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Sang
I woke up to the heavenly feeling of fingers running through my hair. It was an unconscious decision to move closer to the contact, and once I did, the caress paused. The smell of Asher's scent—fresh aloe and cucumber—wrapped around me in a solacing embrace, and all I wanted to do was bury myself deeper in it.
Opening one eye after the other, I took a look at my surroundings and found myself cuddled up to Asher. Gazing into his sleepy eyes, I gave him a small pout and nudged my head against his hand, urging him to continue what he was doing. Chuckling, he didn't disappoint.
"Good morning," I croaked.
Another deep chuckle rumbled through his chest. "It's a little late to be morning, don't you think?"
The alarm clock on his bedside table read five-thirty in the evening. I groaned and covered my face with an arm. An entire day wasted away by sleep.
"Gah," I groaned. "Why do I do this to myself?"
"You had a rough night and deserved some sleep," he said while continuing running his fingers through my hair.
Memories from the night before rushed to the front of my mind and I immediately pushed them away. I didn't want to think about that.
"Hey," Asher said. He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him, and by the way his eyebrows were slanted inwards, I could tell he was anything but happy. "What the hell happened last night?"
I inwardly cringed. "Nothing."
Scowling, he looked deep into my eyes. "You were a wreck when you came in this morning. Tell me what happened."
I could keep lying to him, but the thing was, I didn't want to. I was getting so tired of hiding my past from one of the most important people in my life, and Asher didn't deserve that. How could I continue on lying to him, while still allowing him to console me when my burdens got to be too heavy to carry by myself?
The last few years, he had been patiently waiting to get a peek into the life of Sang before Overton. Only my selfish desire to keep that part of my life a secret had been keeping that from happening.
Deciding to do the right thing for once, I said, "People that I used to know are here, at Overton."
The emotions in his hazel eyes shuttered, but his focus remained on me.
Nervously squeezing the fabric of the blanket between my fingers, I continued, "I met them when I lived in South Carolina. My family wasn't a normal one and they were the only people to notice that something was wrong with how I was being treated at home. It all started on a night I decided to pack my bags and run away..."
Once I began talking, it felt like I couldn't stop. Nearly an hour later, sobs rocked through my body with endless, torturous force, but the one thing that stuck out the most was the unbelievable amount of relief I felt.
