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I hesitate, wishing this wasn’t my decision. Slipping my chin up over my shoulder, I look back at Bennett. He’s standing quietly, hands in pockets, eyes on me—red and waterlogged. But there are evident traces of fury across the planes of his handsome face.

I nod.

As I step away, I can barely make out the click of Alessia’s tall heels, and her voice.

“Paloma’s going to shower and sleep in your room. But I think you should give her some space, just for a bit.”

My steps grow quicker after that.

• • •

It feels like days go by between my shower, changing clothes, and sitting on Bennett’s bed, but it’s only been an hour. Seven is at my side, his paw on my thigh like he wants me to lay down so he can press his weight on top of me. He can feel my anxiety.

I feel stupid, sitting in Bennett’s clothes, my usual wooden paddle brush in my hand, tangled hair creating a wet spot on the back of my shirt. But I can’t do it.

A knock finally sounds at the door. I feel a hiccup caught in my chest as I wait for Bennett to enter.

“P?”

“Come in,” I squeak out, eyes welling almost immediately at the disheveled sight of him.

He stands at the foot of his own bed like a stranger, eyes downcast like he can’t look at me. My hand squeezes on the handle of the brush. I feel stupid, ridiculous.

“I’m sorry if I shouldn’t be here,” I whisper. “And I know I need to explain—”

“You don’t,” he cuts me off, voice gruff. “Not if . . . not if you don’t want to. I don’t want to ever take something from you that you didn’t want to give.”

My heart aches. “Bennett, I want to explain. To you. Because you deserve to know, but also because I want to tell you. So you can have all of me.”

His eyes are blistering and sincere as he stares down at me. “Okay,” he says. Bennett takes a step forward, then pauses and, voice filled with the same vulnerability I feel, asks, “Do you want me to brush your hair?”

“Please?” I ask, scooting forward on the bed.

Bennett comes around my side, settling the bulk of his body at my back. He takes the brush from my hand and starts on the ends of my tangled hair, never pulling, ever gentle.

And the almost hypnotic feeling that comes from the task allows me to speak.

This time, as I tell the story he’s heard in pieces, I tell it as myself.

“Have you noticed the way you talk about these things? It’s like they happened to someone else.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, hugging myself around the middle as I settle back in the chair. “It’s not that—I just . . . It’s fine. It happened and now it’s over.”

“Paloma,” she says, voice soft. “It happened to you. And I think you need to remember that—”

It’s hard, sometimes, to remember that the little girl with pigtails in the back of my mind, who forces me to hold on to the velveteen rabbit stuffed animal and keep a constant grip on my backpack like someone will take it, is me.

Bennett sits quietly, even after he finishes brushing every strand of hair, careful and tender. A solid presence against my back, firm. Unyielding—like he’s always been.

I tell him everything—how Ethan found me, how he manipulated me for years. How he took my virginity at fourteen and then spent the next two years convincing me I’d asked for something I knew I didn’t want. I explain the mind games, the times he picked me up in a police cruiser from my friends’ places, keeping me isolated and terrified of leaving or telling anyone.

It takes a long time—long enough that it’s three in the morning by the time I finish, voice hoarse. I’m sure there will be more stories, pieces of trauma that come out at different times throughout my life—Dr. Sutton had warned me as much, and even she hadn’t gotten to talk about this with me just yet.

And there are still things I’m not ready to say, as if saying them aloud makes them more real than they already are. Or gives them more power to hurt me again.

But I’ve said enough.

Lastly, I explain the full story of what happened on New Year’s Eve our freshman year, when I saw Ethan again. Part of me wants to downplay it, to make Bennett feel better—but lying and covering up for three years hasn’t helped anyone. So, I don’t.