"Are you ever scared of how much you love O?" I looked up at Cass as I said the words.

Her head lifted up from the book it had been stuck in for the last hour or so. Our time together fell like that often, where we both did our own thing, but we enjoyed the silent company of each other anyway.

Cassidy's eyes scrunched together, like she was trying to understand where my words were coming from. I didn't try to explain further, I let her process them in her own way. Cassidy had gotten pretty good at unravelling the messes that came out of my mouth.

"Sometimes." She said finally, sliding her purple bookmark between the pages of her book, gently closing it and placing it to her side. "Sometimes I think about how bad the pain would be if something were to happen to us. If we were to break up, or you know, god forbid the worst happened. Why?"

I bit my lip as I tried to advert my eyes. It wasn't that I was ashamed to tell Cass what I was feeling, I think I just didn't know what I was really asking.

"Do you ever wonder if you deserve to be loved the way O loves you?" I asked her, playing with a strand of my hair that had fallen loose from my bun. "Or do you ever thing that you love O more than he loves you?"

Cassidy stilled for a moment, her eyes dragging over my face like she was trying to decide if I was having a break down again. She had been witness to a few of them now, after all. I couldn't blame her for trying to interpret my mess of a question.

"No. I don't wonder that, Seren. I deserve love, just like O deserves love. Maybe some days O loves me more than I love him, or vice versa, but in the end it all evens out. We love each other, together." She said gently, and she swung her legs over from the arm of the chair that they had been resting on. Cass walked over to the bed, and sat down beside me. She wasn't too close to me, just far enough that she could reach out and touch me if she wanted to.

"Do you think that? That you don't deserve the love that Zane gives you?" Cass's voice was calm as she spoke, and it's one of the reasons I love her so much. Even when I said something alarming, the type of things that would send most people running for the hills, or at the very least, speed dialling Lucy for back up, she remained who she's always been to me. My calm, and gentle best friend.

I sighed, pushing my feet out and feeling the crack of my knees as I did so. "Sometimes. I get worried sometimes, that Zane doesn't deserve to love someone as... emotionally messy as I am."

It's been almost a year since Jax raped me. A date I was not looking forward to passing on the calendar. It's been almost a year, and yet my life was completely different. Nothing about it was the same, in fact. I was a different person. My heart was a different heart. My soul was a different soul.

Everything was different, but sometimes I still felt like the same lost girl that I had been when it happened.

And even on the good days, the days I was so happy I could cry happy tears, I still wasn't done trying to mend my torn pieces back together. I don't know if I'll ever been done trying to repair certain parts of me. I think it was going to be a lifelong journey, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Sometimes, however, I wondered if it was fair to Zane. I wondered if he had realized what he signed up for. I wondered if he wished that he could be with someone that didn't need to try and tape parts of their self back together.

"Zane loves you for you, Seren. He loves you because of you, the easy parts of you and the hard parts of you. Even if sometimes you don't have it all together, he doesn't care. He wants to be there for you when you need help, and he wants to stand beside you when you don't need help." Cassidy told me, and her lips were pulled into a soft smile that reminded me of the first time we met.

"And, I do too." Cassidy continued, not waiting for me to answer. "We all do. We love you for who you are. It doesn't matter to us that who you are isn't perfect. In fact, I think being imperfect makes you perfect. Don't you think?"