“Todd’s dead. He must have gotten in his car when we left and tried to drive home. His car ended up wrapped around a pole. People are saying he was wasted, but after the hits he took…” I don’t finish the sentence, but we both know the bloodystate I left him in. It would have been a miracle if he had been seeing straight after the blows I delivered.
She chews on her bottom lip as what I said sinks in.
“I’m not going to the police,” she finally says. “There’s no point now. If I mention what happened, they’ll start to question you, and I will not let you get in trouble over this. You just signed with the Devils. This could ruin…”
“I don’t fucking care about that,” I say, cutting her off and angry she’s even thinking about me when she’s all that matters. “This is your life we are talking about. You need to let them know what he did to you. At least get examined.”
“I’m sore, but I’ll heal,” she says, shaking her head. “The blood made it look worse than it was. It was my…it was my first time, so it’s normal. I can hide the bruises until they fade.”
“You can’t hide this from your family, Savi. The bruises will fade, but the real trauma is on the inside. You need to talk to someone, or it will eat you alive. Trust me…I know,” I say quietly.
“I will find a number to call and talk to someone. I see ads for help like this all the time. Just not my family. There’s nothing that can be done. It’s bad enough you had to see it. I won’t hurt them too,” she softly cries.
“Your brothers are going to take one look at you and know something is up,” I argue, trying to make her see reason.
“Then, I’ll tell them half the truth. I was at a party and drank too much. You pulled a guy off of me before anything happened. They will be pissed at me for going to the party in the first place and the drinking part, but it would make sense why I would be unsettled for a bit.”
“I won’t lie to your family, Savi. Miles is my best friend. I can’t keep this from him.”
“This is my choice, Knox, not yours,” she says with a conviction that has me lifting my head to meet her heated stare.“Mine. I didn’t have a say in what happened to me tonight, but I need you to give me this. Promise me you will keep this between us. I want to forget tonight ever happened, and I want you to forget it too.”
The fire in her eyes gives me hope that she’ll get through this. Anything is better than the fear I saw in them earlier. I couldn’t stop what happened to her, but I can give her this to hold on to and fight for.
“I promise,” I find myself saying, unable to deny her anything.
She sighs in relief like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders.
“But you have to promise me that if at anytime it gets too hard, you’ll tell them so they can help you. You have an amazing family, and they would want to help you.”
“If I can’t handle it on my own, I promise to tell them, and I know I have an amazing family. They would do anything for me just like I would do anything for them, which is why I want to protect them from this.”
“I get it,” I sigh. “I fucking hate it, but I would do the same damn thing if I were in your shoes to protect someone I loved.”
“Good. We agree,” she sniffs and wipes the tears away. “Do you mind if I use your shower and stay here for the night? My parents think I’m sleeping over at Kylie’s, and I really don’t want to face them right now. I need a night to pull myself together.”
“Sure. You can take my bed, and I’ll sleep on the couch. The bathroom is that way.” I point to the hallway off the living room. “I’ll lay out some fresh clothes for you on the bed. They will be big, but you’ll be more comfortable.”
“Thank you.” She gets up and walks slowly across the room. I can tell she’s trying to be brave, but she has to be in pain right now.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask, wishing there were something more I could do. This feeling of helplessness is gutting me in two, and I have no clue how to make this better for her.
“I will be,” she says, turning and giving me a sad smile before walking away.
Getting up, I walk to my bedroom and lay out some gym shorts and a t-shirt for her. I turn back the covers and set a glass of water with two Motrin on the nightstand to help with the pain. As I’m walking past the bathroom, I hear faint sobbing over the sounds of the running water.
Every piece of me aches for the part of her that was taken away tonight, and it suddenly becomes too much as I sink to the floor with my back against the door.
Bowing my head, my shoulders start to shake as I let go. I haven’t let myself cry since my mom died. Not even my dad’s hurtful words caused me to shed a single tear. He wasn’t worth my tears, but Savi…she’s worth them all.
I feel her pain through the door, and I gladly take it on, hoping it might somehow ease hers.
“This isthe first time we’ve talked about that night.” She says suddenly, pulling me back to the present. Her tears have finally stopped, and her eyes are red and swollen, but she’s still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. It kills me inside that he still has the power to hurt her after all these years. “You left the following week back to New York.”
After I dropped her off the next morning, we stuck to her story, and we never spoke of it again. I came by every day to make sure she was okay, but she refused to talk about it whenever I would get her alone. She would barely look me in theeye, and when she did, I was just a reminder of the worst night of her life.
After I left for New York, I distanced myself to give her space to heal, and this dark secret that bonded us became the one thing that tore us apart. We became each other’s outlet for all this anger, hurt, and guilt we had built up inside. It was easier to fight each other when we were together than to be reminded that it ever happened.
“We never spoke of it again because you asked me not to. I promised you a lot of things that night that I wish I hadn’t. We should have told someone, Savi. You were too young to take that on alone.” I untangle myself from her arms and get off the bed—suddenly too anxious to sit still. We’ve buried a lot of things under the rug, and I need to get some things off my chest.
