Chapter Twenty-Four
Mia
One look at Jordan and I know.
I can’t be with him anymore.
Not because I don’t love him, I do, but all I see when I look at him is my mother’s betrayal. She chose to raise him, not me.
It hurts to be near him.
I don’t want to end up resenting Jordan for everything he had, everything that should have been mine. This isn’t his fault – what my so called mother did wasn’t his fault. My rational side knows this, but it doesn’t change the way I feel. She wanted him. Not me.
I can understand why. He’s such a beautiful, amazing person. He shines so bright. He is so much more than me.
And he deserves better than I can ever give.
He deserves better than I am.
I’m broken. Damaged.
Dr. Packard thinks I’m repairable. I’m not so sure about that. Look at me – where I am right now. What I’ve done to myself.
I’ve hit bottom. Now, I need to figure out if I can ever climb back up, but I have to do that without Jordan.
“Hey.” He closes the door behind him.
“Hi.”
I can barely bring myself to look at him. It hurts, knowing that this will be the last time I’ll see him.
I’ve known him such a short time, but the time feels irrelevant. It’s as if I’ve known him always. And never seeing him again will be the hardest thing I’ll ever do. Harder than living through Oliver. Harder than getting away from Forbes. Harder than combating my illness.
Jordan takes the seat by my bed. The seat Dr. Packard recently vacated, after spending a good hour talking to me about my illness. I didn’t go to in depth about my issue with food, but it was hard to avoid the bulimia conversation as being a medical professional, she knew. I tried to deny it at first, but the signs were all there for her to read.
After I confessed to her – the first person I have ever told – and how long I’ve been eating and purging—ten years—she went on to tell me everything I already knew, about the damage I’m doing to my body, the health risks – liver or kidney failure … possibly death.
You’d think already knowing these things would have stopped me a long time ago, but I didn’t want to think of those things. I just wanted the pain to stop, and for a long time it helped. And maybe, deep down, I did want to die.
But after being in here, talking with Dr. Packard … but mainly from knowing Jordan and my time with him, I’ve realized that what I want is to live and be happy.
And to do that, I need help.
Dr. Packard told me of a specialized clinic that can help me, and that she would refer me to them, but for the treatment to work, I have to want it – I have to want to get better.
And I do. I’m ready to get better. I need to get better.
Dr. Packard is calling the clinic now to see if they have a place for me, so all that’s left for me to do is tell Jordan that I’m leaving.
“How are you doing?” he asks, his voice soft.
“I’m okay.” I glance at him. His eyes are on my face, deep and dark and searching.
It hurts so badly to look at him. Each time I do, I’m confused by the love I feel for him and the past he represents. The past that should have been mine.
Looking down, my fingers trace patterns over the comforter. “Jordan … I need to apologize for how you found me in that motel room.”
“I’m gonna stop right you there. You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I’m just relieved that I did find you and that you’re okay.” His fingers rub at his chest. “I’m the one who has everything to apologize for, babe. You wouldn’t have gone there … been alone if it weren’t for me keeping…” He runs his hand through his dark hair, blowing out a breath. “God, I’m just so fuckin’ sorry that I didn’t tell you about my mom—” He stops short.
His mom. He’s right, she was his mom.
His eyes flash to mine. They’re filled with apologies, and sorrow. He feels sorry for me. Pity.
I hate pity.
“I just…” He exhales. “I should have told you the moment I found out that Belle was Anna … your mother,” he highlights this, his voice deep and low with meaning.
I turn my head and stare out the window. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Yeah, it does. And I want you to know I’m sorry … for everything. I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I would never do anything to hurt you. I was just afraid to tell you. That if I did, I’d lose you.” He slides his fingers over my hand.
“Don’t.” I pull my hand away.
I have to shield my heart from the look of hurt on his face.
The silence between us is blistering.
He scrubs his hands over his face. “Have I lost you?” His words are so quiet, but they hurt with the intensity of a scream.
I close my eyes on the tears burning them. “I’m sorry, Jordan.”
“Jesus…” He shakes his head. “Just tell me one thing – is it because I kept it from you, or because of Belle?”
“It’s not because of you, it’s because of me—”
“Don’t give me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ bullshit!” He stands, moving away from the bed.
He’s angry. Anger I can work with. Anger I understand.
“Just give me the truth, Mia. You might not think I deserve it, but it’s all I’m asking of you.”
