So, I stayed silent and took another drink.
“Hey,” he snatched the bottle from my hand. “Look at me. You don’t need that.”
I pressed my cheek against the cracked, worn wood of the bar, and watered it with the steady leak at the corner of my eye. I squeezed my eyes shut and mumbled, “Just leave me alone. Please. Leave me alone.”
“Princess, what’s the matter? What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I’m fine. Can’t a girl get a drink?”
I reached for the limoncello, but he stepped between the bottle and me.
“Not like this. Not in the middle of the night, still wearing what you wore to bed.” His fingers plucked at the lacy strap of my top, and he continued, “Not when you’re clearly upset. I don’t know what happened, but this isn’t the answer. I’ve been there. I thought it was the solution, but it only amplified the problem. Come talk to me.”
“I am the problem! Don’t you get that? This is who I am. This is the only way I can survive.”
“That’s not true. You have so much more than this. Whatever you’re running from, it’s just a thing, a memory. It can’t dictate your life.”
I pushed my hands up into my hair and squeezed, trying not to cry.
“It already did. And now it’s not just one memory . . . it’s a thousand. And I can’t run. This isn’t me running. This is me giving in.”
I raised my hand and called the bartender. He started moving my way, but then Jackson pointed a finger at him and said, “No. Don’t give her anything else.”
Damn it. Now I was going to have to search for another bar because Hunt was sure as hell more intimidating than I could ever hope to be.
“I understand what you’re doing, Jackson. And it’s sweet, and I’m thankful, but it’s not going to work. Let me save us both the time and the trouble.”
We had only known each other a matter of weeks, and already the darkness had crept in. If we couldn’t beat it at the beginning when everything was fresh and the emotions were the most intense, there was no hope for a future here.
He moved in close, gripping my jaw and drawing my eyes up to his. “I told you the night we met that I didn’t care what you think you needed, and now is no exception. I’m not letting you do this.”
He took hold of my elbow and started pulling me out of the bar.
I tugged my arm loose, and stumbled back a few feet.
“You can’t just drag me along or throw me over your shoulder to get what you want, Jackson. Not this time. You’ll only make it worse.”
“Make what worse? Explain to me what’s happening. What’s changed?”
“Nothing.” I pulled at the corner of my lips like puppet strings. “That’s the point. I’ve been acting like I’ve changed. Like I’m the kind of person who can run away for an adventure with you or waste days in your bed. Like I’m the kind of person who can fall in love. I’m not. That part of me disappeared a long time ago.”
I brushed past him and out into the night, wondering if there would even be another bar in a village like this.
“Is this because of what happened when you were younger?”
I froze, stiff as a stone. I could feel the tiny pebbles that had snuck between the bottom of my foot and my sandal. I could hear the scratching noise in my lungs from trying to inhale and hold my breath at the same time. I could sense Hunt at my back by following the waves of my panic like sonar. I turned. “How do you know about that?”
“You said something . . . the night you were drugged. No details, just that . . . you knew what it felt like to be taken advantage of. I didn’t want to push you to talk about it if you weren’t ready, but I’ve been picking up clues, and if that’s why this is happening, you have to know it wasn’t your fault. Whatever was done to you . . . it was outside your control.”
“That’s not why I can’t do this. It’s a part of it, yes. It’s what came afterward, the part that was in my control.”
That’s what was killing me.
“Just tell me what you’re thinking. Talk it through. Maybe that will help.”
That was the last thing I wanted to do. The more I opened up, the more it hurt. That’s how all of this shit started.
I turned and started walking, the slope of the village down toward the water making it impossible to do so slowly.
“I’m not letting you walk away from this,” Jackson said behind me. “I’ve watched you let go and open up. I’ve watched your smile change from forced to brilliant. I won’t watch you back peddle just because it’s hard.”
I turned, furious.
“Screw you. You don’t get to belittle what I’m feeling and tell me I should suck it up. That’s all I’ve ever done is ignore what hurts, and look at where it’s f**king gotten me.”
His hands cradled my jaw, his fingertips pressing just hard enough that it cut through the haze of alcohol.
“I’m not belittling how you feel. I would never do that. I’m just asking you to let me in. Let me feel it with you.”
I tried to pull my face away, but he held strong. “You don’t really want that.”
“Try me.”
Rage bubbled up in me. I couldn’t tell what from or if it was for him or myself. All I knew was that I was overflowing with it. I pushed him away, his fingertips scrabbling at my cheeks.
