Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
avery
When Did You Stop Loving Me? – LANY
Idon’t think as I launch myself out of my car.
I slam the door shut and sprint toward those big arms opening for me.
Kane stands in front of the door in a blue T-shirt and sweats, and the second I reach him, I launch myself into his arms. He catches me easily, wrapping those big, strong arms around me so tightly it feels like he’s holding on to me as if I’m his lifeline.
Today felt like an eternity had passed, even though I woke up in his arms this morning. I had rolled toward him as the sun barely peeked through the curtains, illuminating the room just enough for me to study the outline of his face.
I know we have a lot to talk about and even more to figure out, but standing here with his arms around me, my heart calms for the first time all day.
Last night felt so much like a dream that I almost convinced myself it was one.
I thought I was hallucinating when I opened my door and saw him standing there, drenched from the rain, looking at me with so much sorrow in his eyes.
Everything after that felt like a fever dream, like I was finally hearing every word I had wanted to hear for the past three months.
We stand there wrapped in each other for a couple of minutes, both of us savoring how it feels to be like this again. The days we lost and the words we forgot fall away as we hold on to each other, breathing in sync.
I pull back just as he does, his hand coming up to brush my hair away from my face while the other stays firm on my back, keeping me plastered to his front.
He looks at me with a soft expression, a smile so small someone else might miss it. But there is little I miss when it comes to Kane.
“How was your day, pretty girl?” He places a soft kiss on my lips, and I close my eyes, savoring the feel of them on mine.
When he pulls back, I say, “Too long. How was yours?”
“Why don’t we go inside?” He lets me go only long enough to grab my hand and pull me in after him. My hackles rise at his ominous answer.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I follow him inside, the scent of something hearty hitting my nose and making my stomach growl.
Kane glances back at me with a smirk as we cross the threshold into the living room.
The open concept leads straight into the kitchen, with a small table to the left for keys and mail.
The living room stretches ahead, and the bedrooms sit down the dark, quiet hallway to the left, letting me know Marcus must be out.
“Did you forget to eat again?” He pulls me over to the island, then goes back to prepping a salad he must have started before I arrived.
“Maybe,” I answer slowly.
He laughs, and the sound warms my chest for a second. I glance down as he chops cucumber for the salad and notice his right hand, gripping the knife, is red and cracked.
“Oh my god, what happened?” I grab his hand, forcing him to drop the knife onto the cutting board.
“Okay, don’t freak out…” He cups my hands over his to stop my inspection.
“You know saying that actually does not stop anyone from freaking out.” I shoot him a please be serious look. “Did you get into a fight? With who?”
He sighs and abandons the salad. After checking the oven, which still has twenty-three minutes left, he brings me over to the couch.
He sits, angling his body toward me, while I sit crisscross, waiting for him to tell me what’s going on before the chaos in my stomach gets worse.
He places his hand on my knee and draws small circles with his thumb, as if he’s grounding himself.
I cover his cracked, clearly bloodied hand with mine.
“Do you remember that boy Trevor I told you about last semester?”
“Yeah, why? Did you fight him?” I joke.
“No, of course not.” He scoffs, tucking a stray piece of hair that escaped back behind my ear and lingers a bit with his fingers brushing the strands.
“I had been noticing things.” He starts the circles on my knee again.
“Bruises. A black eye a couple of times. Random scratches. A split brow. I thought maybe he had been getting into fights at school, but I asked around—other kids, teachers—and no one could account for where they came from. I know he has a full-time job at the mechanic shop on Bleaker in South Wind. I mean, Christ, he’s only fifteen. ”
The room is quiet except for him, and I keep my eyes on his face so he knows I’m listening.
“So, I started asking him to come in increasingly, just to see. Then one day, he comes in with a broken arm and this whole story about how he tripped and fell. But it was all too much to explain away by accident. He made some offhand comments about his dad…” he trails off, raking his hands through his hair, the distress clear on his face.
“Oh, god.” My hands fly to my mouth as I realize what he’s telling me. “His dad is abusing him?” I implore gently, taking Kane’s hands from where he’s anxiously twisting his rings and holding on to them.
“I’m pretty sure. He has never outright told me.
