Chapter 79
NOW
Paloma
“We can take it slowly, and if you want to stop, we will. You’re in control, Paloma.”
Dr. Sutton’s voice is calm and smooth. If she’d asked me this months ago, I think I might have snapped. Or never attended another session.
But I feel different now. Not better necessarily, when it comes to this topic. But at least stronger. Something about fighting back that day instilled a new mantra in my head: He can’t hurt me. And I can hurt him.
It might not be healthy, but it’s working for now.
In the past five months of therapy, we’ve talked circles around my mother, my trauma, and Ethan, but never specifics. And this time, I want to go through it all. Unpack it. Learn something and feel better about it—if that’s possible.
Maybe the timing is everything. Ethan’s trial won’t be for several months, but to see the line of young girls and women that have agreed to stand beside me and give their testimony has given me something I didn’t expect: Hope. The sense of not being alone.
For a long time, I blamed my younger self for being foolish and idealistic. For getting herself into that entire mess. For degrading herself and stooping so low, as if that would earn some kind of affection.
I blamed myself for believing I’d asked for something I knew I never did.
It’s a process, to come to terms with it all. To love and care for myself again. But I’m working on it.
“Are you ready?” Dr. Sutton asks.
I nod.
· · ·
Bennett is sitting in the car, idling on the street outside when I finish. There’s an overly sugary coffee in the cupholder, a pillow in my seat, and Seven in the back—the same way he always prepares to pick me up from therapy.
Sometimes Alessia does it and we do a hair and nail day afterward, if I’m not exhausted. But on the days where it feels heaviest, I like when Bennett is there.
My warm comfort. My steady shore.
“Hey, P,” he says, leaning over the console to kiss me. His hand pets along my hairline, tucking strands behind my ear as he examines my face closer. “All right?”
Seven sets his snout on my shoulder, nudging my cheek, and I give him a kiss.
I smile. “I’m good. Today was good.” I reach for my coffee and take a long, soothing sip. Hot even on a warm spring day. “I think I want to go swimming today, actually.”
Bennett’s ocean-blue eyes glimmer. “Yeah? I’ll drop Seven off and we can go.”
He slips his sunglasses back on and maneuvers us onto the road, turning up the music and rolling down the windows so I can bask in the sun a bit more.
Bennett swims with me now, though I could lap him easily with my speed compared to his bulk. He finds it therapeutic in some ways, too. But he enjoys swimming in the ocean more.
Instead of our usual lap pool, we go to the outdoor area.
It’s moderately filled with other students enjoying the last few days before graduation, suntanning and splashing one another.
Bennett and I sink into the water at the deep end, his feet easily touching while I swim circles around him, caressing him freely, splashing him every now and then until his curls are damp and tamed.
“Are you excited for tonight?” he asks, catching me around the waist to hold me up.
Tonight is the Sleepover—hosted by Ro Shariff and entirely her idea. She invited Sadie, me, and Lily to the half-cleared-out Hockey House while the guys spend the evening playing video games with Oliver and Liam at the Koteskiys’.
I nod. “It’s Lily’s first every slumber party. Mine too.”
“I know.” Bennett nods, curling a finger in my wet lock of hair. “It’s going to be amazing. Just—don’t do anything insane.”
My lips quirk. “But I already ordered a male stripper.”
He dunks me under the water, hoisting me back up as I sputter and laugh, shaking my hair out like a dog against him. “Ha, ha—very funny.” He leans down and kisses me on the mouth, stealing my breath and any other jokes I planned to make.
“Can I wash your hair? Before you go?”
Cheeks flushed, I readily agree, before climbing out of the pool and tugging him behind me. I’m always borderline desperate in my want of him—especially now, skin dripping, hair wet, eyes sparkling in the sun.
The thing between us, the string that’s tied us together, pulls tight. Years of pain, heartache, and frustration—I wouldn’t do it that way again. But if it meant this at the end—him, happy and smiling and relaxed—then maybe it was worth it.
Bennett bites my shoulder playfully as he passes me, but the words he often whispers beneath the sheets as we grasp each other linger in the air as if he said them aloud.
Bite down on my shoulder again and let me show you.
A poet in his own right, and he treats my one attempt at writing like a gospel. It’s my favorite, he says before reciting my own words that I barely remember back to me.
Slip me into your brain, I think, looking at him as we walk back to the car. Keep me forever.