Shattered Girl (Emmy)

Emmy, do you remember anything after going into the bathroom? Then prompted, ging me an encouraging look. Reaching up to brush hair that had fallen across my late out of the way, 1 frowned, scrunching up my face, trying to remember. I shook my head.

* 1 don’t remember anything speethic, past being scored, anxious, and hopeless.” I shrugged. “I remember at breakfast, my mind was just racing, and I kept thinking that my problems were too much, I was going to be too much work, and that one, if not all of you, would get tired of dealing with my trauma. I could hear my mother’s voice telling me how worthless I was and that no one would ever love me. That was all before I left the table though.” I admitted, glancing down at my hands, so I wouldn’t have to make eve contact with anyone yet.

“Why didn’t you say something to us, Trumy?” Drew asked. “You know we would have done something to help you or at least assure you that the voice was wrong.” He reached toward me tipping my chis until I was looking into his solom brown ey

“I know I should have, but it’s something I want to deal with myself too. I don’t want to always drag you into my trauma.” I sighed feeling guilty for not telling them what had been going on in my head.

“All right, so lets work through what we know. You were gone for about twenty minutes, and we were getting worried about you, so we went upstairs to check on you. We found you standing in front of the sink, looking at your reflection and talking to yourself. Drew explained, I nodded my head, feeling like I almost remembered what Drew was describing. Tim not really sure if you realized we were in the room with you or not, but you began describing how you got your then went on to different bones that had been broken After that, you just sank to **r and cried. When you grabbed your hair and started hurting yourself, Mike picked you up trying to stop you from doing any more farm to yourself. You were just sobbing the entire time,”

Does any of that sound familiar honey? Mike asked, moving closer to me and sliding his arm around my waist. I leaned back against his chest, wracking my brai for a memory of what Dee had just described.

1 remember hands on me, my shoulders, my arms. My arm hurt, What happened? I remember my arm stinging.” I looked around at the others. Patrick sat up, taking my hand in his

That was me, love, so if you are mad, it’s my fault, noe else. I’m so sorry I didn’t have your consent but I had Jame bring up something to sedate you.” Patrick said, watching me carefully, his eyes full of turmoil and sadness.

I took a deep breath, not sure how to process all of this information. I don’t think I was mad, but I was scared, yes, I hated that I couldn’t remember anything that Drew and Patrick had described, but I was not scared of what Patrick had done, 1 trusted him and if there was even a slight chance that sedating me had been dangerous, they never would have done it. The look on Patrick’s face was hurting my heart, so I told him everything I had been thinking. Promising him that I was not mad, he made a good decision in a stressful situation. The relief on Patrick’s face made me want to cry again.

Cupping his face in my hands, I made steady eye contact with him. “Patrick, I live, and trust you. You would never do anything to hurt me, none of you would,” i said, looking at each of my guys in fum,

“I’m scared,” I admitted. “Scared my trauma will be too much for you, scared I’m not worthy of love. I’m terrified of being alone. I have never had anyone that cared about me, never had a healthy relationship with anyone. I’m so afraid I have already screwed it up.” I forced myself to look at each of them one at a time. Since Mike still had his arms wrapped around me, I turned, angling my head so I could look him the

eyes, too.

“Honey You have not screwed anything up, Mike assured me, kissing the tip of my rese. We all have trauma in one form or another. All four of us lost our mom at an early age. Our father is only interested in us as far as we can help with his campaign, Drew and I have seen some bad s**it overseas, and Patrick has experienced some s**t too. We are all going to need help working through our problems. Yours jat happened to be today,”

Jake reached out,

out, taking my hand in his. “Sweetheart, I love you, I promise I will never ove up on you or us.”Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

love you too, lake; I’m so sorry I stared you. I promise I will say something to you or the others immediately. I tugged his hand, and he moved close enough to me that I leaned forward to kiss him. “I love you,” I whispered against his lips. Jake gave me the softest smile.

1 love

you too, lake said, sitting up.

One by one each of my guys pressed soft kisses to my lips. I expressed to each how much I loved them. Both Mike and Jake stayed close to me, as they all explained what had happened after i had fallen asleep from the shot. The guys had decided the downstairs game room would have been the best place for us, Jamie and Sean imisted on gring up their rooms, saying they would sleep upstairs if need be. While Patrick had held me, the others had quickly pulled the two king beds out of the ast nonton and set them up in the open game room. While my whole panicked mewn had only been about twenty minutes, the sedative had kept me asleep mark longer, and I had lost the rest of yesterday, and most of this morning sunce it was almost neon.

While the guys talked, Mike got up and moved me to the gunt waaround couch on one side of the room lake stuck close to me, not letting go of my hand for more than the few seconds it took him to climb uff the bad I had given Mike a worried look, and he gave me a quick nod before leaning over, kissing me, and whispering, “Suy with him, quietly in my ear.

Mike went to help the others move the beds back to where they belonged, and I climbed onto Jake’s lap, resting my head on his shoulder and tugging on our linked band, encouraging him to wrap his arms around me. Thank you for holding me; it helps me relax,” I murmated, yawning from the lingering sedative.

Try and take a nap, sweetheart; 1 promise I will hold you the whole time youte asterj.” Jake said quietly, adjusting us so he was in a better position to hold me. I mumbled a yes, as my eyes started to droop. Jake continued to hold me, pressing kisses to the side of my head and whispering I love you into my ear

When I woke up for the second time today, lake was still holding me, just like he had promised. He was watching something on the huge TV mounted on the wall in front of the couch, the volume turned down so I could handly hear it. Once I blinked the sleep out of my eyes, I realized he had turned on the subtitles, so he wouldn’t wake me.

“Hey,” I said, stretching and giving this ha

hand a squeeze. Jake smiled down at me, kissing the top of my head.

“How did you sleep, sweetheart?” Jake said, pausing the movie he had been watching.

“Good. I’m still a little drowsy, but I am a lot better,” I said. “So do I even want to know why lane carries syringes full of sedatives around with him?” I asked hesitantly

“Hmm, probably not sweetheart, lake admitted.

1 got it; my lips are sealed,” I promised. I won’t ask for say a thing about it.

“Good girl,” Jake murmured in my ear, causing my whole body to shiver, Jake chuckled, helping me to sit up fully. “Would you like to go upstairs, it’s almost dinner time, like sald

“Yes, please, I should probably eat something after the day I have had,” 1 admitted, leaning forward so lake could slide out from behind me. Standing, Jake held out his hand, helping me off the coach. We walked upstairs, hand in hand, the sounds of the rest of my guys talking and joking in the kitchen.

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