Kissing My Killer by Newbury Helena

Author:Newbury, Helena [Newbury, Helena]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Russian Mafia Romance, Romantic Suspense, new adult romance
Publisher: Foster & Black New Adult
Published: 2015-11-16T08:00:00+00:00

Gabriella

People get it wrong.

They think trauma is like an injury, like a broken bone. Something awful happens and you break, and then eventually, if you have the right help, you heal. Maybe you’re always a little weak after that, in one particular spot. Or maybe you don’t get the help you need and the bone sets badly and leaves you in constant pain, and someone has to come along and fix you—which might mean causing you more pain as they help you dig down to get to the problem.

A lot of trauma is like that. I know people who’ve been hurt like that and healed like that.

But that’s not how it was with me.

Sometimes it grows. Something awful happens and hurts you, like getting cut with a knife, and you get help and the wound closes up and it looks okay to everyone. Maybe it even looks okay to you. But what you don’t know is, the knife was dipped in poison. Deep inside you, where no one can see, something black and fetid grows and grows until it controls your entire body and your entire life.

Its slow progress means you can’t ask for help because that awful thing happened years ago and it would be crazy to be affected by it now. And, besides, everyone thinks you’re okay and your parents are so proud of you and you don’t want to let them down. So you pretend it’s something else. You blame kids at school or teachers and you nod and agree when doctors say it’s social phobia or agoraphobia or anything else that isn’t the truth. Because you don’t want to admit how he affected you—that would be letting him win and you’re stronger than that.

So you agree with your mom when she says she’ll home school you. You take that online college course instead of enrolling in person. You choose a job where you never have to leave the house and you make friends with women on the internet you’ve never met. And all the time this thing grows inside you, out of sight, a solid heavy mass that weighs you down and keeps you indoors.

Until someone comes along and forces you out into the open.

I’d been going deeper and deeper into myself, further and further into my past. I’d seen, maybe for the first time, how the thing inside me had ruined my life. And now I was finally back at the event that had birthed it.

I pushed back against Alexei and he locked his arms even tighter around me. He felt very far away, way up at the mouth of the cave. But his warmth and strength still reached me.

“I was eight,” I said.

I felt his chest move—a silent intake of breath. He hadn’t guessed that, hadn’t guessed I’d been that young. His arms seemed to grow harder around me, his muscles tensing in anger.

The simple act of saying my age made my stomach lurch. It felt as though the rocks in the dark cave had grown suddenly slippery.

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