Hurt me like you need me novel Chapter 5

* Two months later *

Cade’s car is already in the driveway when I pull up.

Of course it is. His boxes are probably inside already, labeled in clean handwriting, stacked by room. Mine are in the back of my mom’s minivan, held together with duct tape.

The courthouse wedding was two weeks ago — small, no fuss, over before I figured out what to do with my hands. Now I’m hauling the leftovers of my father’s shitshow into Richard Ellory’s fresh start and pretending I belong here.

The place is a two-story near campus. White siding, blue shutters, a yard with an actual fence. Everything about it screams normal, which is how I know it’s bullshit.

I carry the first box through the front door and there he is — Cade Ellory in gray sweats and a white t-shirt, crouched over a box in the living room, sorting his shit.

He doesn’t look up when I walk in. I don’t say hello. We move through the house without crossing paths. He takes the upstairs hallway, I take the kitchen.

He carries his shit to the left bedroom, I carry mine to the right. I know exactly where he is at every second. His footsteps above me, the creak of his bedroom door, the sound of tape ripping off his boxes.

I track him through the ceiling like a dog tracking a scent because I want to know where he is so I can be somewhere else.

It lasts about an hour before the distance closes. Over a fucking shelf.

“That’s my side.” I’m standing in the upstairs hallway with a box under my arm, staring at Cade’s swimming trophies already lining the built-in shelf between our bedroom doors.

The shared shelf my mom specifically said was for both of us.

Cade leans against his doorframe with his arms crossed. “I got here first.”

“Move them.” I set the box down on the floor with enough force to make the trophies rattle on the shelf.

“Make me.” His voice is quiet and patient and absolutely fucking delighted.

“Boys!” My mom’s voice floats up from the stairs, bright and desperate. “Can you two come help with the dresser? Richard threw his back out.”

I head downstairs. Cade follows. The dresser is solid oak, heavy enough that it takes both of us to lift it, which is exactly what my mom wanted. I can see it in her face — the hopeful look, the fragile smile. She thinks shared labor will fix us.

Foolish of her.

We get it through the front door. Down the hallway. To the base of the stairs.

“Your end’s slipping,” Cade says.

“My end’s fine. Lift higher.”

“I am lifting higher. You’re dragging your side.”

We make it four steps up. Five. On the sixth, our hands shift on the grip and his fingers brush mine.

The contact lasts less than a second but my body clocks it like a fire alarm — heat shooting from the point of contact straight into my gut, the same sick warmth from the bathroom floor, from the party, from every moment his skin has touched mine.

I jerk my hand back so fast the dresser lurches sideways. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

Cade rebalances the weight. His voice drops low enough that only I can hear. “Why does it bother you so much?”

“Because I don’t want your hands anywhere near me. Is that complicated?”

“A little.” He tilts his head. “Most people don’t flinch that hard from an accident. Makes a guy wonder what you’re afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid of anything. Especially not you.”

“Then why are you shaking?”

I look down at my hands. He’s right. They’re trembling on the grip and I hate him for noticing.

“Runs in the family, doesn’t it?” Cade’s voice goes soft, almost gentle. That’s how I know the knife is coming. “Your dad used to shake like that right before he hit your mom. Think she sees it too?”

Every molecule of air leaves my lungs.

“Shut your mouth,” I demand.

“Must be hard.” He hasn’t raised his voice once. He’s calm and measured. “Living in that man’s skin. Looking in the mirror and seeing his face staring back. Knowing that no matter how far you run, you’re still Dale Drum’s—”

“Your mom died eight months ago and you didn’t shed a single tear.” The words rip out of me like shrapnel. “I saw you at that funeral. And your dad? Your dad moved on so fast her body was barely cold before he put a ring on my mother’s finger.” I lean in close enough to see his pupils contract. “How long did Richard really wait, Cade? Was your mom even in the ground?”

Cade’s expression doesn’t change. His face stays perfectly still, like I didn’t just drag his dead mother into a fight on a staircase.

“Interesting,” he says quietly. His mouth curves. “You memorized my face at my mother’s funeral. Were you watching me, Sawyer?” He leans closer. “That’s a lot of attention for someone you hate.”

I can’t believe it.

“I’ll try.” My voice comes out raw. I say it for her. Only for her.

I go upstairs, walk into my room, close the door, then cross to the jack-and-jill bathroom and lock it from my side.

I stand there with my forehead against the door, breathing hard, trying to get his voice out of my head.

‘Imagine what you’d fuck like if you stopped fighting it.’

The words play on a loop behind my eyes and my body won’t stop buzzing — this low, sick hum under my skin.

That’s adrenaline. That’s what that is.

It has nothing to do with the image my brain just flashed without my permission — Cade underneath me, not on a staircase but somewhere else, somewhere horizontal, with that same filthy smile on his face while I —

I slam my fist into the door so hard the hinges rattle.

No.

Fuck that.

Fuck him.

I’m not this.

I will never be this.

The handle rattles from the other side once. Then it stops.

I don’t move from the door for a long time.