Chapter 22
THEO
I watch Bailey carefully, waiting patiently for him to open up to me.
The feeling of dread that sits heavy in my stomach hasn’t left me since yesterday.
I want to know what happened to him and why he hid it from me.
After what Shane did to me I can’t help but jump to conclusions about what he could have done to Bailey.
It was too easy for him. The animals had been building up in that shed for months.
He had petrol ready to go, some type of drug and a syringe; he was organised, he’d planned it.
He’s fucking psychotic. And Bailey had been living with him for years.
“Shane caught me trying to get rid of the mice, not long after it started. He said he’d help me.
H-he got rid of them for me, but said that I needed to understand the pain I’d caused them.
” He pulls his fists up into his sleeves, rubbing the cuffs together.
“It started with him pinching me until I bruised. Then drawing pins, pushing them into my thigh—”
“He what?” I snap, unable to stop myself from reacting.
Bailey stares right through me. “It wasn’t constant. A year would pass, but then it would be nine months, six months. When we turned fourteen, he said he needed to try something new because it wasn’t w-working anymore.”
I’m suddenly too hot. I let go of his knee and stand up, needing to move.
“I’d lie down on the bed and he’d—he’d burn me with cigarettes on my back and hips, over and over, to try to get me to stop being bad.”
I stop and look at him, remembering something from years ago. “Stand up.”
He looks up at me, eyes wide, as if he’s scared of me. I’m too far gone. Too desperate to see what I already know. “Get up, Bay.”
On shaky legs, he pushes himself off the ground.
I turn him around, and he goes limp, as if there’s no fight left in him, leaning against the wall as I lift his shirt and suck in a breath at the sight.
His back is littered with little circular pink and silver scars.
Puckered, with raised edges, they’re a stark contrast to his usual smooth, lightly tanned skin.
I brush my fingers along them, and he flinches.
The last time I saw him, there were a few concentrated on his lower back. But now—there are dozens.
“Why?” I choke out. “Why did you tell me they were from chicken pox?”
“If I had told you about them, then I’d have to tell you why. I was scared you’d leave me. You would have left me if you knew what I’d done,” he says, voice muffled from where he’s got his sleeve in his mouth.
“But you didn’t do anything.” I pull his shirt back down and turn him around so I can see his face.
“I did!” he shouts, face going red. “I let him do it—he’d ask me if I wanted it and I said y-yes! He was trying to fix me.” He gasps for breath.
I cup his face. “You never needed fixing, Bay. Shane fucked with your head so that you’d think it was you, but those animals had been in that shed for months.
I would have noticed if you’d been sneaking off to do that.
It would have taken time. He’d planned it all.
Have you ever used a syringe? Have you ever found one in your room? ”
He frowns, then shakes his head, rubbing the inside of his elbow.
“Th-the last time I saw Shane he used one on me, but he’d never—he’d never done that before.”
“The same night he injected me?”
“Y-yes.”
I want to shake him. Shout at him and say, ‘Don’t you get it now?
’ But I can see he’s still trying to process everything.
I can’t even begin to imagine how he feels right now.
It’s bad enough that for years, I blamed him for something he never did.
But he’s been carrying all this pointless guilt for far longer.
How the fuck did Shane manage to get that much control over him?
I feel sick. The evidence of it all was right there in front of me the whole time.
I hadn’t paid enough attention to my boyfriend—missed all the warning signs.
The mutism, the scars, the way he ran from me in the woods and screamed until he couldn’t fight anymore.
I thought that just being there for him to lean on was enough, but it wasn’t.
I didn’t show up when it mattered most. I left him.
What the fuck does that say about me?
I can’t stay still, can’t offer words of reassurance right now.
I prise myself away from him and run my hand through my hair, trying to remember the two years we were together.
Wondering how I got it so wrong. Why hadn’t I pushed him for answers when he said he’d had a bad day at home and couldn’t speak?
Pacing back and forth, I drag in deep breaths. “Your mum did nothing?”
“She didn’t know.”
“What about your stepdad? Didn’t he notice anything? You said he was a nurse.”
I watch as Bailey's face pales, and his lip trembles.
“What?” I step closer to him. Wanting to touch him. Hold him. Anything to close this chasm between us.
“He found out when Shane started with the cigarettes.”
“And?”
“He gave me antibiotics and cleaned me up.”
“He didn’t call the police? Or tell your mum?” I shake my head in disbelief.
“No. He used the excuse of cleaning up my burns to—” Bailey rubs his face, looking exhausted.
“To what?”
“He’d touch,” Bailey says so quietly I almost miss it. The reality of everything sinks in. How helpless he was. How no one showed up for him. The people he should have been able to trust took advantage of him or abandoned him. It’s all fucked.
I feel sick. I want to grab hold of him and never let him go again, but I don’t have the right to. “Jesus, Bay.”