Twenty-Two
Cole
I tossed and turned all night. Probably slept in thirty-second increments before Trina’s words came back to haunt me, over and over again.
I would have killed myself.
I died that day.
He wasn’t the first.
That one. Among all the others. The fact she couldn’t see how she’d been used or taken advantage of, that she didn’t truly go into whatever happened to her with her eyes open and choose it. I’d been in law enforcement long enough to see the ugliest sides of people, to see abusers at their worst. Men who took what they wanted either through power exchanges, coercion, or force—or a combination of the three.
All through the night, her words rattled my brain, leaving me exhausted, furious, and ready to fly to New York and Georgia and have my vengeance on the men who beat her down so badly she was terrified of taking one single step to get back up.
Eggs bubbled in the pan, fried egg whites only since Trina had yet to eat a single yolk. Bacon sizzled and even though I knew she wouldn’t eat the toast, that too was in the toaster. I had coffee ready, orange juice on the counter. I’d get her eating. I’d get her smiling. I’d get her finding a single shred of hope inside of herself to cling to, and I’d work on it for as long as it took.
A woman like Trina, a girl who’d had such huge dreams, an even larger heart for people, and a foundation that was built on everything good and pure and sweet deserved to crave a life that was at minimum, filled with peace and not despair or self-hatred.
Bacon done, I used the tongs and gathered the slices on the paper towel-lined plate. Turning to put it on the plate next to Trina’s breakfast tray, I froze.
Tongs in one hand, plated bacon in the other, I stood there, unable to say a single word. Too afraid if I moved, she’d disappear.
Trina stood on the other side of the counter, hair brushed, eyes sleepy but alert.
At least one of us got some sleep last night.
She was also dressed in an outfit Valerie had sent with us. And I knew it was one of Valerie’s because it was far too high-quality to have come from Target or TJ Maxx.
“Hey,”
I finally said, startling myself back to life. “Morning.”
She pushed her lips to the side and scanned my kitchen. “I thought I’d eat up here if that’s okay.”
It was far better than okay. It was a miracle considering her state last night.
“Of course it’s okay.”
I set down the bacon, and turned back to the eggs. Once hers and mine were done in separate pans, and the toast had popped, I gathered everything and plated it at the counter.
I stayed on my side of the counter while Trina hesitantly slid into a stool across from me. She sipped her coffee. I added cream to mine. She played with her egg whites while I devoured my entire plate.
“Where are your kids?”
she asked, moving her eggs around her plate.
“Their mom’s house.”
“Marie?”
So she had listened. At least to some of the things I said. “Yeah. We share weeks. You should know I get them back Sunday after church.”
“I shouldn’t be here when they get back then.”
She should be here with them, every day, for the rest of our lives together, but I was desperately trying to keep that from unfurling into anything larger.
“Marie and I talked. She knows what’s going on, and she’s okay with the girls coming back. You’re a friend in town visiting. That’s all they need to know.”
She stabbed at her egg whites and then pushed a slice of bacon around. “You told her about me?”
“Not too many specifics of why you’re here, but some. She’ll keep it quiet.”
After all, I got all the friends in the divorce, which again made me an ass and Marie a saint. She could leave town and start over, but she stayed to give the girls stability. “She’s a good woman, and I screwed her over. But she’s okay with trying this, letting you be here with the girls. You’ll like them, Trina. They’re sweet. They have school in the morning and usually go to my parents’ afterward on the weeks I have them while I’m working. Well, Ella’s sweet. June’s on the race to give me as many gray hairs as possible.”
For the briefest moments, I swore her lip curled, but she tucked her chin closer to her chest and it was gone.
“I really hate it when you call me that.”
“I don’t know what else to call you. And I won’t call you Katrina, no matter how many times you snap at me too.”
“I don’t snap,”
she said, and her head lifted, eyes rounded, and the color washed from her cheeks. “Sorry, that was rude…”
“Stop.”
She clamped her mouth closed. “There’s nothing to apologize for, so don’t do it. In this house, you are free to say anything you feel like saying, however, you feel like saying it, but do not ask me to call you the name he did. That, I can’t do.”
Tears pooled in her eyes, and she looked away, shaking her head. It’d been a guess until then that it was Jonathan who forced her to go by Katrina, which was her birth name, but she’d never once used it. Said it was too stuffy and too classy for a small-town Southern girl.
“Do you hate the name or the reminder of who she was?”
She shook her head and for the first time, chomped down on her bacon. “You probably need to get to work, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
I was dying to do anything but that. Dying to ask her what changed. Why she was in my kitchen, not appearing completely hollow. Dying to know if she wanted to go back to Jonathan.
But those answers had to come on her time.
“Is your mom coming over today?”
“She can, if you want that.”
She shrugged, but somehow managed to finish the entire piece of bacon while she didn’t answer. “I think…maybe…? Maybe it’d be nice not to be alone today?”
The day would come when she wouldn’t turn everything into a question. I’d make sure of it.
“Then she’ll be here.”
The edges of Trina’s lips twitched. “Thanks, Cole.”
God, I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to brush my thumbs over her cheeks and wrap her in my arms. I wanted to hold her tight and fight her demons for her, and I wanted to do it all, all at once and all the time.
“You’re welcome.”
It took effort to hold myself back, finish my breakfast and load my dishes. By the time I was done and had filled my to-go mug with more coffee, Trina was still picking at her own plate. But she hadn’t moved, and she hadn’t run away, and she’d asked to spend the day with Mom, and all of that was good.
So I was going to make sure this ended on a good note.
“I’ll be back around five, assuming nothing wild happens. Have fun with Mom.”
“Okay.”
I wanted more than that. I wanted to see the light in her eyes shine again, see any hint of a spark in them, but that too, I’d have to wait for.
I grabbed my keys on the wall at the top of the stairs and headed down them. I had one hand on the garage door, the other holding my keys and coffee.
“Yeah?”
I turned and found her at the top of the stairs, chewing the inside of her cheek.
“I don’t...I don’t want to go back to Jonathan.”
Thank God. “Then you won’t.”
“I don’t know if I can do the rest, though.”
She sure as hell could.
“Then we’ll get you to a place where you think you can.”
“I don’t know if I can do that, either, anymore.”
More tears swam in her eyes and damn. Her pain was my new hell, and I couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t take it from her. Couldn’t slay the darkness she had living in her.
“Then we’ll start there. We’ll start by getting you thinking, and that’s all you have to do.”
She worked her lips back and forth, blinking back tears. “You’re being too nice to me, and I don’t deserve it. Not from you, most of all.”
Yeah, well, she was wrong about that.
“You remember what I told you that day you broke up with me?”
One shoulder lifted and fell. “Mostly.”
“Then you’ll remember I said I’d hate you for a day, but I’d always love you.”
“But—”
“No buts. I don’t think you’re ready to hear why, but it’s still true to this day. You don’t feel the same, but that doesn’t change the way I do.”
Her lips parted, full and pink and tears were running down her cheeks, and if I didn’t leave then I’d do something dangerous. Something stupid and reckless and I could ruin everything.
So, I flung open the garage door, climbed into my truck, and left with that look on her face in my memory.
Which was a lot better than how I left her last night.