But today when I got back to school, there was a note about him.
He was in the hospital over the weekend.
They brought him in unconscious and covered in bruises, most of which couldn’t be explained by a “fall.” CPS tried to get involved, but he wouldn’t spill.
His fucking asshole of a father pulled him out of the hospital. ”
“CPS couldn’t do anything?”
“Not if Trevor won’t admit to abuse. He stuck to the story they had already told.
The kid is so scared of being separated from his sisters that he refuses to help himself,” Kane rasps, broken and on the edge of despair.
I can tell how deeply this situation is affecting him.
There’s a sheen of water over his eyes, his leg is bouncing under our joined hands, and I know he’s itching to get up and move.
The only reason he is still sitting here is because I have him in a death grip.
“So how did your hand end up like this?” I ask, unsure I want the answer.
He huffs out a breath, guilt and apology written all over his face.
“I lost it when I heard he was in the hospital, so I went to his house to check on him. I just needed to see he was okay. Except he wasn’t there, and his sorry excuse for a father answered the door. He reeked of alcohol and bad decisions. So, I may have hit him.”
I gasp. “Kane!”
“I know. I know I fucked up. I also threatened him. I just could not see that kid walk into school with one more bruise on him,” he chokes out.
“Are you in trouble with the school?”
“They don’t know. Dawn saw me leave, but she figured I just needed some air.”
“You could lose your job, Kane.” I grab his face and stroke his cheek, trying to quiet the anxiety I can now see taking over his body.
I don’t know how I never noticed before. The way he pulled his hair, twisted his rings, paced for no reason. I wish I had paid better attention. I wish I had opened my eyes sooner. Tears well at the thought of him battling all this while I was too blind to see it.
“Don’t cry, pretty girl. Please. I can’t bear to see it anymore.” He wipes away my tears.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t see how badly you were struggling. I feel so stupid and so blind.” The tears rack my body harder, and suddenly I’m lifted from my spot and settled in a warm lap. The feeling of safety blossoms through my chest.
“This isn’t your fault, baby.” He strokes my hair and kisses the side of my head repeatedly, trying to calm me down.
“I know, but I should’ve seen it.” My argument is weak, but I can’t seem to shake this immense feeling of guilt that we could have avoided these past couple months apart if I had just looked harder.
“No. It was my job to recognize something was wrong and that I needed help. You are not to blame for what happened.” He rocks us until my sobs ebb into small hiccups.
“I don’t want us to keep dwelling in the past. It happened, and it was hard, but I think now we’re better off for it.
Now we know better. We know to talk, to trust each other in the silence, and to come to each other at the first sign of unease. ”
“How do you do that?” I ask softly into his neck, letting the scent of him fuel me, making me never want to move from this position again.
“Do what?”
“Make everything feel okay again.”
“I just love you, and no matter what, we’ll make it together.” He lifts my face from his neck with a finger under my chin and kisses me.
The feel of his lips on mine instantly hits my core, and suddenly I don’t want to talk anymore. I move to straddle him and deepen the kiss. Just as he slips his tongue into my mouth, the timer blares from the oven, scaring me enough to jolt backward.
He chuckles, his soft eyes and easy smile making me want to drag his mouth back to mine and forget about dinner. Then my stomach growls even louder than before, and he stands with me in his arms before placing me gently on the couch.
The heavy conversation fades as we eat and talk about the past few months we missed.
Between his work and mine, we spend hours on his beige couch, the soft sounds of a LANY vinyl playing from the record player.
The perfectly baked lasagna is long gone, our plates cleared.
Hours pass as we sit there, reminding me of the years we’ve spent on this exact couch and how normal all of this feels, as if no time has passed at all.
A few hours later, we finally make our way to the bedroom.
I brought an overnight bag just in case because, as much as I know we should ease back into things, I couldn’t make myself want to be apart from him for another night.
For months, I dreamed of this—going to bed wrapped in his arms again and waking up with him.
I pull out my pajamas and lay my clothes out for tomorrow so they don’t get overly wrinkled in my bag. Morgan’s socks, which she gave to me on loan, stare back at me, and I turn to Kane, one hand on my hip and my brow raised.
“Am I ever going to get my socks back?”