“HOW THE FUCK ARE ya, Portland!” Ben yells into the mic completely enthralled in his element. My stomach has been in knots all day, torn more than ever on what to do. I want to work it out with my husband, I don’t want to lose Ben, but my choice isn’t really mine to make.

The drugs, the fighting, the drinking—all of it is a deadly combination and he has to be the one to stop. I can handle the drinking if it’s done in moderation, but the drugs and fighting—no, I can’t sit back and watch my husband kill himself.

Last night, I gave into temptation and now I’m stuck at a crossroad. Ben probably thinks he has reeled me back in, but little does he know he just complicated things more by taking us home last night.

We shouldn’t have spent the night making love, we should have spent it working out our issues and attempting to compromise. Then today he said what he said about my faith in the Lord and the faith I have in him, and excuse my French, but it made me feel like utter shit. My faith is the only thing keeping me here. My faith in Ben, my faith in our love, in our marriage—in us.

“Will I ever get used to his crass language?” My mama chuckles next to my ear. I look beside me and smirk.

“Sorry, mama.”

She shakes her head, waving me off. “We all have our vices, right?” I nod, looking back to Ben—she has no idea. I went to see them after Ben left and I explained to them that him and I are talking through things, which was only a partial lie. Papa was happy about that, telling me marriage is a work in progress every day. I wonder if they would say that if they knew how bad it was.

“Yeah, we do.” I believe Ben is my vice, he’s the one person who has the power to destroy me while at the same time being the only one to put me back together after he cracks me into a thousand pieces.

They finish a song and the crowd simmers down as Ben starts talking. “Oh man, it feels good to be home, I’ve missed you guys. I know you’ve all missed my ugly mug.”

“You’re fucking hot, Ben Cooper!” Some dark-haired vixen in the front row with her tits so far out you would see nipple if she sneezed, screams.

“Thank you, baby, I know it,” he teases and my palms start to sweat, the hair on my neck coming to full height. I hate that he entertains them even if it’s just an act. I’m jealous, just as much as he is over me and what happened the other day doesn’t make it easier.

“Breath through it, baby,” Mama whispers and looking over to papa, I see his nose flare. He doesn’t say anything though, he knows it’s useless. This is part of the act, the rock star life and I made the choice to be a part of it. No one’s to blame but myself.

“Alright, this next song I wrote is about this one night stand I had. Girl was a bitch, but man did she fuck me good. Let’s do it!” He turns as Eric’s guitar solo starts out the song. Grabbing a sip of his water, he takes a second to look over at me. I catch his wink and shake my head. His brows cave in and I know he knows I’m upset. I don’t remember this whole thing being in his show and not only that, I don’t want to hear him talk like that. How could he think I wouldn’t be hurt by this knowing my insecurities?

The rest of the show he gets deeper into it, more passionate with each song, his onstage persona flourishing. Mama and papa were champs through everything, not letting Ben’s comments faze them too much. I adore my parents for being so accepting of Ben and loving him even when it’s hard to.

Ben has a way of doing that to people.

Kate and I wait in the changing room while they do the meet and greet. My parents left as the night started to grow late.

“They did really good. I take it you two talked?” Kate inquires. I shake my head.

“Subliminal and double meaning remarks during sex don’t count, do they?” I ask.

“Hardly, so it just ended up being make up sex?”

I nod.

“Sadie, you two have to talk, something has to give here.”

“You don’t think I know that, Kate? I’m the one in this marriage. You think being apart from my husband is easy? Or all the things that he does to self-medicate is something I’m not worried about?” I snap, instantly regretting it. Throwing her hands up in surrender, she steps down.

“I’m sorry, Kate, it’s just been a bad week.” Conceding, she nods.

“I know, babe, but make time to talk to him before they leave tomorrow. Okay?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“Fuck yeah, shit was good. Baby, tell me how good I did!” Ben barrels in with some form of whiskey in his hand.

“You did really good.” I can’t believe he’s already drinking, the show ended less than an hour ago.

“I think I made every person in that crowd wet, shit even the dudes were feeling this.” He runs his hand over his bare chest and everyone laughs, everyone but me. I’m over the cocky Ben tonight. I want the serious version instead.

“Babe, the guys wanna go out tonight, you want to come?” Sitting next to me on the leather couch, he pulls me into his side.

“No, I think I’m gonna head home for the night. It’s almost ten and I need some sleep.”

“Come on. Let’s have some fun. We stayed in last night and all day today, let’s go out, baby,” he begs and I grow a little more irritated. He’s going to try and blow off our problems—try to sweep them under the worn out rug. Seriously?