My eyes snap to him. “Fine.” I sit up on my haunches. “You want the truth? The truth is every single time I look at your face, I see everything I never had – what she should have given me, but instead chose to give to you. Do I blame you for that? No. But it doesn’t change the fact that the woman who gave birth to me—who was supposed to be my mother—chose to be yours. She left me with him!” My voice is getting louder, and my hands are shaking, but I can’t seem to stop. “And I hate the way that makes me feel – knowing that she chose you over me!”
“She didn’t choose me!” He bangs his hand against his chest. “I wasn’t anything to do with her decision – you need to hear me out, so you can understand—”
“No!” I press my hands to my head. “I can’t hear anymore!” I know what I feel is irrational, but I can’t think straight in this moment. All I can do is feel – and I feel irrational.
“I hate this! I hate everything! I hate me!” I’m crying now.
Jordan crosses the room in a few strides and pulls me into his arms.
The feel of him…
His heat and strength…
I curl my fingers into his shirt. “Everything’s a mess. I’m a mess.” I sniffle, pulling away, unable to be this close to him knowing that I’m leaving.
Not willing to let me go, he takes my face in his hands.
“You’re not a mess.” He sweeps his thumbs over my cheeks, drying my tears. “Just talk to me, babe. Let me help you.”
A crushing feeling in my chest takes my breath with it. “After everything I just said to you … you still want to help me. Why?”
His grip on my face increases. His eyes darkening. “Because I fuckin’ love you, Mia.” His eyes close, almost as if he’s in pain.
He loves me.
Jordan rests his forehead against mine, his hand sliding around to cup the back of my neck.
“That didn’t come out exactly as I’d planned, but it is the truth. I’m in love you with.” His breath fans my skin. His words crush my heart. “I know it’s probably too soon, and I know you have a lot to deal with right now and that I’m the cause of some of it, but I just want you to know the extent of my feelings for you before you throw us away. I love you, Mia. Every part of you. The best and worst. The broken, the perfect. The bad, the good. You’re it for me, babe. I see only you.”
He loves me.
Jordan is in love with me.
Me.
I love him too. So much.
But it won’t work.
I’m too broken. Too hurt. Too resentful.
And I can’t see any of that going away anytime soon.
He deserves so much more than I can give him. And to tell him that I love him would be wrong and selfish of me.
I open my eyes. “I’m leaving Durango.”
He pulls back from me, hand still curled around my nape. “Are you going back to Boston?”
I frown. “No. That’s the last place I’d go. Why would you think that?”
He shakes his head. Eyes down.
This is it. I have to tell him about my illness. “Jordan, there’s something you don’t know about me…” I stall, blowing out a breath. “When you found me in the motel room … I don’t know if you saw all the empty food wrappers?”
“I saw them.”
“Well … I have this problem.” I dig my fingernails into the bed of my hand. “When I’m stressed or upset, I, uh … I eat … a lot of food, then I, uh … I make myself throw it back up.”
He doesn’t react. Doesn’t move. He just stares back at me with the same emotion that was there moments ago.
“I have an illness called bulimia, Jordan. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it before.”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“Okay. Well, it’s not – for me, anyway – about being thin,” I clarify. “It’s about the problems up here.” I touch my fingers to my head. “When things in my life are too painful, or out of my control, or just too much for me to deal with, I take the pain away using the comfort of food. Then to get the control back, I guess you could say, I make myself throw the food back up.”
“How long has it been going on for?” he asks softly.
I take a deep breath. “Ten years, on and off. Worse in the last few.”
“How do we fix this?”
I meet his determined eyes. “We don’t. I have to.” Blowing out a breath, I tell him, “There’s a specialist facility in Denver for people who suffer with eating disorders like mine. I’m going there to try and get better.”
“How long will you be there for?”
I lift my shoulders. “I don’t know … however long it takes, I guess.”
His eyes lift. I see a flicker of hope in them. “Denver’s not far, Mia – like a six hour drive, max – I’ll drive out every weekend to visit—”
“No,” I say, squashing his hope.
“No,” he echoes.
“I have to do this alone.” I pull on my lower lip. “I don’t want you to come visit me.”
“Okay…” He rubs the bridge of his nose with his finger. “What about when you’re better … can I see you then?”
I look away from him.
It makes no difference because I can feel his eyes on me. It hurts. So much.
I shake my head slowly.
“Ah … right. Okay … so you really meant it before when you said I’d lost you.” He sounds in pain, hurt, and it’s awful.
But I am doing the right thing – I know I am.
