Scarred (Damaged Souls) (9 page)

Leaning is face towards hers, Sloan lightly kissed
Lexi’s forehead.

“I’m here.”

He kissed each swollen eyelid.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

His lips touched each tear stained cheek.

“I’ll protect you.”

He rubbed his nose against hers, his lips grazing hers with feather light passes.

“Whatever you need.”

All will power flying out the window, Sloan pressed his lips softly against hers. His pulse quickened as his lips deepened the kiss. Her lips were soft and puffy from the pressure of crying so hard. He opened his mouth and his tongue flicked against her lips. The intimate touch pulled her back to reality.

“Stop! I can’t!”
Lexi exclaimed as she pushed at this chest, forcing Sloan to release her.

“Why?! Why can’t you open up to me?” Sloan finally burst out in frustration.

“I just can’t, okay?!” Lexi stood up and paced away from him.

“Oh, but you can go on a date with a complete strange
r?” Sloan shouted.

“Yeah, like you weren’t a complete stranger just a couple of days ago. And I still don’
t fully know you. Guys always start out great and then…” Lexi’s voice faded to silence not wanting to say what she really wanted to.

“You know me! You don’t know every detail yet, but I haven’t hid anything from you. You don’t know this guy from Adam, but you’re going to go on a date with him? And don’t tell me that it’s just a get together.” Sloan glared up at her.

“I’m doing it as a favor, just to shut her up! I know she won’t let up until I say yes, so just back off! I can’t open up to any man right now. Why do you care so much anyway?” Lexi rallied.

“Because I fucking want you! Okay?!” Sloan exploded, finally jumping up.

“You want me?! You don’t even know me. I’m all kinds of fucked up! If you knew you’d run in the other direction or take advantage. I’ve been down this road and I don’t need this shit!” Lexi yelled at him.

“Whatever it is, I don’
t care Alexis! Just trust me!” Sloan implored.

“
What do you want from me?!” Lexi stared back at him in frustrated anger. “You know what…fine, you wanna know? I don’t give a shit anymore.” Lexi said as she grabbed the waistband of her pants at her hips.

Sloan froze, not knowing
what was she was doing or about to reveal. Her pants fell to the floor as she pushed them down. Lexi stood before him with her hands balled up in fists at her sides, in just her tank top and panties and at first he didn’t understand what he was supposed to be seeing. But as his gaze roved over her body his eyes finally focused on her thighs and in the dim light he could see a series of crisscrossing scars that marred her smooth skin. They started at her inner thighs and made their way towards the front.

Sloan drew in
a sharp breath threw his teeth, making a hissing noise.

“Alexis, what happened?” Sloan said softly.

“I’m a cutter, Sloan. You know, as in self-mutilation.” Lexi said angry and embarrassed that he’d pushed her to expose her vulnerability.

“But why?” Sloan asked still in shock.

“Oh I don’t know. Maybe because I’ve been beaten down emotionally and physically practically since I was born. I’ve had countless boyfriends that have beat and raped me, the last of which put me in the hospital and killed any possibility of me ever having children.” Lexi choked, tears welling up in her eyes when she’d thought she had nothing left. “Oh wait, and to top it off I watched my father kill my mother and then kill himself when I was eleven years old, setting a precedence for what I believed relationships should be like. So forgive me if some imbalance in my brain makes me feel better when I cut myself or makes me feel like I have some modicum of control over the pain that is inflicted on me.” Lexi ended in exhaustion.

Sloan stood in shocked silence, not knowing what to say to
her. He figured that she’d had a bad relationship and possibly even abused, but never in his wildest imaginings did he anticipate the extent of what she had been through. And she was right, most men would run for the hills if a woman unloaded that kind of baggage on them, but surprisingly Sloan felt no different now than he had before she made her confession.

In fact, h
e realized that he actually felt stronger for her than before. She was obviously tougher than she knew, trying to start a whole new life in a new place on her own. And with everything she was dealing with she still had enough compassion inside of her to help a bum start over too.