“No, I want to go home. In fact, Kate, can you take me, please?” I stand.

Reluctantly, she follows suit with a deep sigh. “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll meet you boys later.” She kisses Eric’s cheek and Ben sits still, eyeing me up and down. His eyes form tight slits and he looks pissed—the feeling’s mutual. He doesn’t even try to stop me as Kate and I leave.

Climbing into her car, I get a text almost immediately.

I wait for his response, feeling my blood rapidly flowing through my veins.He’s being such an insensitive jerk right now, already falling back into old habits. How can he ever expect me to forgive or trust him when he flips on a switch like this?

His text tells me he’s on drugs. I know he’s on something, he’s out of control tonight.

No response comes after that, just radio silence. Kate gets me home in thirty minutes and I drag myself into the apartment. Once inside, I slide down the door, emotions taking over as I cry into my hands. I can hear the echoes of my broken cries carrying throughout the desolate apartment.

“God, please God. Help me.” I pray in my closed hands and hope that if ever there was a prayer that he answered instantaneously, that it would be this one. My phone chimes next to me and I eagerly check it, in hopes of it being an ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I’m coming home’ message from Ben. I whimper when I see it’s not. Opening Mike’s text, I read it.

My response is beyond forced. I don’t have any care left in my body tonight to even try and be excited. Throwing my phone on the couch, I decide I need a bath, a minute of silence in solitude to think everything over.

Turning on the faucet, I let the water run and I pour in some body wash. Stepping in, the bubbles drown me, covering every surface of the water. My thighs are to my chest and my cheeks rest against the peaks of my knees in complete defeat. I can’t believe that at nineteen this is my life. I’m in a bath crying after having yet another fight with my husband and I’m seriously considering a divorce.

Just a year ago my life was so simple, I was in a place where I was content. Now, it’s destructive and it’s frightening. It’s devastating and reckless, yet it’s beautiful at times. With every low that Ben and I face, he fixes it; he brings me comfort, he brings me love. I don’t know how he does it or why I continue to let it happen, but I can’t stop it. Even now, I feel like he’s the only person I want, the only thing that will make me happy—even if he’s the one thing that makes me the unhappiest at times.

Turning the water off, I hear movement in the apartment on the other side of the locked bathroom door.

“Ben?” I call out.

“Yeah,” he responds, his voice void of anything. I didn’t think he was going to come home, but the fact that he did gives me a flicker of hope. Hurrying out of the bath, I wrap myself in my big plush towel and leave the bathroom in a matter of seconds. When I walk into our bedroom, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his face low with a scowl and my phone in his hand.

“Ben, why do you have my phone?” I ask, stepping closer with steady steps. He doesn’t answer as he stares at the screen. As I get closer, I see him scrolling through my messages and instantly my blood boils.

“Ben!” I reach out to grab it, appalled by his invasion on my privacy. He yanks his hand back by the side of his head and stands, towering over me.

“You’re going out with Mike?” I stand on my tiptoes to try and grab the phone, but he pulls further away. I see the red in his black eyes, the obvious signs of being high on cocaine.

“Ben, hand me my phone. That’s my private business.”

“Bullshit. Are you fucking him, Sadie?”

“Oh my gosh, Ben, you’re insane, you…”

“Are you letting him fuck you, Sadie! Are you letting him touch you!” he screams and all of the sudden I’m afraid to fight over my stupid phone. I step down, backing up slowly as I do.

“Huh? Answer me! Why the fuck are you going to dinner with him! You been fucking around on me? Huh, baby!” he yells again, throwing my phone against the wall just to the side of me. It shatters and I scream—terrified.

“Ben, baby, stop,” I soothe him. The fact that I’ve been on tour with him for weeks tells me how irrational he’s being. How could I sleep with someone or cheat on him when I was with him? Drugs will manipulate your paranoia, that’s how.

“No, you want to let someone touch what’s mine? You fucked him didn’t you Sadie!” He cages me in. I grip my towel to me tighter, truly afraid of him.

“No, I didn’t. Ben, we’re just friends, it’s not like that,” I whisper, while he towers over me, his arms on either side of my head.

“Was he good, did you like him fucking you? Did he touch you better than me? Did his cock feel good inside you?” he screams, his eyes so far gone they have lost their warmth. His words sicken me causing my stomach to rumble and bile to make its acidy way up my throat.

“Ben, don’t say that! Stop it!” I begin to cry, my body shaking uncontrollably out of fear.

