She glances around, chewing on her lip. “I think you have time to go.”
I sigh in relief, slipping off my shoes so I can run through the sand easier. “All right. I’ll be back.”
I maneuver through the sea of people until I reach the end of the crowd gathered around the stage. The bathroom building is just down the beach, but I break into a jog so I can ensure I’m back in time to see Weston place first. When I break out from therumbling noise of spectators, the sound of crashing waves and seagull calls take over, and just as I slip through the door of the women’s restroom, I swear I hear someone call my name.
I exit a few minutes later to the muffled sound of an announcer over the intercom near the ceremony stage. I can just make out the third-place winner stepping onto the podium. “Shit,” I mutter to myself, stepping off the concrete to run back toward the competition.
Though, just as my toes sink into the sand, a chilling rasp sluices through my bones. “Willow.”
His voice clatters off the walls of my chest as my organs shrink in on themselves, my blood turning frigid, my limbs freezing as I slowly turn to face him. When my eyes meet his—that soft brown gaze I thought I’d be looking into the day I got married, the eyes I envisioned my children having—a tear rips down the center of my torso, all of my innards splattering at my feet.
I’m left hollow and gaping—the emptiness quickly filled with fear.
Those soft brown eyes I once loved fiercely are simmering with loathing now. The jaw I once ran my lips along in the depths of night is now tense with contempt. Hands I once believed were made for healing—only to hurt me in the end—drag through his brunette hair with contention.
“Why are you here?” I ask, my voice so fractured it’s near inaudible.
“I’ve been looking for you all day.” His nostrils flare, gaze running the length of my body, nausea crawling up my throat as he makes his perusal. “I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around myself. I glance over my shoulder, lungs heavy with apprehension as I realize I’m so far from the safety of my family.Of Wes. I face him again, swallowing down the bile to add, “How did you even find me?”
“Found out you were attending this competition, and I was in Monterey visiting my parents so I figured I’d make the trip.” A sickly-sweet smile spreads across the mouth that used to feel like home to me. “You moved on quickly, by the way. Did you start fucking him before or after the abortion?”
My breath hitches, mouth dry and coated in revulsion, like my tongue wants to leap down my throat and hide within me, but it’s stuck to my teeth.
Parker spews the words like venom-tipped daggers, slicing through my skin and coating me in acid sting. They seep into my veins, flooding me with the guilt I’ve fought so hard to dissolve—the humiliation I thought I’d escaped.
“I’m leaving,” I say in a choked and ragged inhale, stumbling back.
“Bullshit.” Parker grips my arm, and my vision blurs. Flashes of his last touches blanket my mind. His touch doesn’t frighten me—I never feared him that way. Though now, it’s justwrong. The aftermath of that night is all I feel now. The manipulation, the disgust, the lies. All the memories I’ve worked so hard not to see each time I close my eyes come flooding back with a vengeance. “You’re going to explain why you didn’t tell me. Why you didn’t give me the basic fucking decency of knowing the decision you were making, let alone allowing me to have a say in it.”
I almost clam up again. Like I did that night with him, like I did with Camden at the beach, but my instincts fight harder this time. They know better. Nobody is coming to save me at this moment.
I shake out of his grasp, gaze cast to the ground.
“Look at me, Willow,” Parker snaps. “Look me in the fucking eye and tell me you were pregnant. Tell me to my face you hadan abortion and that you kept it from me.” His voice breaks, and it’s enough for me to lift my chin, finding a hint of emotion glistening in his hostile gaze. “You owe me that.”
Those eyes lift, focusing on something behind me as the sound of heavy breath filters through the air.
His voice is rough and low—a menacing beacon. “She doesn’t owe you anything.”
Weston’s chest presses against my back, his fingers brushing over my knuckles where my arm hangs limply at my side—a simple reminder that he’s here. The rock I can lean upon, even when there is no doubt he heard the harsh truth spewed from Parker’s lips.
All the secrets I’ve been keeping, all the most painful pieces of my past, now lingering in the air around us. Another thing Parker has taken from me.
My jaw is tight enough I fear it may shatter, trembling with all the words I’m holding back, as silent tears slip over my eyes, cascading down my cheeks.
Parker huffs a disgusted laugh, shaking his head. “You’re a horrible fucking person, Willow. I hope it eats you alive.” His gaze flicks to Weston. “Watch your back with this one. She’s a snake.”
Shame slices through me. I hold no guilt for my choices, no sympathy for Parker. His hatred isn’t landing the way he’s intending it to. It’s the fact that Weston is witnessing it, hearing the truth from a mouth that isn’t mine. That he’s experiencing the raw disdain radiating from a person who was supposed to love me—that I’m capable of being despised so excruciatingly. That, perhaps, I’m not worth loving at all.
“I’m not worried.” Wes chuckles harshly. “I’d never put her in that position to begin with—by assaulting her.”
Parker’s jaw drops, brows shooting into his hairline with utter disbelief before he barks a laugh. “That’s how you’re justifying it? You told this guy Iassaultedyou?”
“You know exactly what you did,” I whisper.
Recognition flashes over his eyes before he scoffs, rolling them. “We were together for two years, Willow. I didn’t need to ask permission to come inside you.”
