Chapter 9 #2
I take a step closer even though closeness is the absolute last thing I need.
“I thought you were dead, Tessa. Do you have any idea how many nights I sat outside your dad’s trailer, waiting for any sign of you?
How many times I broke in while he was passed out and wondered what would happen if I threw all of my morals aside and hurt him until he told me where you were?
” I’m yelling now, the anger I’ve buried over the last seventy-two hours flooding to the surface.
She stares back at me, gaze hard. But her bottom lip trembles. It’s a mask. It’s all a mask.
“I told you. I changed my mind.” But her voice wavers.
It breaks, and her bottom lip trembles.
“You’re lying to me.”
She swallows hard, and the visible walls of her expression crack. “You were better off without me. Why can’t you see that?”
“He hurt you, didn’t he?” I ignore her question because it’s a deflection. A way to avoid feeling everything she’s feeling. “Your dad,” I add when I take another step closer. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. The only explanation.
Tessa’s eyes fill, and she takes a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.” How can I make her see? How can I get her to understand that she was everything to me? That I would have given anything to know she was okay? Even if it was just that she’d changed her mind and didn’t want to be with me?
The silence around us is deafening while I wait for her to speak again. Will she tell me the truth? Or will more lies spill out when she opens her mouth?
“He nearly killed me,” she whispers as a single tear slips down her cheek.
A rumbling fills the air around us, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s a growl coming from me. I clench my hands into fists, doing everything I can to keep my anger in check.
I knew it was him. And despite knowing that it’s not an “eye for an eye”, and vengeance belongs to God, I can’t help but wish I could turn back time and make him feel everything she felt and more.
She lowers back down onto the seat. “He called and said he needed to talk. That he knew he’d messed up, and he wanted to make things right. That he didn’t want to miss his only daughter’s wedding.”
“And you went.”
“I was an idiot.”
“You wanted him there. Even after everything.” As twisted as it is, I can understand why she went.
Not because I agree, but because Tessa was always loyal to the core.
It didn’t matter how many times his fist broke her; she always got back up, willing to forgive because “next time might be different.”
“Like I said, I was an idiot,” she says. “When I showed up, he wasn’t drunk like I expected, and he’d even cleaned. It gave me hope. I hadn’t seen my dad sober in—well, ever.” She swallows hard. “I let him get close and didn’t even see the fist before it hit my cheek.”
The anger consumes me because I can picture it so clearly. Him, red-faced and furious, and Tessa, wide-eyed and innocent. Desperate to be loved by the man who should have loved her the most.
“I’m not entirely sure what happened after that. But when I woke up, I was covered in alcohol. He’d dumped all of what he’d had in the house out on me and stood there with a lighter in his hand.”
Horror twists in my gut, and bile burns my throat. “He was going to light it?” My own voice cracks. She’d been facing the end of her life, and I was sleeping safely, dreaming of a future that would never come.
She lets out a shaky breath. “That’s certainly what it looked like to me. Somehow, I managed to get away. My ankle and wrist were broken, my face was bloodied and bruised, and I later found out I had three cracked ribs.”
“Tessa—” I start to take a seat, every ounce of anger I had before vanished beneath the weight of her confession, but she holds up a hand.
“I don’t want your pity. I never wanted your pity.” Tears stream down her cheeks, but there’s fire in her eyes now, so I remain rooted in my spot, afraid that if I push, she’ll shut down again.
“He told me that I would never be anything but what I was. That the alcohol would take me, too, just like it did my mother and him, and that one day you would see it and leave me. He said it was better if I just crawled into a hole and died and that he was more than happy to take matters into his own hands. Just like he should have done a long time before.”
I turn away, afraid that she’ll see the anger on my face and stop speaking. With both hands clenched into fists, I steady my breathing, drawing a deep breath in and letting it out slowly. If only I could rewind time and kill him before the alcohol took him.
Except that’s not the outlook I should have—and I know it.
God, please take these angry thoughts from me. Please help me offer Tessa what she needs now. She’s had enough anger in her life.
When I face her again, her cheeks are stained with fresh tears.
“You were the first person I wanted to call,” she whispers. “The only one. But I knew what you would do if you saw me.”
“I would have ripped him apart,” I growl. “They would have been finding pieces of him all over the county.”
“Exactly. And you would have thrown away your life for me when I’m not worth it. I never was. You should have found some perfect Christian girl and gotten married. Had perfect babies and lived your life without any of the baggage that came with me. You could have had a great life, Zane.”
Her words bring a fresh wave of anger washing over me.
This time, directed at her. “That’s a pretty picture of my life you painted there, Tessa.
There’s only one problem: I didn’t want anyone else.
I wanted you.” I still do. That realization hits me square in the chest. Because, even after everything that’s happened, if she gave me an opening, I’d crawl over broken glass to get to her.
To get the chance to love her like she should be loved.
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “It wasn’t meant to last, Zane. I was bad for you. I am bad for you. It took nearly dying for me to see it, but I ran as soon as I did.”
“You let him win,” I say simply.
“What?” Her tear-filled eyes open. “How can you say that?”
“You let him tear us apart. He wanted you to be miserable, and you gave him that.”
“I spared you.”
“From what? Happiness?” I snap. “A chance to be married to the woman I loved more than anything?”
“From the toxicity that runs in my veins!” she screams, tears running down her cheeks.
“Everywhere I turn, trouble follows. It caught up to me in Tulsa, too. I went on two dates with him, and when I wouldn’t jump into bed with him, he attacked me.
I attract darkness. Like some sort of twisted magnet. ”
“It wasn’t you.” I take a step closer to where she’s sitting, not caring that she wants distance.
“You were born into a terrible home, but you were climbing out of it. That’s why your dad did what he did.
Because he couldn’t stand to see you happy.
You weren’t the root of your problem until you made yourself one. ”
“Happy.” She all but chokes on the word.
“You gave your life to Jesus and were about to be married to someone who would never lay a hand on you in that way. He hated that, Tessa. He hated me because he knew you were the only thing standing between him and the grave. And I was going to take you away from that life. Away from the life of servitude and filth he’d forced you to live in. ”
“Jesus,” she scoffs. “He left me, too,” she whispers.
“No. He didn’t.” And the fact that she thinks He did only pushes my anger into overdrive.
How could she do this?
How could she throw away everything we built because a man not worthy of his biological title told her she was worthless?
She shakes her head and shuts her eyes tightly.
“Look, I’m not trying to get a sermon from you, Zane.
You wanted the truth, and now you have it.
I ran because I wanted to spare you from a life with a criminal record that would derail everything you’d worked so hard for.
I’m sorry for the hurt I caused you, but I did what I needed to do. ”
My fingers flex at my sides because all I want to do is pull her into my arms and make her forget every ounce of pain she’s ever felt.
I want to make her see that Jesus never left her.
That God has been right beside her from the very beginning.
But even though the brokenness on her face is killing me, the sting of the truth is a bite I’m not sure I can forget.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I really am, Zane.”
“I would have done anything to keep you here,” I say softly. “Tessa, I would have done anything for you.”
“I know,” she replies. “And that was the problem. If you don’t want to help me anymore, I understand. I can go and—”
“No. I’m still going to help you.”
“Why?”
Our gazes hold, and emotion snaps between us like a live wire.
Because I am still in love with you. Because even though you shattered my heart, I’d still tear the world apart to protect you.
“Because you meant a lot to me back then, Tessa. I only ever wanted you to be happy. And now I want you safe.” Before I can confess a whole lot more, I run a hand through my hair.
“I need to get a shower,” I say. “Then I need to make some calls.”
“About what?”
“So I can start getting us some answers.”