16. Chapter Sixteen
Tank is leaning back on his bike, flicking a knife open and closed when I walk up to the church. I pause, lurking behind a tree, not making myself known. My stomach does that little flutter thing, reminding me that my libido works just fine.
“This place is creepy enough without you prowling in the dark trying to spook me,” he says, tipping his head back to look up at the moon.
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth as I step into the light. “Says the man who’s been stalking me. I was just going to ask why you didn’t wait for me inside.”
His head drops, and his gaze lazily roams over me. “No thank you.”
I laugh, twirling in a circle before darting past him and entering the building. Quickly, I hide around the corner. He chuckles darkly, following me inside.
As soon as he walks past me, I step behind him and pull the door closed. He pauses, shivering dramatically.
I place my back against the door. “You don’t fool me. I don’t think you’re scared at all.”
He turns around, pinning me with his piercing green eyes. The air leaves my lungs at their intensity.
“I’m going to tell them tomorrow,” he says suddenly.
“What? No. You said a week.”
He stares at the ground. “Kelsie, I need you to listen to me. I learned something today, and I …” He runs a hand down his beard, shaking his head. “I need you to keep the faith, but I think I need to take a step back.”
My hand flies to my heart. “From me?”
Tank turns away, moving farther into the church. He sits down after a few minutes, dropping his head into his hands. “Yes, from you.”
My heart beats fast, and I think I’m about to throw up. “Tank.”
He doesn’t face me. “I’m telling the club who I am tomorrow, and I think it’s time to come clean with your parents.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
I make my way toward him. “Don’t do this to me now. I need you.”
His head falls. “I will wait for you, little shadow. That I can promise.”
My head feels like it might explode. I climb onto his lap, grabbing his face in my hands. “Wait for what?”
He grabs my face too, staring into my eyes. “You’ve got more healing to do. We knew we were going to have to back off anyway, to give everyone time to wrap their heads around the thought of you and me.”
Instantly, I let go of him, trying to push off his lap. “That’s a bullshit excuse.”
Tank doesn’t release me. He locks his hands around my back, pulling us chest to chest. His face crowds into mine.
“Stop,” he says, shaking me slightly. “I know what you told your parents today.”
Instantly, I still. My gaze bounces over his face. How does he know?
“Your parents contacted the authorities,” he says, reading my mind.
I try to push away from him again, but he doesn’t budge.
“You told them Dr. Williams talked your mom into giving you to your uncle. And when you finally came forward, he paid you a visit and threatened you. He didn’t want anyone to know about his involvement in your trafficking.”
My hands shake as I press them against him. “How do you know this?”
“I’m from your hometown, Kelsie. Dr. Williams’ stepdaughter is a friend of mine. The authorities called her tonight to let her know another victim had come forward. She called me when she found out it was you. The other night, when you thought someone had sent me here … it was him, wasn’t it?”
Panic rises like acid in the pit of my stomach. Oh my god. Why did I tell my parents? If his stepdaughter knows, that means Dr. Williams knows, too. He’s going to come for me.
“I knew they were going to call the authorities; I didn’t know they’d do it so fast. If she knows, then …”
“You’re not in any danger,” Tank reassures me, brushing my hair away from my face. “He’s already in prison. He was prosecuted for several other charges years ago. You weren’t his only victim. He has at least six more years to serve on his sentence.”
My mind flits back to Dr. Williams’ tiny office and the arch-shaped window I always sat in while he visited with my mom. She went once a week for several years. I’m not sure why because he never made her any better.
I look up at the arched window of the church, suddenly feeling very small.
“Kelsie, did you hear me? I’d like for you to join us today.”
He waits for me to take the chair beside my mom.
“You’ve been causing your mother a lot of unnecessary stress lately, haven’t you?”
I return my focus to the window, watching as the wind blows frost from the tree outside. I ignore him. I’m not his patient. I’m not the one who needs to talk to him.
My mother’s depressed again. I should have seen it coming. It’s always the same. Very happy, happy, manic, sad, very sad, and then suicidal. Then the cycle repeats itself, and she goes back to being very happy. She’s currently very sad. I’ve come to realize that when she gets to this phase, she has to come up with a reason for it, and that reason usually ends up being me. There’s no one else to blame.
It hurts that she blames me, but it’s okay because I know it means she’ll be back to happy soon.
Today, Dr. Williams asked my mother to bring my Uncle James along. He showed up last week unannounced while Mom was in full-blown manic mode. I got five new Barbie dolls out of it this time. She likes to shop during the manic stage.
“Kelsie, I think it best if you go stay with your Uncle James for a while. Your mother needs a little break.”
This gets my attention. I glance over at my uncle. He smiles at me. I begin to shake my head, tightly gripping the arms of the chair. My uncle lives in a different state, and I barely know him.
“Now don’t make this any harder for your mother than it already is. It’s just temporary. Your mom is in a fragile state, and you, well, you don’t like to make life any easier for her, do you?”