“No, I want you to tell me if he was good, you want him again? Or do you want me to fuck you better and show you no one can ever fucking touch you like I can? I’ll kill him if he touched you, Sadie.” He seethes and I drop down, sliding against the wall, covering my ears and crying harder. He steps back and I feel his dark eyes boring into me.

“Ben, please stop, you need help. This is what drugs are doing to you. Don’t you see that?” Taking a risk I peer up at him.

“My drugs aren’t the reason you fucked around on me!” he screams and I see it. I see the fear in him, the brief moment his brows draw in with sadness, fading faster than it came, but I saw it. Ben’s afraid, he knows he’s no longer capable of controlling this spinning tire that has become his life. I swallow back my tears and take a different approach, my only mission is to calm him down.

“Ben, baby, I don’t want anyone but you, no one has ever touched me. I promise. Only you.” I stand to my full height, as he breaths in and out deeply, his fists tight at his sides. I see his brows slowly drawing in again and his jaw goes a little more lax.

“Ben, please, trust in me, baby. I would never hurt you. I love you.” I’m now face to face and toe to toe with him with no space between us. I bring my hands up, shaking on the inside, unsure how he’s going to react to me. All I know is my heart is breaking for my husband, he doesn’t want to have all these crutches. I see it, but he doesn’t know how not to.

“Come back to me, Ben. I know you’re in there, baby, come back.” I search his eyes and my hands rub against his face, hoping my touch will bring the real Ben forward. I do this for what feels like hours, but really it’s just passing seconds, before he crumbles.

“Sadie? Fuck, what do I do? What do I do, baby?” He breaks, his jaw no longer tight, his eyes coming back to the honey brown I’m used to and his hands releasing their tight fists. Dropping his head to my shoulder, his hands squeeze my hips as he lets out a gut wrenching wail.

“I’m so sorry. God, I’m so sorry, baby. I’m just like him. I’m just like my father. Help me, Sadie. Please.” I bring his face from my shoulder and focus him back on me.

“Shh, you’re not him, Ben, shh. I promise we’ll get you better. Trust in me.” I kiss his chest repeatedly above his heart. I stand on my tip toes and kiss the underside of his jaw.

“How can you trust in me? I’ve lied, I’ve hid things from you, I just fucking said terrible things!” His fists leave my hips and he punches his chest hard, the echo of flesh and meat being pounded. I grab his hand, stopping him.

“Don’t do that! Stop it!” I begin to cry along with him. I stop his fist from another blow to his chest and kiss him there instead.

“No, I fucked up and I need to be punished for that. Let me make it up to you, Sadie.” I go to respond, but he falls to his knees. Dropping his lips to my feet, he kisses the top of them then continues on a path up my shins, then thighs, until the towel stops him.

“Let me make it up to you,” he says again. He opens the flap of the towel and pulls so it leaves my body.”After I strayed, I repented; after I came to understand, I beat my breast. I was ashamed and humiliated because I bore the disgrace of my youth,” he whispers quotes from Jeremiah against my thigh as he kisses the skin. I shiver, my heart completely shredded in his hands.

“Ben, do not be ashamed. Please.”

“Let me worship you, Sadie. I’m at your feet. I’m your Judas and you’re my Savior. Don’t you see that. You’re my saving grace.” Without another word his lips close around my core, his tongue licking up my slit. I grip his long hair and throw my head back.

“Ben!” I cry.

“You’re mine, I have to have you forever. I can quit any drug, any addiction but you. Don’t give up on me,” he says against my skin, his breath hitting the wetness of my arousal, his tongue and the coldness giving me chills.

I believe him. I actually believe him for the first time, but I know with this sacrifice from him, I will have to sacrifice me too. I need to give up something—a life that once mattered more than anything to me.

“I’ll leave with you. I want to go with you.” I forego my once planned future for the unknown with Ben.

“What?” He rises pulling me against him. He bends, becoming level with my face, his hands gripping my sides just under my breasts.

“I don’t want a life without you, Ben. You need me. I made a vow to love you in sickness and health. I won’t let you be alone anymore.” Though I speak these words with vibrato and a wall of strength, inside I’m anything but strong. My heart is crumbling to ashes as I give up all that I have left in order to save Ben. Walking away from my dreams is like mourning a death, but Ben means more to me and my greatest dream in this life is to see him healthy and happy.

“But you’ve worked so hard to get here. I can’t make you give that up for me.”

“Yes you can, because you’re giving up on things for me. I love what I do but I love you more.”

“Sadie…” he trails off, his head hanging low as it sways back and forth in disbelief.

“That’s what I get for loving you.”

