."

"What do you mean it wasn't a one-time thing?" My blood ran cold. "Jordan." My voice was shaky. My body was trembling. "What do you mean?"

"It started about a month after mom married him."

"But you were only fourteen…Oh god." I heaved. I physically heaved, feeling like my insides were being dragged out of me.

"It stopped when I left," he whispered, trying to assure me. "I got bigger. Stronger. I could fight back..."

"Jordan," I wept.

"But sometimes I didn't…" He shuddered violently. "Sometimes… oh god, sometimes I just laid there and took it… " His voice broke off and it took him a few moments to continue. "I thought that when I came to you, that it was my fresh start. I thought I was free. Free to start my life with you." He laughed humorlessly again. "I was wrong."

"I hate this," I choked out. Reaching up, I gently cupped his cheek, and pretended not to notice when he slightly recoiled from me. Allowing my fingers to trail over his cheek bone and down to his stubbly jaw, I sighed. "I want to go back in time and change things for you."

He stiffened beneath my touch. "This is why I didn't want you to know." Clenching his eyes shut, he continued to speak. "The way you're looking at me now. The tone of voice you're using."

"What tone?"

"Pity," he hissed. "Disgust." My hand fell on open space when Jordan suddenly jumped to his feet and stepped away from me. "I need to go."

I watched him run out of the room and instantly I was on my feet, running after him.

He wasn’t leaving me.

Never again.

Rushing down the steps, I reached him just as he kicked off the pedal of his motorcycle.

"I'm not stable, Hope," he said in a warning tone, face down.

"I don’t care," I replied as I swung my leg over the back of the motorcycle and got on.

"I can't guarantee you anything," he whispered, shivering. "I'm an addict with a record for fucking shit up."

"And I'm a Carter with a heart that belongs completely to you." Wrapping my arms around his waist, I pressed my cheek to his back and said, "Where you go, I go."