A humorless smile pulls on the corners of her lips as she rests her forehead against mine, her hair blanketing around us.
“What if I tell you mine are not any better?” Aurora whispers, her words igniting a fire inside my chest.
“I’d say I’d like a list of names who hurt you in any way.”
“How early on would you like me to start?”
“Kindergarten will do.”
She laughs as if I’m joking. But I’m not. Not in the slightest.
She settles at my side. “They’re not worth it.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” I grunt, and Aurora chuckles. A chuckle that dies when I add, “Was it Emett’s father?”
A pregnant pause hangs in the air and when I think she won’t answer, she says, “To be called a father, you have to do something other than provide your sperm specimen.”
I knew she was a single mom from the beginning, but I never dug deeper and now I want to punch myself for that oversight because he clearly hurt her, and he hurt her deeper than I thought.
“Tell me,” I grunt.
“You show me yours, I show you mine?” she repeats the line I used a few days ago.
“Precisely.” I nod, my chin bobbing against her head.
Aurora sighs, “Joey was my first and only boyfriend, and I knew it was too good to be true.”
“Why?”
“Because he came from money. And I didn’t have a penny to my name.”
A bell rings inside my head. That’s why she didn’t want my help with anything pertaining to finances.
“But he made me feel loved, and so I thought I met my Prince Charming. I was an idiot.” She huffs out a humorless laugh. “Wedidn’t plan on getting pregnant. I was just days from heading into an Olympic figure skating program when I found out, and I’m ashamed to admit I was going to end it. I went to my doctor to talk about options but when I heard Emett’s heartbeat…I couldn’t. He was mine and that was the end of it. I created this outrageous dream inside my head where Joey would be happy about it and we’d make it work…” Aurora trails off, and my body hums with alarm.
Without her saying it, I know he didn’t take the news well.
“He wasn’t happy about it,” I state, and Aurora shakes her head against my chest.
“No. He was not.”
I can sense there’s more. Something she’s not telling me. “Aurora? What did he do?”
“It doesn’t matt—”
“Don’t even try that shit with me. Tell me.” The buzz under my skin grows heavier and she exhales a shaky breath.
“I haven’t told anyone,” Aurora whisper and a chill skitters down my spine. “Not even Stella.” I squeeze her tighter, silently telling her to trust me. “He wanted me to get an abortion. He…he tried to make me, to force me when I declined.”
“Force you?” The words are barely legible under my clenched jaw.
“Yes. Physically. But I managed to get away. To run.” Run… “That was the same night I got into a car accident. When I was running.”
Red. All I see is fucking red. I knew some parts of this story, but this? This…
He wanted to end my Emett’s life. He wanted to kill him. His own flesh and blood. The roaring in my ears becomes too loud to hear over but Aurora’s next words silence it all.
“There—” She sucks in a breath. “there was something else…”
