Page 76 of Reaper
I stroke her hair while she speaks low, but above a whisper.
“Don’t touch me. Please get your hands off me.”
Immediately, I remove my hands from her and try to reassure her, “Baby, it’s Nico.”
Through a clenched jaw, she says, “I know who you are. Don’t fucking touch me.”
I don’t have very long to contemplate what’s going on, before there’s a knock at the bedroom door, and the doctor comes in.
He nods to me.
“Dr. Messina. Bones asked me to help. He informed me of the situation.”
Walking over to Bella, he introduces himself.
“Can Reaper stay in the room? Or would you rather he leave?”
She sobs loudly, and it tears me to shreds.
“Please make him leave.”
I could easily tell the doctor to fuck off and refuse to leave, but if this is what she wants, I should go. Standing in the hallway, Athena comes up to me, with a look of concern on her face. She wraps herarms around me as Bones looks on. Normally, my brother would tell me to get my hands off his wife, but he doesn’t.
“She asked me to leave.”
Athena takes my hand and pulls me to the sitting room, the next room over. “I want to talk to you about something.”
We walk in and she points to the couch. “Sit.”
Bones stands in the doorway, staring at my sister-in-law like she hung the goddamn moon, and for the first time I get it. She sits beside me.
“Reaper, what she went through, nobody other than her even knows how bad it was, but we know enough to know she’s likely traumatized. After you guys found me, I felt ashamed, scared, and thought Luca would look at me differently. He showed me love and patience, and eventually I found myself on the other side of things, but it wasn’t an immediate process. The only way out of this is through. She has to go through it, and so do you.”
“Did you tell Bones not to touch you? And to leave?”
She shakes her head no and places her hand over mine.
“Everybody’s experience is different. How she processes things will not necessarily be the same as it was for me. Patience is the only way. Give her what she needs. If you don’t know what that is, ask her.”
I shake my head.
“She’s going to leave me, and I’m going to let her.”
“What?” Bones says, as he walks over to us and sits on the chair beside the couch.
“We did not just go through this for you to not be with her.”
Athena holds up her hand. “Luca. Not now.”
“Talk to me. What makes you say that?”
I look away from my sister-in-law, because right now I can’t handle her kind eyes, the way she looks at me like I’m something other than what I am.
Hanging my head down, I admit, “This is my fault. Everything that happened to her is because of me.”
I jump when I hear her screaming, and immediately go to knock the fucking doctor on his ass, but Bones stops me.
“Let him do his job.”
