The Fighter

Chapter Fifteen

I'm sorry.

"So," I say while swaying on my feet, "how are we going to do this?"

"I didn't think this through." I shake my head and am about to say something when he glares at me and I smile evilly. "Shut up."

"Well, you live in a three-bedroom house with you and Addy both having your own rooms and you told me that you don't want Jake in the same room as Addy. I mean, Jake and I can share a room, but you do," I motion to his puffed chest and angry huffing, "that but you don't want to disrespect me by telling me that I can't sleep in the same room as him. So, that leaves us with three options. I can either, sleep in the bed as you, one of us can sleep on the couch downstairs, or one of us sleeps on the floor and I am not letting you do number two or three."

"Tough luck, because I am not letting you sleep on the floor or my couch either." I pout a little bit and he sighs. "What's wrong?"

"Your couch is comfy."

"Too close to the front door and I can't get to you fast enough if you need me." I stare at him for a moment like he's an idiot.

"Dude, I know how to defend myself!" Damien turns to me and raises his voice enough to get his point across but not to wake up the kids upstairs.

"I know that you can defend yourself but that doesn't mean that you have to!"

"Yes it does, I can't always wait for my knight in shining armor to come and save me!"

"Why can't you wait for me?!"

"Because YOU NEVER CAME!" I take a deep breath and take a few steps away from him, rubbing on my arms as I realize what I had said, everything coming back to me. "You never came," I say again but in a whisper, "I waited for you for so long and you never came. You- you told me that you w-w-would come for me but you didn't! You know, at first, I thought it was because of the guys not letting you but I knew that they would come for me, they always did. Then," I sniffle and laugh a little too loudly, "then I thought that it was because you didn't know where I was so I tried sending you messages the way that we used to but you never responded to them. That's when I realized that you didn't care anymore, that I meant noth--"

"Don't you dare," he says with his voice cracking. "Don't you dare say that you meant nothing to me, you meant and mean everything in the world to me. Quite frankly, I always wished that you were Addy's real mom not the bitch that decided to tamper with my condom while I was too drunk to notice. " Damien walks up to me and grabs onto my face and leans his forehead on mine. "Damn it, June, I looked everywhere for your ass but every single time that I came over they said that you were dead. I never stopped, not until the funeral where there were three coffins."

"Did you not go to the hiding spot?" Damien shook his head. "Why not?"

"Your dad wouldn't let me anywhere near it, he even fixed the hole in the back of the fence because he knew that's how I was getting in and out. The first day that I tried it after he fixed it, I pulled on it so hard that I almost dislocated my shoulder and Jackson had to come and get me because I couldn't leave the fence line so Derek's folks called him. Jackson got there teary-eyed about the whole situation and practically had to drag me back to the clubhouse. It was very sad." Damien hold onto me for a little bit longer and goes to release me but I pull him tighter to me and he laughs. "You always were a cuddler."

"Only with people that I like," I say into his chest and he picks me up swiftly to which I yelp and hold onto him. "Dude, I weigh, like three hundred pounds."

"No, you don't."

"Okay, 285, but still!"  Damien pauses and looks down at me with a small glare.  "What? I never said I wasn't comfortable with my size."