My heart pounds, and it’s irritating. Her closeness, her nearness …
Listen, I chide.
“I met him when I was sixteen. His parents were divorced—mother lived in Alabama, and his father … his father was the sheriff of Ruin, my hometown. I guess his mom was having some trouble handling him. He was experimenting with different drugs, and she couldn’t deal, so she sent him to live with his father for a short stint. She thought he could sort him out. At least, that’s what he told me.
“He didn’t know anyone when he came to town, and because his mom still technically had custody, he was homeschooled. Though his father never did anything with him and left him alone most of the time. He was around the same age as my older brothers, and there was something about him. His jet-black hair,those piercing dark eyes—he walked around like he didn’t give a shit, and for a small-town girl like me … well, I was enraptured.”
My jaw clenches. It’s a classic story—good girl falls for the bad boy. One many enjoy and romanticize. When it works, it works. When it goes wrong …
“All the girls in my school were interested in the alluring bad boy from out of town, especially since he kept to himself most of the time. Occasionally he hung with another homeschool kid, I guess, but he was a loner.
“I’m not sure how, or why, but I managed to snag his attention and boy did it make me feel special. Most boys didn’t bother with me in school, too afraid of my brothers Liam and Adam, but not him.”
Lily shifts on her feet, and I hear her swallow as she glances toward the sky.
“It started fairly innocent. He snuck around our family’s property to come hang out with me or walk my mom’s gardens. He’d hold my hand and whisper sweet things in my ear. All the stupid stuff they warn you about when it comes to men.
“But eventually he started wanting to bring me out to parties. He’d comment on the way I dressed, wanting me to look ‘nicer for him.’ He’d talk down to me around other people, then in the quiet conversations in private tell me I was silly for being upset about it. But I was blind, swept up by the fact everyone else wanted him and I had him. He wantedme.
“A couple months in, I noticed things were going the wrong direction the more he pressured me to do drugs with him. I refused, and he’d smack me around a bit, get upset when I told him I cared about him. Things had gotten fairly hot and heavy, but I’d told him I wasn’t ready for physical intimacy, and while at first he was okay with it, it eventually got to the point where he was pressuring me.
“I knew things weren’t okay, but I kept telling myself he wasn’t all bad. His parents were divorced, his father, while making good money as the sheriff, never seemed to have any, and he’d been shipped away from his mother. I felt bad and convinced myself that beneath the anger, the sharp words, and the bruises there was something worth saving. And I did see glimpses of it—the way he’d brush my hair back on rare occasions, the overabundance of apologies that came …”
Lily smacks at her face, and I can’t take not seeing her. I drop my hand and walk around to her front, my back to the fence. With the tip of my pointer finger, I tilt her chin to look at me. The brokenness in her eyes. This asshole really did a number on her.
She blinks slowly, releasing a tear that squiggles down her cheek. “I told myself he was lost. That if I just tried harder, loved him enough, was patient enough, he’d change. That the fists through walls, and sometimes at me, the venom in his voice—wasn’t really him.
“One night, I snuck out to go to a party with him. He’d get mad if I didn’t. There was alcohol and drugs there, standard for his get-togethers with the local scum, but this night something had gotten into him. He tried to tell me I wasn’t enough. That if I loved him, I’d have sex with him. Give myself to him because I was his forever. His words scared me. I … I was only sixteen and I felt trapped.
“As the night went on, the higher and drunker he got. He was groping me to the point I was uncomfortable, so I decided to get up and walk it off. We were out at some old cemetery in the woods, and when he came looking for me …”
She shivers, allowing a sob to break free from her tightly controlled features. “He chased me and took from me. He—” Her head falls into my chest, and she fists my shirt, crying. “He took from me, raped me, then he beat me for fighting him.”
I swallow the anger demanding out, suppress the growl wanting to roar at her pain. Men like him aren’t strong, they are weak. Cowards. “Lily. I want to kill him for hurting you. I’m so sorry.”
“I-I went to the station, spoke with a female deputy in a private room. I thought she was going to help me, perhaps direct me to the hospital or call my parents for me. Instead, clothes still ripped, and blood dried to my split lip, the sheriff came in. Told me his son would never do such a thing. That I was just one of those rich Parkers who got caught up with a boy, had sex, and was now making an excuse. He told me I must have been drinking at this party too and asked for it.”
She trembles against me, shoulders shaking, face buried in my chest. Her warm tears seep into the fabric of my shirt and my arms tighten around her further. One hand resting on the small of her back, the other cradling the back of her head. I thread my fingers through her hair as she weeps.
She feels so fragile in my grasp and holding her feels right.
I don’t say anything. There are no words to fix or make this better. So, I hold her steady as her hiccupped breaths draw ragged. My thumb works small circles over her scalp. I meant what I said earlier. She shouldn’t have to carry this alone.
All of a sudden, she chuckles. “I think the sheriff was half preparing for my parents to storm the station after he dismissed me. I would’ve liked to have seen his son’s face when he heard I left town.
“When I left, he called and called, promising he’d find me. I changed my cell phone after the first two voicemails. One begging me to come back and that he loved me, the second, telling me there was nowhere on earth I could go that he wouldn’t find me.”
A chill whittles its way up my spine as a breeze kicks up and the leaves on the branches above rustle.
Lily pulls away from me. Her eyes are raw, rimmed in an irritated red. Lashes clumped together, her mascara has created tiny splotches of black under her eyes that mix with the faint shadows of exhaustion. Though her tears have slowed, her lids droop, like she’s wrung every last drop of emotion.
“Deep down I knew. Love wasn’t supposed to feel like this, gritty and stinging, like salt in a wound. I knew I shouldn’t have had to beg for kindness or change who I was for him. It’s not supposed to drag you down.
“I haven’t been with anyone since that night. I’ve tried. There were a couple guys I tried with, but I always panicked when we got to the actual … you know.”
I block the images of other men with her, but yes, I know.
“They’d lay me down and I would just … shut down.” She makes a point to look straight into my eyes, hers swirling with determined conviction. “I don’t want to, though. I don’t want Bran to have taken any hope of intimacy with someone away. That’s what this is.” She shakes her notebook, clutched in her hands. “It’s my healing.”
