Insomniacs (#1)

34. angel

Luca.

I've been terrified of helplessness since my mom died and I was almost beaten to death. I stop breathing, a panic seizes my chest when I can't do anything. When I can't stop something. It's been an instinctive thing since then.

I watched my mom being hurt, slapped, punched over those months when Seth was ruining her. Before she called it off. I felt useless and I took it all on my shoulders.

Yet still, somehow, nothing has ever compared to seeing Ria break that night.

I've never found myself more desperate than when I saw her chest stutter like it was paining her to just breathe a simple breath. When her eyes were bloodshot and her hands trembling as she reached them up to her hair. When she flinched as I touched her, like I'd burned her skin.

When she couldn't speak and she couldn't move and she looked like she was drowning powerlessly in her pain. When she looked helpless. Shattered, fragmented, the epitome of ruin.

Then when she melted into my arms, crying harder than I'd ever heard anybody cry. Screaming like it'd been lodged in her throat forever and I thought, what has the world done to my girl? What bad has she ever fucking done to deserve this?

And in that moment, if there was a God, I decided I hated him. I despised him for letting this happen. To her. To this girl that'd be mine to protect for the rest of our fucking lives.

From whoever hurt her. Those three words.

Someone had reached into my chest, clawed at my heart to ruthlessly detach it from all the arteries and yanked it out, holding it as I stopped breathing and my body came to a standstill.

He raped me.

My girl. My sweet, sweet girl. My girl, I'm sorry.

I muttered it over and over again when she fainted in my arms. I mumbled it repeatedly as I held her to me and was making my way out to the car in the rain, not realising I was shirtless. I couldn't seem to say anything else when Amelia and Micah and Miguel came out to see what I was doing.

Nothing else came out of my mouth when I held her body up so tightly, cradling her against my chest the entire car ride. Scared. I've never been so scared. Her body was limp but I was hugging her to me so close, so desperately. I couldn't seem to explain anything when Micah took the wheel, saying something about how I'm not fit to drive.

I couldn't fathom up coherent words when we got to the hospital and they rushed her away. I dropped to a seat and said nothing to anybody, waiting. And waiting and waiting and if I have to wait anymore, I thought, I am seconds away from fucking killing someone.

Countless people had tried to jolt me, talk to me, scream at me. Miguel, including. Yelling at me to snap out of it but I couldn't think about anything but her. My mind was a broken record, spinning around one thing over and over again so all other noises were drowned out.

Somebody had exploited her. Touched her. Used and ruined her and I had no idea. I had no idea when it was, how long it'd been, if I was near her when it happened, if there was something I could do but she decided not to tell me. Whether she thought she couldn't tell me.

I fucking hated myself. Hated whoever hurt her with rage I didn't think I could contain my body. Nothing would compare to that anger.

She puts up a front, like nothing affects her. But its all a defense mechanism. She turns to ice when anybody touches her whether it be a skim of a fingertip or a brush of a shoulder. I used to see how she'd daze off in social situations, quiet and isolated and in her own mind.