“That’s what I thought. No comment. Damaged goods aren’t that appealing anymore, are they?”
Lexi said finally stooping down to pull her pants back up and preparing to pick up the mess she had made in her meltdown.

“I don’t care.” Sloan said in a whisper.

“What?” Lexi said looking up at him.

“I said, ‘I don’t care’. I am genuinely
sorry for what happened to you and I can’t imagine the pain you’ve been through, but it doesn’t change how I feel. I want you more than anything or anyone I’ve ever wanted in my life.” Sloan said fiercely.

Now it was
Lexi’s turn to stand in shocked silence. She couldn’t fathom why anyone would want her, at least not in a healthy way.

“You’ll turn out just like them. They all do eventually.” Lexi stated with confidence.

Sloan quickly shortened the distance between them and captured her face in his hands, forcing her to look up at him.

“Don’t ever compare me to those bastards! Ever! They’re all a bunch of fucking cowards, finding defenseless women to abuse. I’m nothing like that.
Do you hear me?” Sloan asked, hurt that she would think of him so poorly.

“It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. I seem to bring out the worst in men. I’m sure none of the others laid a hand on a woman
before me. So there’s only a matter of time before I do something to make you lose it on me.” Lexi explained.

“Are you kidding me? So far you’re the first person to believe in me since I’ve been back to the States. I saw your painting, which is brilliant I might add, but
like I told you earlier, it made me realize how isolated I’ve made myself from everyone around me. It makes me want to be present in this world. And the compassion you’ve shown me makes me want to get back on my feet, to make you proud…make myself proud again. You did that!” Sloan tried to make her understand the impact she’d had on him only after a few days. “Just give me a chance to show you how a relationship is supposed to be. How a man is supposed to love a woman.” Sloan pleaded, his face inching towards hers wanting to taste her lips again.

“Sloan…” She whispered breathless against his lips.

Sloan placed gentle kisses on her trembling lips. Lexi started to shake uncontrollably as memories of knuckles smashing the delicate skin on her face, ribs cracking from harsh kicks and an erection ripping her insides apart.

“Ah God…I can’t…I can’t!” Lexi sobbed breaking away from him and running into the house.

Sloan stood dejected, watching Lexi flee. He hung his head in defeat. Looking down he saw the broken canvas. Bending down, he picked up the torn painting and held the two pieces together. He realized that Lexi had painted an abstract angry version of her thighs and womb torn and bloodied.

Sloan felt sick thinking about what had been done to her at the hands of her father and the men in her past. He felt a very real rage, but had nowhere to release it.
For now he just swallowed it down, bottling it up inside. He sighed and began to straighten up the porch that the tiny woman had nearly destroyed.

After he was done, Sloan walked into the kitchen and decided to make them sandwiches. Making a plate for Lexi, he carried it upstairs and knocked on her door.

“Please, Sloan I just want to be alone for a little while. I promise I’m not hurting myself.” Lexi said sadly from the other side of the door.

“I just brought you something to eat. I’ll leave it in front of the door if you want it.” Sloan said, placing the plate on the floor and then headed back downstairs to eat his sandwich and feed Tank.

After eating and cleaning up the kitchen, Sloan headed upstairs with Tank for another restless night. He noticed that the plate was no longer in front of Lexi’s door when he went into his room. He smiled, glad that she had apparently eaten the sandwich he’d left her.

Inside his room he removed the mattress from the frame again and laid it on the ground.
Lying down, surprisingly his eyelids became heavy with fatigue. Before he drifted off to sleep he realized that the stress of the evening must have worn him out.

They ran through the streets of
an Afghan city. Sloan and Vick ran down deserted streets, running from an unknown enemy. They rounded a corner and a bomb went off throwing Sloan backwards and in slow motion he watched as Lexi, instead of Vick was blown to bits in front of his eyes. Sloan screamed his heart ripping in two as the woman he loved was ripped away from him in one devastating blow.

