Page 119 of Beautiful When He Breaks

“I’m sorry,” I say again, and the words break this time because there is no version of sorry big enough for what I mean. “Liefling, I’m so sorry.”

That is when he breaks.

His knees almost go first. Luca moves, but I’m already there, one arm wrapping around Eli’s waist while my other hand cradles the back of his head and pulls him into me. He folds forward with a sound I have never heard from him before. It’s torn out of the deepest part of him, and it goes through the room like a blade. His hands grab at my hoodie, fingers twisting in the fabric so hard I feel the pull against my shoulders.

I hold him up. That’s all I can do for the first few seconds. Hold him up while his whole body realizes what his mind just confirmed. He doesn’t sob in a clean rhythm. It comes out broken and uneven, breath punching out of him, then catching, then tearing loose again against my chest. His face is buried in my hoodie, and I can feel the wet heat of his tears through the fabric. I press my mouth to his hair because if I don’t put the grief somewhere, I’m going to start shaking too hard to be useful.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I say, low and fierce, right against him. “You hear me? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He shakes his head again. “There’s a video,” he says, voice muffled against me. “She filmed it. She… fuck!”

“I stopped it,” I say immediately; I need him to know that much. “I stopped before anything more happened. I saw enough to know what it was, and I stopped. I swear to you, I stopped.”

He pulls back to look at me, and the broken expression on his face almost puts me on my knees. “Was I awake?”

There are questions that should not exist. This is one of them.

“You were conscious,” I choke out, “but you weren’t clear. You weren’t… You looked drugged, Eli. You asked her to get me because you weren’t feeling well, and you looked like you were trying to understand what she was saying but couldn’t.”

“I knew,” he says, and it comes out with a kind of horror that makes my stomach turn. “I fucking knew something was wrong. I knew it. I knew I didn’t—” He stops, chokes, tries again. “I knew I didn’t choose that.”

“You didn’t,” I say immediately. “You said no, and she ignored you.”

“She told me I did.” His voice is getting smaller, and that scares me too.

A tear slips down my face before I can stop it. I don’t wipe it away. “She lied, baby,” I whisper. “She lied because she needed you to doubt yourself. That’s what people like her do. They put their shame in your hands and tell you it’s yours to carry.”

His breath catches at that, and I know he hears more than Celeste in those words. Blakely is there too. The echo of my own stupid, brutal months. The way shame is never content with one victim if it can teach people to pass it around.

“Listen to me, that video does not change who you are. It gives you proof that you were violated.”

He flinches at the word because I found the place shame is trying to move in, and I hate that shame so much I could tear the world apart with my hands.

“She did this,” I tell him, holding his gaze. “Celeste did this. The girls who helped did this. Everyone who knew and laughed or hid it or used it did this. You did not.”

His breathing stutters, and I keep my hands on his face, thumbs steady against his skin. “You hear me?”

He nods once, but it isn’t enough.

“Say it,” I tell him.

His mouth trembles. “I didn’t choose it.”

“Again.”

His eyes close. “I didn’t choose it. I was… I was raped.”

I press my forehead to his, and for one second, I forget there are other people in the room. “I wish I could take your pain away, Liefling.”

He breaks quieter than anyone should have to break, and I hold him through it because I came when he called and I will keep coming every time after this.

I pull him in and hold him against my chest, one hand spread between his shoulder blades, the other cupping the back of his head. “You called for me. You called for me because you were scared and she…” I can’t even finish those words.

Killian’s voice cuts through the background, already setting the machinery of justice in motion. But for this moment, the whole world narrows to Eli’s shaking body and the single truth I keep saying into his hair because he needs to hear it until he can believe it.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I tell him again.

His breath shudders.