“Clothes too big, clothes too small, stained, ripped, dirty. He was a nobody. A complete nobody, Pandora. And now she’s smiling at him like he’s the sun itself. I worked her out of me, and he’s stepping in like he’s… he’s—he’s the one she should’ve had?!”
The tiles beneath my feet felt like ice. I walked back out to the deck, but it was like pieces of me stayed behind still standing in that bathroom, still staring at the man who’d carved his name into my fear.
I walked back out to the deck, but pieces of me stayed behind, still standing in that bathroom, still staring at the man who had carved his name into my fear, who had once convinced me that his cruelty was love.
The wind hit sharp. Cold. Real.
I needed real. I needed Dane.
But I was already breaking.
And Blake… Blake had shown me in every single thread, in every venomous, desperate, shameful word, exactly who he was: the boy I had escaped, the man I had outgrown, the abuser I would never let touch me again.
And somewhere deep down, I knew… he knew too. He knew Dane saw him for what he was, and that terrified him more than losing me ever could.
I stepped out onto the deck, cold down to my bones. My hands trembled around the phone.
“Dane,” I whispered, voice brittle.
He turned. Saw my face. Went still. Like someone had cut the strings holding him upright.
I held out the phone.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t hesitate. Instead, he stepped toward me with careful, slow precision, like I was a fragile glass sculpture, like one wrong move would shatter everything. His hand found mine. Warm. Solid. Soft in a way he rarely allowed himself.
Then he pressed the phone face-down on the teak table, shutting Blake’s venom out like it was nothing more than the buzz of an annoying fly. His knuckles brushed my cheek.
“Penn…” His voice—low, ragged, broken, wanting—fractured something inside me.
“What’s going on?” I whispered. “Why… why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
His eyes flicked to the phone, then back to mine. “It’s time,” he said. “I didn’t want it to happen like this.”
And then it broke me.
“Time for what? For me to find out through him? Through this?” I gestured at the phone like it was a snake coiling around my wrists, ready to strike.
Dane’s jaw flexed. Eyes dark with something raw—anger, fear, shame. Not at me. Never at me.
“You think I wanted you to see that?” he said. “You think I wanted you anywhere near him again?”
“You should’ve told me,” I said. “You should’ve trusted me.” My voice shook. Fury and heartbreak tangled like lightning in my chest.
He looked away, just for a heartbeat, and the dam broke.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” he whispered. “Not a single soul. Not about her. Not the whispers. Not the things they said about me… or her. Not about what the town called her… or what they called me.”
His throat worked. He swallowed hard, pain sharpening every word.
“I was the bastard son of the night-time pleaser turned drunk who chose to run. My mother was a cautionary tale. A whisper. A warning. And I was the kid nobody wanted to look at unless they needed a punching bag.”
His voice trembled—Dane, who never trembled.
“My Nan was the only safe place I had. And you…even when you forgot me… you were the only dream I didn’t let die.”
A punch of ache hit me. My knees went weak. My chest felt hollowed out. I wasn’t angry anymore. I was undone.
Tears streamed. The deck blurred around me. The wind felt like fire across my skin. My chest heaved. My body shaking. Every muscle braced for the impact.