“You want to hear it? Fine. It’s a simple story really, about a pretty girl who was pretty stupid. She let a man touch her because she was scared to say no, and then she told her parents because she was scared to say nothing. Then they were scared to do anything that might ruin their pretty little lives, so they told the girl that it was nothing. That just being touched wasn’t enough to fight for. Too scared to prove them wrong, she kept going like it was nothing, and she let more people touch her, never knowing that she was handing out pieces of herself. Or, hell, maybe she knew deep down, and she just hated herself so much that she was glad to be rid of them. And life wasn’t pretty, but it also wasn’t scary until she met a man with two names who touched her without taking and made her miss the pieces she had lost. And now things aren’t just scary, they’re f**king terrifying, and I can’t do it. I can’t live like this, knowing all that I’ve ruined and that it can’t be fixed.”
He caught my hands as they pulled through my hair, and pulled my body against his, and I felt all the holes in me. My sobs echoed through them like caverns, and I never would have thought empty could be made of such weight.
I couldn’t breathe around it.
25
A tightness was forming in my neck, like it was clamped in a slowly tightening vise.
Crushing.
Constricting.
If I didn’t get outside, I’d never be able to breathe. If I didn’t get outside, it felt like I was going to turn inside out, that my body would just give way and my insides would pour out. Wait . . . I was outside. It was dark and the air was cool, but I still couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t I breathe?
I had to hold on to Hunt to keep from stumbling backward and falling. Panic pooled in my body, lapping around my chin, threatening to pull me under any second now.
“Sit down.”
Hunt’s face appeared in front of me, blurry then clear, blurry then clear.
“Kelsey, just sit down.”
Now that I thought about it, my legs were shaking. I didn’t think I could walk long enough to find a place, so I just reached for the gravel road.
Instead, Hunt scooped me up and placed me on a bench. I looked around. We were in a boat. A boat of blue that someone had tied up outside their pastel green house. The details helped somehow, so I searched for more. Dark green shutters. Three floors. A mangy dog sleeping on the porch. A child’s toys forgotten in a corner.
Hunt was there beside me, asking me questions. His mouth was moving forever before I was able to understand him.
“You’re having a panic attack. Breathe. Just breathe. Close your eyes.”
I did what he said, and all I could say was, “Sorry.”
I was many things, but mostly I was sorry.
“Oh, princess. Don’t be. You never have to be sorry with me.”
I noticed my chest jumping before I noticed I was crying. “You’re okay.” His voice was deep and calm, and he pulled me into him. It didn’t make sense, but with my face buried in his shoulder, it was somehow easier to breathe.
“I don’t know where to start. I’m not that good with words. I’m a visual person. I know what I see, and I know that you are not missing any pieces. Not any, sweetheart.” My lungs ached, and my head spun. I held him tightly just waiting for it all to stop. “You’re bruised and battered from dealing with things you should not have had to face, but you are not less because of that. You’re more.” His hands smoothed through my hair, gentle and soothing. “Your parents were wrong. What happened to you was wrong. And they should have fought for you. You were brave enough to tell them, and they failed you, and I’m sorry. And I’m sorry that you had to learn how to medicate your own pain, and it’s not your fault that you had to do that. Someone should have been there to help you in another way. They weren’t, and that’s awful, but it’s also over. And this time I’m here, and I’m telling you there are other ways.”
I pulled back, wiping at my wet cheeks and said, “I thought that’s what you would be. I thought being with you was helping—but, oh God, it hurts worse.” I curled over onto my knees, as if making myself the smallest target possible would keep the pain from finding me. “Being with you made me realize what I’d been missing.”
“Shouldn’t that make you happy? That being with me feels good?”
“It does make me happy. When it doesn’t make me sad. I don’t know how to balance the two.”
His hand slid up my back, and then he pulled me up, prying me open. His hand curved around my cheek, and his thumb brushed over my bottom lip. “Not how you tried tonight. That doesn’t balance anything. It throws away the scale. I did the same thing once on leave. I went back to that life, tried to drink away what I saw in the sand. It made it easier to face when I was drunk, but twice as hard to see when I was sober.”
“God, I’m terrible. Making this huge deal when you’ve seen so much worse.”
“Stop.” He pulled my face close. “Don’t do that. Your parents may have made light of what happened to you, but there was nothing light about it. I signed up for the military. Mine was a choice.”
“So how did you deal with it?”
He smiled. “Trial and error.” His eyes dropped to my lips. “And I make sure there’s always another option that I want more. Just stay with me. We’ll beat it together, okay? Say you’ll stay with me.”
I swallowed, hoping that was enough. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“If you’ll tell me one thing.”
“Anything.”