This time Lake’s gasp was so loud it echoed through the room, vibrating off the walls. My calm and collected sister was not visible any longer. Her usual warm, sweet brown eyes swirled with anger, sadness, horror, and so many other emotions that mirror how I felt.
I rocked back and forth as sobs racked my body. “How can I let another man touch me when the only one that ever has beat me before taking something so violently that wasn’t his to take?”
“Oh honey,” my sister cooed so softly as if talking to an infant. “I’m so sorry and can’t begin to understand what you went through, but I want to be here for you.” Tears slipped down her face. “Can I hug you?”
Her soft voice washed over me and I nodded. She pulled me into her and held me. We stayed like that for a few minutes.
“I don’t w-want to be l-like this,” I cried into her shoulder.
She pulled back and looked into my eyes. “You’re beautiful inside and out, River. You’re strong and have a heart of gold. You can be and have whatever you want. When you are ready.”
I let go of her and wiped my hands across my face, swiping a waterfall of tears as I did.
“Huntley’s the first guy to make me feel like I want to bebetter. Like I want to get over being that scared girl from so long ago.”
It was an admission I never imagined I’d make in my lifetime.
And a feeling I couldn’t completely comprehend.
“But it’s more. The man has charmed me, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I truly have a friend.”
Light tears still trickled down Lake’s face, but she gave me a small smile when she said, “We're friends.”
Tilting my head I studied Lake, trying to find the words to better explain what I was feeling.
“We’re sisters,” I told her, and instantly saw Lake’s smile vanish.
Shit.
“I’m sorry, I suck at this. I didn’t mean we aren’t friends. You have to understand it just feels different when it’s a man.” I was doing an awful job of explaining what was going on in my head. “It’s as if the universe knew it was time and brought him to me.”
Now I just sounded plain crazy.
Her smile was back and she giggled. “Didn’t I technically bring him to you when you both ended up at my wedding?”
I waved her off, the moment of tension gone. “It sounds more exciting when I say the universe had a play in it.”
Our laughter mixed and while the tears dried some, I knew the conversation had really just begun.
I was emotionally exhausted.
After another two hours of talking with Lake and shedding enough tears to fill what seemed like an Olympic-size swimming pool, I finally convinced her I would be okay and she could head home to her family. Once I looked in on thekids, something that may seem silly to most because of their age, I made my way to my room to shower before crawling into bed.
It had been a hell of a day for us all.
My body felt battered and my heart was ripped wide open.
The cool silk sheets slid across my skin as I pulled them, along with the blankets, up, and tucked myself in. As dog tired as I was I would have thought I’d crash as soon as my head hit my pillow but I found I couldn’t sleep at all.
As though my mind was taking a spin class, it spun in never-ending circles. When the kids had told me what happened at school, I’d been scared to death that any progress that had been made with Bre would have been seriously set back, but it didn’t seem that way at all.
Sure, she was shaken and cried when she told me about what happened, while Lennon got pissed all over again. But there was one common denominator for both of them that seemed to change the course of how they processed it all.
Huntley.
I never thought my daughter would have two heroes. And the crazy thing was, her brother didn’t seem to be too upset to share the spotlight. I could also understand where Bre was coming from. Not so long ago, Huntley had been my hero, too, when he pulled me from the flames at my previous home. He was again when he raced to the school and defended my kids.
A little voice inside me said his heroism wasfarfrom over.
