Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
“I’m proud of you,” he’d whispered in my hair during our last hug, one I held tight and didn’t want to break.
It had made tears flood my eyes in an instant.
“I’m sorry I let it get here.”
He’d shaken his head. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
I wished I believed him. I wished I didn’t feel just as much guilt and shame as I did relief lying in Shane’s arms right now.
We’d come back to his place after dropping Georgie off, Shane running me a hot bath and playing my favorite music as he helped me undress and lower into the steaming water. He’d offered me food, but I couldn’t eat. I did drink the water he gave me, though, and accepted his t-shirt. When I slipped it over my head, I sighed, content.
It smelled like him — elemental, all ice and metal and pine.
“Do you want to talk about any of it?” Shane asked, his fingers toying with mine.
I sighed. “I know I should. I just…” I bit my lip. “Shane, I feel so ashamed I ever let it get to this point, that I ever found myself in this position. When he grabbed me tonight, when he threatened me…” I held back tears, shaking my head. “I just couldn’t believe I didn’t see it, that I didn’t realize how bad it was getting.”
Shane nodded in understanding, his eyes falling to where our fingers danced together. “Can I walk you through something?”
I nodded, swallowing past the lump in my throat.
“People like Nathan don’t pick their partners randomly,” he said. “They’re observant. They clock patterns. They notice who’s learned to survive by being agreeable, who’s used to carrying responsibility, who mistakes consistency for safety because they’ve never had anything steady.”
My chest tightened.
“He didn’t hurt you right away,” Shane went on. “He made you feel seen. He chose you when I had walked away. He provided steady when you had been living in an earthquake. That wasn’t an accident. That was him mirroring what you needed most — because it bought him trust.”
I swallowed. “So I was… groomed?”
His jaw flexed, not in anger at me — but at the word itself. “I think you were studied,” he said carefully. “And then slowly boxed in. That’s not the same thing as being stupid or blind. It means he used empathy as a weapon.”
Tears slid down my temples, soaking into his pillow.
“I keep thinking I should’ve known,” I whispered. “I’m educated. I’ve read the studies. I’ve worked cases like this. More than that, I watched my mom.” That had my chest squeezing so tightly I curled in on myself. “How embarrassing, to walk right into the situation I judged my mother for being in.”
“Knowledge doesn’t protect you when someone’s working on your nervous system,” he said gently. “Especially when they’re offering the thing you’ve been taught to crave — peace.”
I let out a shaky breath.
“And when it started to feel wrong,” he continued, “your brain did what it always does. It tried to make it make sense. That’s survival, Ari. Not failure.”
I turned my face into his chest, my fingers fisting in his shirt.
“You didn’t let this happen,” he murmured into my hair. “It happened to you.”
The words cracked me wide open, and finally, I found permission to break.
I sobbed into Shane’s chest, his arms wrapping me up and holding me as I fell apart. I cried for my mother, for all she had to endure, for how her life ended. I cried for Georgie and what he had to go through. I cried for Ben tonight, for a young boy who was caught up in a broken system.
And I cried for myself.
I cried for that young, innocent girl I once was, for the child who had to grow up too fast. I cried for the one Shane left behind even though I understood why he did it. I cried for the woman who raised a child when she was still one herself, for the woman who clung to a monster because it was the devil she knew.
Shane didn’t falter. He held me and kissed my hair and rubbed my back, letting me feel it all.
After a while, when my sobs had subsided, he added quietly, “And I think you already know this part — but I’ll say it anyway. Talking to someone… a therapist who understands trauma and coercive dynamics… it will help. Someone rewired the rules inside you without your consent,” he said. “And you deserve help untangling that. At your pace. On your terms.”
I nodded slowly. “I know,” I whispered. “I don’t want to carry this into the rest of my life.”
“You won’t,” he said, brushing his lips to my forehead. “And you won’t do it alone.”
I sniffed, pressing up until I was on my elbows and looking down at him. “I’m so happy you’re here.”