“Sloan! Wake up, wake up! It’s not real. You’re not in Afghanistan. You’re here i
n Savannah. You’re here with me…Lexi. It’s okay.” Lexi comforted him, combing back his hair with her fingers.

Sloan’s eyes flew open and he looked up at her. But still trapped in the nightmare all he saw was her bloody face. He half screamed half sobbed and crawled away from her to the corner of the room, cowering in fear.

Tears welled up in Lexi’s eyes as she looked at the strong man so broken in the corner. In that moment Lexi understood how he could still want her, damaged and all. Because she still wanted him, as scared as she was to take that step into trusting another human being. They were both broken and scarred people on the inside and out and they were both trying their damnedest to crawl out of that hell into the light to make a better life for themselves.

“Sloan, please it’s me I swear. I’m okay and you’re okay. We’re here in the old house in Savannah. You said that you wanted me, you kissed me.” Lexi crawled towards him till she was in touching distance and laid her hand on his knee. “And it felt so good, but I was scared. I’m scared to open myself up to you. Because what if you hurt me, I can’t go through that again. Or what if I’m not good enough for you? You’re stronger than me, you can fight your way out of this, but I don’t know if I can.” Lexi said, truly opening up for the first time, telling him her fears in order to bring him back from whatever torture he had dreamt.

Sloan heard her words and wanting to believe everything was alright that he wasn’t in Afghanistan and that she was still okay, he slowly pulled his hands from his face. He saw the dark bedroom, the glow of Tank’s worried eyes next to Lexi. Finally he saw her, whole and beautiful in the darkness.

Sloan sat up and knelt in front of Lexi. He reached out a shaking hand to touch her cheek as if to make sure she was real.

“You were there with me. Well at first it was Vick, but then a bomb went off and all of a sudden it was you. And…and…oh God, it was awful.” Sloan dropped his hand from her cheek. “I couldn’t save him…I couldn’t save you.” He bowed his head in defeat.

“I’m right here, Sloan. I’m sure you did all that you could to save Vick. And you can’t save me. I have to be able to do that
for myself. Sure you can help and I can do my best to help you. But we have to save ourselves. That’s too much burden for anyone to bear…to be someone’s savior.” Lexi rationalized.

“I know. You’re right, you’re right. But that still doesn’t change how awful that dream was and there was nothing I could do. Fuck! I had to deal with that shit for more years than I’d like to think about and now that I’m here I still can’t leave that fucking place.” Sloan said in frustration.

“I’m so sorry
, Sloan. Maybe renovating the house and rebuilding your construction career will help with everything. I think you’ve been idle too long, just sitting and stewing in misery. We both need this.” Lexi advised.

“Yeah, you’re right.” Sloan said, and then took a deep cleansing breath. “Can…can I sleep with you?” At Lexi’s wide-eyed look, Sloan continued. “I don’t mean have sex! I just
…I don’t want to be alone. You can put pillows between us, if that’ll make you feel more comfortable. Please Alexis, I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.” Sloan beseeched.

“Alright. But can you bring your mattress in like the other night, just in case I freak out?” Lexi asked.

“Okay. Thank you.” Sloan said softly, standing up and reaching out a hand to help Lexi up as well.

Grabbing the mattress, Sloan and Tank followed Lexi into her room.
Lexi stood awkwardly on the side of the bed as Sloan laid the mattress down on the floor on the other side. He straightened up and they just stared at each other for a while, both feeling shy, not having slept next to another person of the opposite sex in a really long time.

“You first.” Sloan said gesturing to Lexi to get in the bed.

Once she slid in under the sheet she handed Sloan one of the two pillows under her and he placed it next to her hip and he grabbed one of the two from his side and placed it next to her upper torso. She lay perfectly still on her back with her hands clasped on her stomach.