The resentment I feel isn’t going anywhere. And eventually it would eat at me … us, and in the end there’d be nothing left but hate and hurt.
I’ve had enough hurt to last a lifetime. Better to end things now, than later.
I feel the bed shift as he stands. “Will you do one thing for me?”
I lift my eyes to him, but I’m unprepared for the pain than slices through me when I see the pure look of it on his face.
“Don’t shut out the next person who tries to get close to you. Tell them everything. Don’t worry that they won’t love you because they will. It’s impossible not to love you, Mia.” He lets out a resigned sigh. “I know that better than anyone.”
I slide my hand across my chest, gripping at the place where my aching heart is. And in this moment, I crumble, changing my mind, ready to tell him that I love him. That I’ll find a way to get beyond how I feel.
But before I get a chance to part my dry lips, he’s gone, the door banging closed in his wake.
Panic claws at my chest. I want to run after him. Tell him I was wrong.
But my legs don’t move. And I know why.
Because deep down I know letting him go is the right thing.
I slide down the bed, turning on my side as I pull my knees to my chest, hugging them.
I’m wiping at my tears when I hear the door open.
Jordan.
My heart leaps.
I turn around.
Forbes.
Oh god no.
No.
I can feel my body turning in on itself. Like a snail, retreating into its shell.
What is he doing here? How did he know I was here? What happened to his face?
His nose is taped up. His face cut and bloody.
He shuts the door behind him, and my blood turns cold.
My eyes start scanning the room looking for an escape, but my only current escape is the door he’s standing in front of. I could always make a dash for the bathroom and lock myself inside.
“F-Forbes,” I finally manage.
“How are you feeling?” he asks perfectly normal, as if the last time I saw him didn’t involve him beating and attempting to rape me.
“H-how did you know you know I was here?”
He smiles, and it makes my blood run cold. “I’m your emergency contact on your medical insurance, remember? The minute they brought you in, I got a call. I came straight away. I was worried about you, baby. I’ve been worried about you for the last two weeks. Not knowing where you were … it’s been torture.” He takes a step closer to me.
I scrabble back in bed, covering my legs with the hospital gown I’m wearing. It’s my natural reaction.
And I hate that it is.
He holds his hands in a placating manner. “I’m not going to hurt you, Mia. That’s not why I’m here.”
I don’t believe him. I’ve heard that from him so many times before.
I slide my hand behind my back, searching for the emergency buzzer.
“I just want to talk to you.” He sits down in the chair by the bed. I stop moving my hand, shifting my body a little to hide what I’m reaching for.
“W-what do you want?” I try to hold my voice steady.
“I want you to come home.”
I can feel my head shaking before I even have a chance to think through what I’m doing. I know it’s the wrong thing, and even more so when I see the flare of anger in his eyes.
I swallow past the dry in my throat as I creep my fingers outward, trying to find the buzzer.
“Mia…” He sighs, rubbing his temple, shaking his head. “That’s not the answer I want to hear.”
“What happened to your face?” I ask. A diversion tactic until I can figure a way out of this.
His face darkens. “It’s irrelevant.”
I bind my hands together.
“Mia, I came all this way, and I’m not leaving without you. And really, what do you have here? Nothing. You’re all alone. You need me. You can’t survive without me.”
I wrap my hands around my cold body.
He’s right. I am alone, but alone is better than with him.
Forbes stands. “Where are your things?”
“I don’t have anything here with me.”
“Good. That makes it easier.” He picks my folded up, dirty clothes from the side. “What the fuck are these?”
“My clothes.”
The look of disgust on his face is so familiar to me.
He’s so familiar to me.
“We’ll pick you some clothes up at the airport, but for now, get dressed.” He throws the clothes on the bed in front of me.
“Why?”
He looks at me. Anger is dominating him now. “Because we’re leaving this fuckin’ hick of a town and going home. So get your ass fuckin’ dressed!” he hisses.
This is the Forbes I know so well.
Fear controlling me, and unsure what else to do, I obediently climb off the bed and pick the clothes up to change in the bathroom.
“Where the fuck are you going?” he snaps.
“To change,” I answer in a small voice.
“Change here.” He moves across the room toward me, predatory in his step.
My heart stops. I hold still to the spot, fear still controlling me like a sickness.
Running his finger down my bare arm, he leans close to my mouth. “I’ve missed you, baby … I want to see you.”
His touch ignites painful memories of all the times he hit me, kicked me, punched me … violated me. His hand feels like a disease of the worst kind. A sick, awful disease I want off me, and away from. Now.
