13 #2
I regret the anguish I caused her, but I’m not sorry for the decisions I made. If I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I lost six years with her, but now we have a future. She’s alive because I broke her heart, and she’s going to stay alive while I put it back together.
“Are you going to scream?” I relax my fingers on her lips.
She shakes her head.
“Are you going to come with me without making a scene?” I lower my hand, freeing her voice.
“Why?”
It’s a loaded question. Why did I lie about Ketchup? Why does she have to come with me? Why am I sending her so many mixed signals?
“I have answers. Follow my lead, and you’ll get them.” I step back and hold out my hand.
She stares at my scarred palm and wraps her arms around her waist. “I won’t survive this.”
“You already have.”
Her gaze darts through the room, her shoulders tight and tendons standing out in her neck. I assume Jarret packed everything.
When her focus returns to me, it’s a slow, reluctant climb along my face before meeting my eyes.
“I’ll go.” She reaches back and grabs the door handle. “But I’m not holding your fucking hand.”
“After you.” I motion toward the door.
In the dark parking lot, I open the door of the truck for her and shut her inside.
Jarret approaches and slides her phone into my hand. “Good luck.”
With a pat on my back, he heads to the motel office with her travel bag. After he checks her out of the room, he’ll ride her motorcycle back to the ranch.
Step one finished. Ninety-nine thousand more to go.
As I pocket her phone and climb behind the wheel, the weight of the day catches up with me.
Cattle herding, bookkeeping, trailing Conor since she arrived in town—all of it seeps into my weary muscles.
It feels like bedtime, the stars bright against the velvet black sky, but it’s only nine o’clock. It’s going to be a long night.
Pulling onto the street, I drive in silence until I hit the first dirt road.
“Do you still play guitar?” I know the answer, but I need her to talk through it.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t have time for it.”
“When was the last time you played?”
“Chicago.”
“You miss it.”
She stares out the passenger side window, her voice a vault of hollow sound. “I don’t let myself miss it.”
I let that settle into the space between us. Then I push forward. “You never let yourself accept what happened in the ravine or with your dad in Chicago.”
“Stop looking for shit that isn’t there.” Her hand twitches on her thigh. “I’m not broken.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
“Then I don’t need to be fixed.”
“Didn’t say that, either.”
“What are you saying?” She cuts her eyes at me.
“Tell me what happened on your sixteenth birthday.”
I researched Prolonged Exposure therapy. The more she talks about her trauma, the less her memories will upset her.
“I was attacked.” Her voice is wooden. “We all were.”
“What happened to you , Conor?” I flex my fingers on the steering wheel. “Be specific.”
“You were there.” She turns back to the window. “No sense in rehashing it. It’s in the past.”
“No, it’s right here, in your triggers, in every aspect of your life. It’s haunting you relentlessly, because you refuse to stop for five fucking seconds and talk about it.” I take a calming breath and even my tone. “If you don’t confront it, you won’t defeat it.”
“I’m getting by just fine,” she says quietly.
“That’s right. You’re getting by .” I turn onto the next dirt road and slow the truck to a crawl.
“The mind does a good job at protecting you from things you can’t handle.
Sometimes, it’s too good. It represses memories and feelings, makes you believe you moved on.
But those walls you’ve built to hold everything back?
They’ll weaken. A hand on your wrist, a sip of alcohol, something will bring them down and let everything loose in one huge devastating flood. ”
She clenches her jaw, silent but listening .
“There’s a good chance you won’t be in a controlled environment when it happens.” I pause, searching my mind for scenarios. “You’ll be in a classroom or in a bar with no one around to hold you through the aftermath.”
Her mouth opens, forming a half-stunned, half-smiling O of disbelief. She stares at me with overly bright eyes then collapses over her lap in an outburst of laughter.
“Oh God, Jake.” She continues to laugh, but it’s mocking and forced. It’s not her laugh. “How much time did you spend online?”
I grind my teeth. I spent six years researching all the ways I can help her.
She shakes her head, still laughing. “What phrases did you search on? How to repair a ruined girl? ”
I punch the brake so hard the inertia sends her careening against the shoulder belt. Her head whips forward, and she releases a choked oomph .
Her hands flatten on her thighs, and she straightens in the seat. Then she slowly turns her neck and scowls the sexiest scowl I’ve ever seen. “You’re such an asshole.”
I lurch through the space between us, put my mouth an inch from hers, and inhale her fuming breaths. “You have no idea how badly I want to kiss the insolence off your face.”
Her chest hitches, and her gaze lowers to my lips.
There’s no build up. Or maybe it’s been building for years, but my need for her is ravenous. It roams, feral and restless, through my body, prowling under my skin, throbbing at the base of my spine, and tightening my balls. I need her, I need her, I need her…
She places a finger on my chest and pushes. “No thanks.”
I snap out of the hungry trance and return to my side of the seat.
Fucking fuck, what am I doing? I can’t kiss her. Not until I deal with the boyfriend. There’s an order of operations for a reason. A carefully considered plan.
Focus on the plan.
Letting my foot off the brake, I roll the truck forward. The ranch sits on the other side of that hill, just a few minutes away. The moment we arrive, she’ll be distracted by Ketchup.
I need to wrap this up. “In two weeks, Levi Tibbs will go free. We’re going to kill him, quietly and efficiently, and bury the body in the ravine.”
Silence.
“Any questions?” I ask.
“How do you know my triggers?” She rests a hand on her wrist, stroking it.
“Why do you even care? Last time I saw you, you couldn’t wait to get rid of me.
Now you’re… I don’t know what this is, but it feels like the coercions of a madman.
Stringing me along with lies about my horse? What the fuck are you doing?”
“For each answer I give you, you’ll have a dozen more questions.”
“No, I—”
“I promise you, Conor. Everything you don’t know is connected to other things you don’t know. There are so many…” Secrets. I rub a hand down my face. “I could unload it all on you right now. Full disclosure. But if I did that, I’d lose my leverage.”
“Leverage for what?”
Here we go.
“Your obedience.” I hold up a hand when she starts to interrupt. “I’m going to peel away your walls, piece by piece, using my methods. For every session you submit to, I’ll answer more questions.”
“You’re going to hold back information so you can dole it out like little rewards? That’s fucked up, Jake.”
“No, I’m going to trade answers for your participation. Answers in exchange for progress. If I divulged everything now, you wouldn’t agree to work through the grieving process.”
“Grieving process? I’m not—”
“You need to grieve the night in the ravine.”
She stiffens. “No, I don’t.”
“You were raped. Sodomized. Abused—”
“Stop!”
“You need to grieve your relationship with your family. The damage your dad did to you. His death. Your brother’s incarceration—”
“I can’t. I don’t need this.”
“You need to grieve our relationship.”
She needs to be enraged about it. She needs to loop back, reflect, and let herself be sad. I can’t move forward with her until she acknowledges the things I’ve done.
“I’m not broken,” she whispers.
“You don’t need me to fix you. You need me to sit with you in the sadness.”