Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
LIAM
She follows me up to the apartment like a zombie. I don’t even know if she can hear me talking to her. I subtly sweep her for other injuries as I open the door and follow her inside, but there’s nothing visible other than her busted lip. Did all of that blood come from her mouth?
Jesus Christ, that must hurt.
Blinding rage threatens to swallow me whole. I clench my hands into fists as I steer her to one of the kitchen chairs so I have some good lighting to clean up her face. She offers no resistance, her socked feet shuffling along the hardwood, and she all but falls into the seat.
I set her bag and shoes in the chair next to her, then hurry to find the first aid kit in the bathroom. Just focus on the task at hand . If I think too hard about how she ended up here, about what happened to her face, I won’t be any use.
She’s staring at the table when I return, and she doesn’t acknowledge me as I pull up a chair beside her. She still has my jacket tightly wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair is tucked beneath the collar, but a few strands fall out and frame her face. Makeup is smeared all around her eyes from crying.
Focus on the task at hand.
“Can I take a look at that?” I ask, trying to keep my voice gentle.
She blinks, finally noticing me. Her eyes are so wide she still looks like a deer in fucking headlights. Is it the shock…or does she really not feel safe here? I ignore the twinge in my stomach and slowly extend my hand toward her face. Sudden movements probably aren’t a good idea right now. But she doesn’t flinch or pull away as I tuck the hair behind her ear. Propping my fingers under her chin, I tilt her face up toward the light.
Her eyes squeeze shut as I dab at the blood around her mouth with a wet cloth, trying to clean it up enough to see what we’re dealing with here. I’ve had my fair share of cuts and bruises from my early skating days—and some more recent incidents, to be honest—but I’ll know pretty soon here if I’m out of my depth.
She winces as I get closer to her lip.
“Is it bad?” she whispers as I set the towel on the table. “I’m too afraid to look.”
“No, Gracie,” I murmur. “It’s not bad at all.” Thankfully, I don’t have to lie. She must have bit her tongue or something too to get all that blood because the damage to her lip is minimal. It’s more swollen and bruised than anything. A saltwater rinse and an ice pack and she should be fine.
But there shouldn’t be any damage in the first place. Did he hit her? I grit my teeth as a million scenarios play out in my head.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
She drops her gaze to the table and shakes her head. I can’t tell if she’s telling me the truth.
“What happened tonight?”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Her shoulders hunch in, and it’s like I can see her shutting down further before my very eyes.
“I’m going to get you some salt water to rinse out your mouth and some clothes to sleep in, okay?”
She nods without looking at me. Maybe she just needs more time to process. I know pushing for answers isn’t helpful to her right now, but I can’t get the image of her shivering and bloody on the side of the road out of my head. It’s taking everything in me not to track down Miles and beat him to a pulp right now.
She doesn’t say anything else, not as she rinses her mouth, not as she changes clothes in the bathroom, not as I help her into my bed.
“I’ll be right on the couch if you need anything.” I set a glass of water on the nightstand. I should go now. Let it rest. Let her rest. But I can’t help myself. I lower to my knees beside her head.
“Please don’t tell Leo about this,” she whispers.
I blink and rock back an inch. That’s definitely not what I was expecting.
“You can talk to me, you know,” I say.
Her eyebrows pull together.
“Please, Gracie,” I add. “Talk to me.”
She looks away, and silence stretches between us for long enough that I think that’s that. But right before I’m about to push to my feet, she says, “On the drive home, he was getting really handsy and wasn’t taking no for an answer. He pulled off to the side of the road, and when I kept saying no, he got mad. He told me to get out of the car. When I didn’t move fast enough, he reached over me to shove my door open and his elbow hit my chin. I don’t…I don’t think he actually meant to hurt me.”
Didn’t mean to… As if that makes the story any fucking better. As if leaving her deserted on the side of the road in the middle of the night is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.
Fucking Miles. He’s always been immature and pain in my ass, but this? And it’s my fault she met him in the first place.
I force down a deep breath.
Her lip already looks twice as swollen as it did when I picked her up. I slip the ice pack off the nightstand. “Do you want this?”
She reaches for it wordlessly, though a flicker of amusement passes over her eyes.
“What?” I murmur as she presses it to her lip.
“Déjà vu.”
I crack half a smile. “Let’s not make this a regular thing, yeah?”
“You don’t like being my nurse?” she teases.
“I’d put on the skimpy little uniform and everything if you asked me to.”
She swats my arm, and I chuckle, more relieved than anything that she seems herself again. She had me worried there for a second.
“Thanks, Liam,” she says quietly. “For picking up, for coming to get me, for everything. I don’t know what I would’ve done if…just, thank you.”
I reach for her hand before I think better of it, but she doesn’t pull away as I lace my fingers through hers. Her hand feels so small in mine, her fingers cold from the ice pack. Her nails are painted light blue, the same color as her dress. They hadn’t looked that way at work earlier, which means she did them just for this date, and he wasn’t remotely worth it. I rub my thumb back and forth along the back of her hand.
I don’t say anything else, and neither does she. I can’t imagine any words that could make this right. What am I supposed to say? “I’m sorry this happened”? “You didn’t deserve this”? What good will that do her?
But I don’t move, and she doesn’t let go of my hand. I just sit on the floor beside her and wait until she falls asleep.