Chapter 30 Shiloh
Thirty
Shiloh
I don’t remember walking to the shack. After chugging the beer I found in the guys’ mini fridge, the night turned hazy.
As if I were submerged in a dark pond, wading through the murk.
A million times better than the sharp, piercing light of reality.
Images burned in my eyes—the glitter of broken glass, like diamonds.
The black slashes of spray paint. The horrified expressions on my family’s faces. The pity.
And lurking beneath all that, Mama’s truth.
Better to drown.
I vomited at the beach. At home. Someone gave me water, and I vomited again. I lost track of the hours. Lost track of where I was. I lay in bed, and Bibi put a cold cloth to my face. The next instant, I was in the bathroom, kneeling at the toilet.
The hours ebbed and flowed around me in that murk.
Ronan’s deep voice spoke to me in hushed undertones.
Bibi soothed. Both tried to get me to look at them.
To talk to them. Both tried to tell me it was going to be okay.
When I wasn’t sick, I lay curled away from them, facing the wall, shudders running through me.
The alcohol poisoned me but not nearly as bad as the rest.
Mama…
Finally, my body had purged itself to the point of exhaustion, and I slept.
Sunlight was coming through the windows in my room the next time I opened my eyes. Midday maybe. Ronan was sitting on the floor against my bed, head down. I watched him for a few moments, the rise and fall of his chest.
God, I loved him. It felt impossible I could love him as much as I did. But how could he look at me now that he knew the truth?
Ronan stirred, and I rolled away again, curling up tight.
“Shiloh…”
I squeezed my eyes shut, and after a while, he gave up. I slept.
When I woke next, the light was honey-colored twilight, and Ronan was gone.
He left me.
In the deepest part of my soul, the thought didn’t ring true, but I wanted to leave me.
I wanted to crawl out of this skin and into someone else’s body.
Someone who was created with love out of partnership.
Being an accident, like I’d been raised to believe, was better than this.
Anything was better than knowing I was the product of my mother’s nightmare.
I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest. I was in my underwear, the dress for my grand opening hopefully in the trash. Or burned. The alcohol was out of my system, and the murky drunkenness was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts, clear and naked.
My shop…
I sucked in a breath, unwilling to let the torrent of pain come flooding out. If I cried over my shop, my mother’s revelation would follow, and then I might not stop.
A soft knock came at my door, and Bibi poked her head in. “Shiloh?”
“I’m awake,” I said, my voice a hoarse croak. “You must have a sixth sense.”
“Of course I do. You’re my girl.” Bibi sat on the edge of my bed and cocked her head. “How we doing, baby?”
I shrugged. “My store is ruined, and my father’s a rapist. That’s how I’m doing.”
Bibi sighed and took my hand. “Oh, honey.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “I don’t know how to talk about it. Or what to think or feel except…horrified. Disgusted. Dirty. I feel so dirty, Bibi.”
“Now don’t you talk like that. There’s nothing you did wrong. Nothing wrong with you. Not one thing.”
I was too exhausted to argue, and it was useless anyway.
“Where is everyone?”
“They’re back at the hotel, ready to come over the minute you feel up to it.”
I was already shaking my head. “Tell them to go home. Tell them thank you, but they should go home.”
Because how can I ever look them in the eye again?
“Come on,” Bibi said. “Let’s get you a shower. Get some food in you. You need to eat. Then you’ll feel better and can think more clearly. When you’ve rested up, we can work out what to do about your shop—”
“My shop.” I scoffed. “There is no shop, Bibi.”
She pursed her lips, her expression harder than I’d ever seen it. “Now you listen to me, Shiloh. What happened last night was bad. Very, very bad. And you’re allowed to feel all kinds of ways about it. But you cannot give up. Do you hear me?”
Giving up sounded really good right about then. All the work I’d done—years’ worth—was teetering on the edge of a high cliff. Barely hanging on.
“My insurance is bare-bones,” I said. “It covers customer safety and theft, not vandalism. And the repairs, the cleanup…” I shook my head with a sour laugh.
“It’s fitting, isn’t it? I worked my ass off for that shop to prove to Mama that I was worth something, that I could create something beautiful, and it was smashed and ruined and painted black, just like Mama’s life was that night. She was vandalized too.”
Bibi squeezed my hand tighter. “One step at a time. We’re going to get all this sorted out and made better. But first things first. Shower and food.”
I relented and stood on trembling legs. “Where’s Ronan?”
