Present
I KNEW THE ASSHOLE HAD BEEN ABUSIVE. THAT WAS BAD ENOUGH. I HADN’T fully considered the breadth of the possible implications. I had avoided thinking about the particulars of what Stormy might have suffered through because it was too damn maddening. Storm didn’t have that luxury. She’d had to live every agonizing minute.
I felt like an insensitive prick.
I knew better than anyone what it was like to have a past that haunted you. To feel tarnished compared to those around you because they’d never known depravity. That sort of darkness marked a person. Changed them.
And those of us who had experienced it were more apt to sense it in others.
Pain recognizing pain.
I realized at that moment that trauma had been the intangible thing that had drawn me to Storm. We’d carried our burd
