Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 139803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 699(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 699(@200wpm)___ 559(@250wpm)___ 466(@300wpm)
* * *
✶ ✶ ✶
* * *
Meghan
* * *
I slowly ripped my eyes open, a whimper of pain leaving my lips, the light making my head pound. Everything was a bit blurry. My lungs hurt with each breath I took, and my ribs protested the movement of my breathing. I moaned in agony when I tried swallowing, my throat throbbing.
Everything hurt so badly.
“Meghan?” Vincent asked softly from next to me.
A whine left me as I painfully turned my head to look at him, but his features were blurry. I blinked, trying to clear my vision, but it wasn’t working. Tears tracked down my cheeks, burning my face. “Vince, what’s wrong with me?” I choked out. “Where am I? Why is everything so blurry?”
“Shh,” he soothed, gently grabbing my hand in his. “The doctor is coming in soon, okay?”
“Doctor?” I cried. “Vince, what’s going on?” I couldn’t remember anything. I was doing homework. Homework shouldn’t mean I was in a hospital.
“Fucking hell, move the fuck out of my way!” Julian roared. “Let me in the goddamn room!”
“Julian,” I whimpered, more tears sliding down my cheeks. I wanted Julian. Everything hurt so badly.
“Shh,” Vince soothed again as he pressed a kiss to my forehead. I moaned in pain. “I’ll go get him. Calm down, Meg,” he begged me.
I watched him as he strode towards the door. “Sorry, Miss. He’s with me. She’s awake, and she wants to see him.”
Julian stormed into the room. “Oh, baby,” he whispered. I watched as his long legs easily ate up the distance. I wanted to reach for him, but I was hurting so bad. “I’m here, baby,” he crooned as he sat next to me on the bed with his body facing me.
“What happened?” I asked him, my voice trembling.
“You were raped again, baby,” Julian told me quietly, his voice strained. I blinked at him, his face still a bit blurry. “You were by yourself. I’m so sorry,” he whispered. I squeezed my eyes shut, my heart beginning to race, thumping painfully against my breastbone. “I’m so fucking sorry I wasn’t there to protect you.”
“No,” I cried. A sob ripped from my sore throat. “Please, no.”
The word rape was like a trigger for my memory. I wailed as I remembered him barging into my room. Julian ignored the nurse as she stepped into the room and wrapped me up in his arms. I didn’t care how much pain the movement caused. I clutched at his shirt, my sobs wracking my upper body painfully.
I vaguely remembered slipping into consciousness throughout the entire thing, the pain that was inflicted on me continuously dragging me out of my blacked-out state over and over.
“Make it stop!” I cried, clutching at Julian. His shoulders shook as he held me to him. I felt his hot tears dripping onto my cheeks. “Please make it stop!” I begged.
“We need to sedate her. Sir, I need you to move,” a male voice said.
“No!” I screamed, getting sucked back into the memories. I could feel him touching me, could feel his lips and teeth on my skin all over again. “Make it stop!” I wailed. “Julian!” I screamed. “Vince!”
“I’m not leaving, baby. Never again,” I heard Julian say softly as he released me and moved off of the bed.
Something pricked my arm, and my eyes closed, my body sagging tiredly before everything went dark, peaceful nothingness wrapping me in its embrace.
9
Vincent was sitting on the floor of the dance studio with his back to the wall as he watched me dance. “Julian has been asking about you,” he spoke up suddenly.
I shrugged. “And you need to tell him to move the hell on, Vince,” I told him bitterly all while a pang hit my heart—the same pang I felt anytime I thought about Julian. “He wants too much. I can’t give that to him, Vince. I’m fucking ruined—destroyed.” I swallowed past the lump of sadness in my throat. “A man like Julian doesn’t want the fucked-up mess that I am.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Julian spoke up from the doorway.
I spun around to face him, my heart pounding hard in my chest at the sound of his voice. I had moved back into my dorm once I was released from the hospital, and Desiree had switched dorms with my roommate so I wasn’t ever alone. If there ever was a chance that I would be, Vince or Axel would always be around me.
I had been avoiding Julian like the plague ever since. I had even moved my seat in class so that Julian couldn’t sit near me. Whenever he tried to talk to me, I rushed in the other direction.
I’d been dancing around him for a month now.
He had way too much ahead of him. He had a football career. His dreams were going to come true.