“He went back to the shop,” she said.
“God,” I muttered. “He’d better not spend his money—”
“Shiloh,” Bibi said sternly. “That boy loves you and wants to help. Let him.”
Tears welled in my eyes. “How can he love me, Bibi? Now that he knows… How can anyone love me?”
“Oh, honey.”
The enormity of it tried to get me, but I couldn’t let it. Not yet. It was too much. Terrifying.
Bibi helped me into the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and showered. After, she handed me a towel and walked with me back to my room. She’d laid out clean underwear and a short nightgown I wore in the summer. My sheets had been changed.
I dressed and climbed back into bed. Bibi brought a bowl of homemade black-eyed peas and collards soup.
“Had to keep myself busy and thought the soup would be easy on your stomach.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the bowl. For Bibi’s sake, I had a few bites, and she was right, I felt slightly stronger. Strong enough to ask what I didn’t want to ask.
“What happened with Frankie? Was Ronan right?”
“I spoke with Detective Harris this morning. The police questioned him last night.”
“And?”
“Harris said they didn’t have probable cause to arrest him. He had an alibi—at home with his father all night.”
The soup wanted to come back up. I set the bowl on my nightstand.
“Shiloh…” Bibi said as I slunk under the covers and curled in a ball.
“I’m tired. I just want to sleep a little more, okay?”
I heard her sigh, and I hated that she worried about me but not enough to sit up and eat her soup and pretend like my life wasn’t falling apart.
The bed dipped as Bibi left. The tears threatened again, but I dove into sleep before the grief could find me.
When I woke next, it was dark, and Ronan was where I’d seen him last—sitting on the floor as if he were waiting for me.
“Hey,” I said softly.
His head came up instantly, and he unfolded his tall body to sit at the foot of my bed. “Hey. How do you feel?”
“That’s a loaded question.” I sat up, toyed with the coverlet. “I’m having a hard time not wallowing in self-pity, honestly. Part of me wants to get up and go to the shop and work. Work even harder… But part of me wants to curl up under the covers and not come out.”
“I know.”
“Bibi said Frankie wasn’t arrested.”
“No, he wasn’t.” Ronan’s voice was still and dangerous, like black water.
“But you’re sure it was him?”
He nodded.
I sighed. “Guess it doesn’t matter. It’s done.”
“I’m handling it,” Ronan said.
Something in the way he said that made me shiver. “You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do. It’s my fault.”
“Yours? How?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I plucked at the cover. He was down at the foot of my bed, and I was at the head, and he wasn’t touching me. He wanted to leave; I could practically feel it vibrating off him. And then I couldn’t take any more. Losing him…
“You don’t have to stay,” I said, the swell of emotion beginning to rise like a river threatening to overrun its banks. “In fact…” I swallowed the tears, but they gathered behind my eyes with a hot, achy pressure. “If you don’t want to see me anymore, I’ll understand.”
His head whipped up to look at me. “What?”
I shook my head, my gaze on my hands. My hands that were like my mother’s but with his blood flowing underneath. “After what Mama said… I get it. I can hardly stand myself right now.”
Ronan shot off the end of the bed to sit beside me. His hands gripped my shoulders, then slipped up over my cheeks, holding my face. “Fuck, Shiloh, no.”
I shook my head, the first tears spilling over and running down to his fingers.
“I think I knew. I think I always knew, somewhere down deep. So I tried so hard to prove I was…more. That I had a purpose here.” The sobs were in my chest now, stealing my breath, tearing my voice to tatters.
“But she could never stand to look at me, and I… I get it now. My whole life…it’s her pain.
That’s what I am. I’m a walking, talking reminder of that night… Half of me is him. A monster.”
The dam burst, and the sobs poured out. Racking, choking sobs I’d been holding in for years.
Stagnant and poisonous. Ronan’s arms went around me, and he pulled me into him.
Held me tight so that I could collapse. At long last, I fell apart.
I cried like I’d never let myself cry, and he held the broken pieces of me together.
“You’re not,” he said gruffly into my hair. “You’re so fucking beautiful, inside and out. And brave, Shiloh. So brave.”
“I’m not brave,” I cried against his chest. “I’m scared. I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything right now,” he said, his voice rumbling in my ear. “I got you. I’m going to fix things, Shiloh. I swear it.”
“Do you…still love me?”
He sucked in a shocked breath. “Shiloh…yes. Christ, of course I do. But what happened to your shop—”