“Why didn’t you come sooner?” He kisses me and seals us together. I claw at him because I feel we’re not close enough. I know without a doubt I will never regret the choice to work on my marriage first and to save my husband. He never had a home where there was love, but he does now and I have to keep that home safe.

I climb into his arms, my legs wrapping around his waist with his hands gripping my ass as he turns, laying us on the bed. I grab at him, helping him remove his clothes faster than it took him to get them on. Once he’s naked, I eagerly grab for his cock. Stroking it in my hands, the thick veins grow more prominent as his full nine inches awakens.

“I want you,” I moan, sliding closer and lining him up with my entrance.

“How do you want it?” He groans as the rounded head opens me up.

“Use me, use me like I was your drug. Take everything from me so you can feel complete.” I want to be his only addiction, I need to know—I want to know—what it feels like to be the object of obsession that he would do anything for. Break laws for, lie to me for, hurt us for.

Without a word, he shows me. Slamming into me, he lifts my legs above his head, resting them on his shoulder. I’m ripped in half by his violent thrusts. He growls at me and I scream out his name repeatedly.

Turning his head, he bites down hard on the side of my calf and I bare down on him. “Ben!”

“You’re my wife, my hero, my broken little angel. I broke you to fix me,” he growls and I keep looking at our connection, the root of his cock hitting against my clit with each thrust.

“Break me more, destroy me to save you, Ben. God made me for you to break. Because I know when you’re done, you’ll heal me again.” I lose my religion for him, take on his sin in order for him to be sin free. I see him holding off his orgasm, wanting this to last just as much as I do.

“Don’t hold back, take a hit, take another blow, baby.” I cry out as he grabs my tit in his hand and squeezes with bruising force. He begins to pound into me like he is annunciating each thrust.

“Kiss me, give me your taste.” He leans down and I give him my mouth. Licking his lips, he lets me in. Our tongues tango, fighting one another for more than what we can possibly give with just a kiss. I scream into his mouth when he pinches my nipple, then slaps my hip. “You’re such a bad little girl.” He bites my lip, causing blood to leak from the force.

“Oh, don’t stop, Ben!” His body slides against mine and I wonder how I’ve ever lived before him making love to me.

“I won’t, I’m never gonna stop. You’re mine, Sadie Cooper.” With the sound of his ownership I come, unraveling beneath him. “No way, baby, don’t you settle down, I’m not done. Give me one more, angel.” I come hard, my juices flooding us as they squirt from me.

“I can’t, it hurts!” He keeps at me, my spasms still going and my body shivering in response. The muscles in my stomach have begun to tighten then release repeatedly and I lose all sense of consciousness.

“No, it doesn’t, let your man show you. I can make you do this over and over tonight, baby. Come again, feel me inside you.” He slows down, letting my high slowly fall. When my spasms slow down, my eyes flutter open and he stares down at me. “Good girl. Relax.”

Pushing one of my legs down, he opens me up and stares down at our connection. He groans, the sound as good as his lovemaking feels. Pushing my knee into the bed, he keeps my other one high and against his side.

“Yeah, look at that. Mmmm, Sadie. Your heart may be pure, but your body was sculpted by the devil, my little temptress. This tiny, tight pussy can bring me to my knees.” I choke on my own moans.

“I have to stop, baby, it hurts.” I cry out, the new sensation building faster and it’s one I’ve never felt before.

“That’s good baby, oh fuck, chase it, come on my cock again, take it, angel.” He groans and I do as he says, I ride that wave, chasing it or better yet, running from it. Only problem is, I’m not quick enough. Before I know it, I explode. Leaving my knee nailed into the bed at my side, I try to close my legs, but it’s no use. My back bows off the bed while tears invade my eyes and heat coils in my spine causing my toes to curl.

“Ben! Fuck! Ben!” I scream, losing my moral code.

“Too tight, fuck so tight. I’m coming, baby, get ready.” Finally my vision refocuses and I can watch him, enjoy his pleasure with him. His eyes are zeroed in on his cock sliding in and out repeatedly, it almost looks violent. He’s large and I’m still not used to him fully, my core pulls him back in greedily as he slides out.

“Ben, look at me.” I call out to him, running my hands up his sides. He finally breaks his trance and gives me him.

“Promise me something,” I say.

“Anything, Sadie—fuck, I’ll do anything.”

“Promise me you will fight like hell every day for us.”

“If you promise to never leave me.”

“Never, baby. I can’t. I need you too much.” I cry, the severity of how bad I need him, consuming me—the depths of danger I’m willing to enter in order to keep him. As he empties himself in me, I feel something, a stronger connection than I have ever felt with my husband—with the one man I loved first and plan to love last—if I can save us.

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