Battles of the Broken (Sons of Templar MC 6)

His words blew me away. But he wouldn’t get it, wouldn’t see until I showed him one more thing.

The darkest thing.

No matter that he hasn’t told you a thing about himself, a voice snarled in my ear.

I ignored it. It hurt, thinking Gage didn’t trust me enough to show me his darkness. But he’d shown me what he could. And it wasn’t because he didn’t trust me—it was because he didn’t trust himself.

I got it, because I was having trouble trusting myself right then.

“I was in a mental institution,” I blurted.

All expression left Gage’s face.

“Well, that’s not what they’re called, obviously,” I continued. “Not the politically correct term for them. Rehabilitation facility. For people with minds not poisoned by drugs but something much more dangerous. Life.” I forced myself to keep Gage’s gaze, even though it hurt. “It was after David’s funeral. I didn’t take his death well.” I laughed coldly. “Or a lot worse than well, considering I was checked into a facility for six months. I had to be fed intravenously. A few doctors reasoned it was because I was suicidal. Obviously they could only speculate since I stopped speaking for six months too. I think that might’ve been a contributing factor in my parents committing me.”

“Baby,” Gage murmured, his voice breaking as he grasped my hips.

“It was easier to be around strangers than my own family,” I whispered, needing to say it all before my throat closed up. “I couldn’t be around them, which is why I let them commit me. Because I knew I couldn’t be fixed. There’s only one thing worse than being broken—people you love thinking they can fix you.”

My eyes roved over him with meaning I didn’t have to convey in words.

“Anyway, I wasn’t suicidal. I knew that much. Sure, I wanted to die sometimes, but not with a permanence. I just wanted… respite from life, I guess. And the only respite from life people get is death. But the no-eating thing wasn’t from wanting to die. I just couldn’t. I didn’t have an appetite for life. It was hard enough sucking in oxygen—how the heck was I meant to swallow food?” I shook my head. “I began eating soon enough because getting force-fed was not a fun experience.”

Gage’s jaw clenched but he was silent.

“Still didn’t talk, though,” I continued. “Not for six months. A lot of people tried to make me. The doctors, my parents. Not my grandmother though. She’d come to visit, sit there talking to me, acting as if I responded to all of her questions and stories. Then she’d yell at the doctors for trying to ‘push me.’ She always told them ‘She’ll talk when she’s ready, and not with ducks quacking at her.’”

I smiled.

“Truthfully, I didn’t talk when I was ready, because I’d never speak if that was the case. There was no great epiphany—I just realized I couldn’t stay in a silent tomb forever. Something almost clicked inside me, and I just said, ‘I would like to go home now,’ one day. Obviously it wasn’t that easy, but I did get out and my parents didn’t speak of it again. It was something we swept under the rug. Not because it embarrassed them, but maybe because it was more evidence of the gaping hole in our life.”

I let out a large sigh, the kind a furniture mover might exhale after carrying a large sofa up many flights of seemingly endless stairs.

I’d never told anyone that. Maybe that in itself was why I’d never gotten close to people. Because in order to get close to people, you had to share your secrets. The one about David was bad enough. Not because of how it made other people think of me—I knew any decent person wouldn’t judge me for my twin brother dying of a drug overdose—but more about my utter inability to utter it. My refusal.

But then there was also the prospect of having to tell these people about being committed for six months. People were a lot less sympathetic about crazy than they were about death. Death was uncontrollable, could happen to anyone, but it was a tragedy that needed kindness.

Insanity was also uncontrollable, and under the right—or wrong—circumstances, it could still happen to anyone. But people didn’t like being confronted with that fact; therefore, they didn’t like being confronted with insanity. They preferred to believe it was a choice of people who weren’t right, people to be kept away from, avoided on the street.

So yeah, I didn’t tell anyone.

But Gage didn’t just know the truth about insanity. He lived it. He wore it.

“Anyway,” I said, “there’s a reason I’m telling you this, apart from the fact that if you intend on staying in my life, this is something you need to know.”

“I fucking intend on staying,” he growled.