My heart kickstarts, and begins pumping hard in my chest.
I won’t leave here with him.
I can’t.
Holding the clothes to my chest, I lift my chin. “I’m not going back to Boston with you.”
There’s no hesitation. He grabs me by the throat. Pushing me down onto the bed. “You will do as I fuckin’ tell you! You will get dressed. Then you will leave this hospital, and get on a plane home with me.”
“No,” I croak out.
His hand grabs at my gown, lifting it. He grabs the fabric of my panties and tears them off my body. His knee comes between my thighs. I press my legs together, trying to keep him out, but he’s too strong, and he pries them apart.
With his knee pressed painfully up against the most intimate part of me, he leans into my face. “Do I need to teach you another lesson, Mia?”
Fear and memories start to take hold.
And I stop them as soon as they start. I will not be controlled.
Not by him.
Not by anyone.
Ever again.
I hate Forbes more in this moment than I ever have. And it gives me strength. Strength I need.
Slowly, I shake my head.
He smiles, a winners smile. “Good girl.” Then he pulls my gown aside, revealing my naked breast. “So fucking beautiful,” he says, pressing his hand to my chest, moving his disgusting fingers over my nipple. He squeezes.
I close my eyes on the pain. Tears press from the corners of my eyes.
Jordan. It’s a silent scream in my mind. A plea for him to come back. To make right on his promise when he said that he would never let anyone hurt me, ever again.
But Jordan’s not coming because I sent him away.
This is for me to do. And I can do it.
Slowly, I lift my hand to Forbes’ face. His eyes fire with triumph, and I know I have him.
Tilting my chin, I offer my mouth to him.
His eyes flare. “Tell me you want me, Mia. Say, ‘Fuck me, Forbes. Please.’ I want to hear you beg, baby.”
I swallow down all the words I want to say, and do as he says, “Fuck me, Forbes. Please,” I say in a steady voice.
“There’s my, girl.” He smirks, lowering his face to mine.
The instant his lips touch mine, I moan, knowing it will turn him on to deepen the kiss. And that’s the moment when I go back to the tactic I used the last time, and bite down on his lower lip. But this time, I bite like I mean it.
His blood floods my mouth, along with his yell of pain.
“You fuckin’ bitch!” He hits me hard.
Pain explodes in my head. His grip on my throat tightens. Breathing quickly gets hard.
I need to get out of this, but I can’t move my body, so my hands slap him, scratching, pushing, just trying anything I can to get him off me, but he’s unmoving.
It’s when he’s rearing back to hit me again, fist clenched, that I turn my head away.
And that’s when I see my escape, on the table by the bed.
Without another thought, I grab the glass water jug and using all the strength I have, I hit him with it.
I make contact with the side of his head. I feel and hear the dull thud of the glass as it strikes his skull.
Water spills out, soaking my face and hair.
Forbes looks stunned. Like he can’t believe I really just hit him with it.
He wobbles, but he’s still upright, and I need him down.
So I pull back and hit him again. Harder this time. And that’s when he goes down, falling right on top of me.
The jug drops from my hand and hits the floor with a loud shatter.
I’m panicking, coughing up his blood mixed in with my own, just needing him off me. Terrified that he’s going to wake up and then it’s game over for me.
With unknown strength, I manage to struggle out from underneath him. Sliding off the bed, my eyes trained on his unmoving body, my bare feet hit the floor.
Glass shards cut straight through the soles of my feet, I bite my lip on the cry of pain I want to make.
Not taking my eyes off Forbes, I grab the emergency buzzer by the bed, pressing it multiple times. Then as quietly as I can, I move across the floor, stifling my urges to cry out as the glass continues to cut mercilessly, into my feet.
I’m steps from the door, when I hear running footsteps down the hall. Then the door bursts open. It’s Dr. Packard with a security guard flanking her.
Thank god.
“Mia, what on earth has happened? Are you okay? We heard glass breaking, then your buzzer was going off frantic!” Her eyes sweep the room taking in the state of me and Forbes out on the bed. “Oh, my god, are you okay?”
I take a few steps toward her, stumbling, I collapse, relief taking me down.
Dr. Packard catches me, holding me in her arms. “It’s okay, Mia,” she soothes, holding me to her. “You’re going to be okay.”
But in this moment, her words aren’t so easy to believe. And all I can think is how much I wish it were Jordan’s arms around me right now.
But they never will be again.
And I only have myself to blame for that.