Monty After Dark

Chapter 15

A long time later, she spoke. "This is why I told you to stay away from me," she whispered in a hoarse voice. I watched her eyes, and she wouldn't even look at me. "I'm too broken for this." She rolled over, her back facing me.

"I'm broken, too," I admitted, hugging her from behind. "I don't know how I became so far gone. I thought maybe I was changing, I never knew I had the capacity to love before I met you. I thought with you, I could be different, but after today, I know I'm even worse than I thought."

"You can't love me," she said. Her voice was dead and I started to think how hard it must be, to be someone else all day, and to hide all of this. "I'm not loveable. There is nothing here worth loving."

I quickly sat up, and I looked down at her. "You stop that right now," I said. "You have every right to be loved. And cherished. And I do, I do love you, in my own broken way."

She sat up, too. She looked at me for a moment, kissed my forehead.

"Whatever someone did to you, it wasn't your fault," I said. I knew some pretty shitty guys, from hockey, mostly, who did some shitty things. I always thought I was better than them, but I'm starting to wonder if this is how they get to be that way. "Whoever hurt you, I'll find them, I'll ..."

"Stop," she said, pushing her hand toward me. "Just stop."

"No," I said. "It's not okay that you feel like garbage because of some asshole. I want to know you, I want to know all the things about you, even the bad ones."

"I was with someone bad," she said after a long while. "He was ... a bad person. He hurt me. Emotionally, physically. A lot of times."

"Why didn't you run? Get away?" I asked. I couldn't imagine why someone as amazing as Chantelle would let someone hurt her like that.

"He made me feel like I deserved it. He told me nobody else would ever want me. Nobody would love me. And after hearing it so many times, I just believed it."

"That's not true," I said in a strained voice. "It's not true at all. I hate him. I hate this person. He's not even a person." It was quiet again. "What about your family?"

"They didn't really understand," she said and shrugged. "My brother came to stay with me, to help keep me safe, but ..." she trailed off and looked away. "He hurt my brother, really bad. My brother was in the hospital. And ... my family didn't really want me around after that."

My heart was burning, it hurt like a bitch. So, now she had nothing? No one?

"You're not alone," I said and squeezed her hand. "Even if you feel like it, you're not. I promise I'm here and I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm always alone," she said.

She lay down again, and I lay down beside her in the dark. We didn't speak for a long time.

"Now you know why I'm like this," she finally said, breaking the silence. "But why are you like this? Why are you so angry?"

She was right. I was angry. I was angry at a lot of things. I was angry at my mother for leaving, I was angry at the girls at school for using me to gain social status. I was angry at my dad for being such a flake and not giving a shit about me unless it was expressly convenient for him. And most of all, I was mad at myself for turning into someone I didn't even know anymore.

"I guess a lot of people have let me down," I said. "My dad is a total mess, he has been this way since my mom left. And fucked if I know where she is."