lacuna

Chapter Thirty

Eli's pov

I was driving a 100mph and we were a good distance away from the fucking thugs in no time. As we waited at a red light, I relished the feel of her presence behind me with everything I had, loving how her hands were wrapped tightly around me.

It had felt so good to touch her, to kiss her, to talk to her, to feel her.

But the pain, poured into me with every word she said, still remained, sensitive and hot. It was the way she had to hold on to my shirt to control herself, the way she refused to meet my eyes, the way I made her sob that fucking hard. After seeing her outside the bar a few days back, I wanted to let her grasp everything. Despite the fact I practically ached for her, I wanted to give he the space I thought she needed and now look what fucking happened.

The first half of the ride was painfully silent. I didn't race the bike anymore as I gently moved it in between cars and jeeps and other bikes.

"Talk to me" I finally said, my hands gripping the handles hard. She didn't.

"I know what I did was wrong. It was a dick move but I'm trying to fix it so fucking talk to me" I pushed, slightly annoyed.

Then she spoke and my breath hitched when I heard her. Her voice was heavy with so much anger and hurt that the thought that the main reason for all that was me weighed on me.

"Stop the bike," she said.

I gritted my teeth, my jaw muscles tensing, "Not until you talk to me".

"Eli, stop the goddamn bike" she tensed, and to my fucking horror, I felt her moving away from her seat when I didn't stop.

I swerved sharply to the left, making the bike skid to a stop on the side of the road and she was out of her seat in a blink but I reached out, grabbing her hand and pulling her back towards me swiftly.

I tried to meet her eyes, our faces inches apart as I held her trapped between my arms against the bike. And yet she refused to look at me.

"You're not leaving till you tell me what I can do to stop hurting you like this," I said, my voice hard.

That was when I saw her give in, her eyes flaring as she snapped them to mine, "You think it's that easy? You think every time you screw up, you can just mend it by buttering me up?". I opened my mouth but never got the chance to reply.

"I'm not some...some object you can fiddle with whenever you're bored, okay? There's no reason for you to put up with a freak like me just simply because you feel bad for me" she continued, her voice cracking, "I'm going to do just splendid without you in my life and I'll make sure I present myself as a perfect slut to people like you". She'd just plunged the exact words I said right back at me. Just like that day when I fought with Asher. Her beautiful eyes blurred with new tears and when she spoke, her voice cracked into a million pieces, I could've taken back all the pain I'd given her if I had the ability to.

"I broke my own rules for you, Eli". I didn't know what to say. Did I ever know what to say? She turned her head to the side to look away but she paused with a quiet hiss of pain, her hand moving to her neck. She pulled back to look at her hand and my heart did a little jump when I saw the red staining her palm.

"The fuck..." I moved her hand away and gently tilted her head up with a finger, observing the area she seemed to be getting pain.

"Ow-" she let out a whimper.

The side of her neck was a bright red, two cuts making their way horizontally and one of them had a single line of blood trailing down.

"That fucking piece of shit" I muttered, the anger in me threatening to overflow again, "Did he hurt you anywhere else?".