“Dad, are we really talking about him disappearing?”
“Your grandpa is here,” her dad says.
“No. He needs to be alive,” she replies. “Don’t let them handle him. Please, Daddy.”
“Fuck,” her dad says, pushing himself up and hauling his ass back into the hallway. “Let him live.”
“Why the fuck would we do that?” a man asks, and I’m not sure which one because I haven’t spent enough time with them to know their voices.
“Lulu wants him to go to prison. Call the cops,” Lucio tells them.
“Fucking bullshit,” another man mutters.
“Just fucking do it,” Lucio barks down at them.
“What a mess,” she says as she curls her face back into my chest, and she tightens her fingers in the soft cotton material of my shirt. “I’m an idiot.”
“No. You’re not,” I tell her, holding her as tightly as I can without hurting her. “You believe in the good in people, where I only see the bad.”
“But you were right.”
“I didn’t want to be, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry.”
I pull back, lifting her chin with my fingers. “Look at me, Lulu,” I say when she doesn’t open her eyes right away.
“What?” she says, her eyes barely visible through the swelling.
“This isn’t your fault.”
“It is.”
“It’s not. I love that you see good in everything and everyone. Not everyone is like Mark.”
“I can never trust anyone again.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” she breathes as tears start streaming down her cheeks again.
“I love you, Lulu.” It’s the first time I’ve said those words to her. And I mean every single one too.
I’d never been so panicked in my entire life as I was today when I knew something had happened to her.
“I love you too, Oliver.”
I lean forward, pressing my lips as gently as possible to her mouth.
This isn’t how I wanted to say that to her.
I wanted it to be some grand romantic gesture by candlelight or some other fairy-tale bullshit. But this moment is too important not to tell her how I feel.
“I will always protect you,” I promise her as soon as the kiss ends. “Always.”
She curls back into me, melting against my chest. I know her wounds will heal, but the memories of this day will never fade. All I can do is help her move beyond the fear that piece of shit has now instilled inher and hope that I haven’t lost the funny, carefree woman I fell for the moment I laid eyes on her.
19
