No, I’d made him feel likehehad been the problem.
“I can’t bear to be touched byyou.”
Those words had haunted me for over fifteen years.
Still I couldn’t help whispering, “You could’ve fought for me.”
“You’re right, Sutton. I could have, and Ishouldhave. It’s my biggest regret.” He swept his arms out. “But…the fuck do you think I’m doing now?”
“Why didn’t you do it back then?”
Lane sighed, swiping that damn broad hand over his face in a way that told me he didnotwant to be having this conversation.
That made two of us.
“I was a kid, sunny. We both were. And I was so fuckingangry. For what happened to you, for how broken you felt, for my inability to do a goddamn thing about any of it. I’m still fucking furious. You were the thing that mattered most to me, and when it came down to it, I hadn’t been able to protect you. That thoughtgutsme, Sutton. It’s fucking haunted me for nearly sixteen years.”
I…hadn’t known. Maybe I’d been too wrapped up in my own despair and brokenness to evencare. That entire time of my life had been defined by the rape. There hadn’t been a single second of the day when in the thick of it that I hadn’t been entirely consumed by it. I loved Lane—then and now—but hadn’t had the bandwidth to dedicate to anything but my continuously failed attempts to heal.
When he’d gone, I let him.
He wasn’t the only one who could have fought for us.
“Do you hate me?” I asked quietly, afraid for the answer but needing to hear it regardless.
Slowly, he reached for me, and I let him draw me into an embrace. The fight drained from him as it simultaneously left my own body.
“Never,” he assured me. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“Can you forgive me?”
“Sunny, there’s nothing to forgive. If anything,youshould be forgivingme.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” I parroted. “We were kids navigating an impossible situation.”
Instantly, I could breathe more easily. I had no idea what would happen between us from here, but at least we’d cleared that bit of musty air.
For a heartbeat, he rested his forehead against mine, seeming to breathe me in. Then he sighed, not giving me a chance to respond before he let go of me and stepped away.
“Where are you going?”
“Giving you space,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
What if I didn’t want it?
What if I wanted to chase the high I’d experienced when he kissed me earlier instead?
I wasn’t ready to gotherewith Lane yet, wasn’t ready to give him my body. With him, it never stopped there anyway. Sex with Lane had always been a wholly vulnerable experience, not only baring myself physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. I always wound up giving himeverything, my heart and soul tangled in the sheets around us.
But there was something Icouldgive him now.
As the idea took shape, I reached for his hand and wordlessly tugged him toward the stairs.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