My brows pull together and my chest clenches painfully. I know that’s not true. I always do my best to be good for my mother. Especially when she’s sad. She begins to cry, and I think maybe she’s going to stand up for me this time, but that’s not what she does. She just rushes out of the room.
Dr. Williams and my uncle exchange a look. They both stand and shake hands. “It’s been nice doing business with you,” Dr. Williams says to my uncle. “I’m sure this will be the beginning of a great partnership.”
My uncle nods, his eyes roaming over me. Dr. Williams leaves the room, and my uncle holds his hand out to me.
“Come on, sweetheart. We have a plane to catch.”
“Kelsie … Kelsie,” Tank whispers over my face. “Come back to me.”
“She didn’t stand up for me!” I cry out.
“I know, baby. I know.” Tank wraps his hand around the back of my head, pulling my face against his chest. “You need to work through this. You’ve come so far. But I promise I’m going to wait for you,” he reassures me.
“My soul doesn’t care about healing. It just found you.”
He grabs me tighter. “That’s why you’ll need to love it for the both of us. You need to speak to it gently while it heals, okay? Mine isn’t going anywhere. It knows of your existence. There’s no escaping me now.”
I chuckle sadly into his shirt.
“I have something else to tell you,” he says. “I dated a woman who was also a victim of Dr. Williams. She … she cheated on me with him. I don’t know what the man put her through or why she remained so loyal to him over the years. My guess is that he had something on her. It was the end of us when I found out. A few years later, I visited her. I gave her my forgiveness so I could move on, and the next day she tried to kill herself. She’s been unresponsive ever since.”
I sit up, staring at him. “My mom tried to kill herself after she learned what my uncle had been making me do. She took pills … she … she’s also unresponsive.”
He presses a kiss to my forehead. “I know. They are in the same nursing facility.”
Oh my god. I’ve never believed in six degrees of separation, but Tank and I seem to be connected in ways I could never have imagined. Maybe he’s right, and there is an invisible thread between us.
“Do you feel guilt over what she did?”
He nods, looking away. “But I know it wasn’t my fault.”
“My mom used to blame me, you know, for her depression. It wasn’t the first time she tried to kill herself, but it was the last one …”
When he turns back to me, he looks me dead in the eye. “My ex and your mom were both responsible for regulating their own emotions. Don’t ever take responsibility for the way someone else is feeling. Our feelings are our own.”
No one has ever understood me in the way he does. He’s right. My mother’s mental illness was a cross for her to bear. I don’t need to carry it with me the rest of my life. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I do have a little more healing to do.
Tank continues to hug me, neither of us speaking. Hours pass us by as we embrace each other. It’s going to be hard to let go.
Eventually, he eases his hold on me. “You should get back home,” he says quietly.
This is it. This is goodbye … at least for now. I don’t know when we’ll have a chance to be alone again. Slowly, I begin to roll my hips. I let my eyes fall to his lips right before I press my mouth to his.
His fingers wrap around my waist, stopping me. “Little shadow, don’t tempt me.”
“It’s okay to give into temptation once in a while, isn’t it?” I ask, leaning away from him, placing my hands behind me, bracing them on his knees.
He closes his eyes as his fingers dig into my thighs. He begins to drag me over the growing bulge in his jeans.
“I don’t want our first time to be in an old, dilapidated church,” he mumbles over my lips after pulling me close to him. It makes me smile against them.
“This is my favorite place. Try again.”
I lean away from him a second time, my hands grabbing the bottom of my shirt. His eyes narrow as I pull it over my head.
He sits forward, burying his bearded face between my breasts. “Now you’re just being a naughty, naughty, little shadow.”
It doesn’t take much more convincing, and soon we’re both naked and I’m lowering myself onto him. My head falls back, and I stare at the dove on the ceiling.
I used to hide in the place that is painted above us. I would beg God to let me stay there. He never listened, always sending me back to reality.
Tanks hands are rough and callused against my skin as he keeps a slow pace. “Look at me,” his gruff voice breaks the silence.
When I do, my heart fills with gratitude. I don’t have to hide from him.
“I don’t know how this is happening so fast. We don’t even know each other,” I say quietly, lazily drawing my finger down his chest. It’s such a weird feeling. Being this close to someone I barely know but feeling so completely and utterly comfortable in his presence.
“It’s because we see each other in an entirely different way than most. We see each other in the dark. It’s where I found you.”
Tears run down my face and fall softly on his chest. I wrap my fingers around his shoulders, staring into his eyes. His hands come up to cup my cheeks. He pulls our faces together. The shift of our bodies deepens our connection and makes him pick up the speed of his hips.
“I love you, little shadow,” he says.
For reasons I don’t quite understand, I believe him.
I place my heart in his hands, trusting he won’t break the parts I’ve worked so hard to fuse together.