Chapter 22 #2
“I know. I know,” he repeated. He ran a shaking hand through his hair, trying to calm his heart, which was pounding as though he’d just danced a long, demanding grand allegro combination. “I just… Fuck, Ivy, I’m a terrible person.”
She closed YouTube and put the phone on the couch, screen down. Then she turned to face him again, brows cinched in confusion and concern. “What are you talking about? What’s going on? And don’t lie to me and tell me it’s no big deal because… Look at you.”
Justin balled his fist and pressed it into the couch, but he knew Ivy had already noticed it was trembling.
He looked at her, knowing it was pointless to try to hide the truth from her, and knowing just as surely that this was the end of more.
Once he’d told her, she’d want nothing more to do with him.
“Before you came back, I was watching the news because I was… trying to make myself feel something. Something different than what I’ve been feeling.”
Ivy nodded as if she understood. “You’ve been feeling numb? I think that’s pretty normal when something like this happens.”
God, if only.
“No,” he said, and it came out croaky. “No, not numb. I was feeling… Fuck. I was feeling happy.” He spat the word.
Ivy tipped her head to the side and her brows pulled further together. “Happy?”
“No, not happy. That’s not right.” This was why she was the writer, because she always knew the right words to use.
“But not sad. Not sorry. I… I know it sounds awful, and I know it makes me a terrible person, but once I knew my parents and my aunt were safe, I started thinking about how much I hate going home and then… I wasn’t happy about what’s happened, I promise.
But I’m also not sorry about it either. I know how bad that sounds. ”
Ivy looked at him, her expression unchanging, for a long minute.
He all but gripped the couch cushions to keep himself from standing up to pace the room as he waited for her face to twist into disgust. He deserved it, but he’d still feel like shit when she told him he ought to be ashamed of himself. Already on it, he thought.
For a long moment, she didn’t say anything.
“I know how bad it sounds,” he repeated, a note of desperation in his voice.
The lines between her brows relaxed somewhat, and she inhaled through her nose, preparing to speak. Here it was. She was about to tell him that, whatever it was they were doing here, it was over, because he was a heartless piece of shit. No more more.
“It sounds really bad,” she said quietly, and even though he thought he’d prepared himself for them, the words hurt, a deep and all-encompassing pain around his heart, like that time he’d caught a pas de deux partner wrong in a fish dive and pulled all the muscles around his sternum.
“I’m sorry,” he said miserably.
“Me too. What happened to you as a kid was even worse than I realized.”
“What?” he blurted.
“Have you ever talked to anyone about what you went through?”
“Yeah, Missy knows. And my parents. And you know, too, now, I guess.”
Ivy’s smile was kind but cautious. “No, I mean, have you ever talked to a professional about it? A therapist, a counselor?”
Justin stared at her. “That’s your follow-up question? Not what the hell is wrong with you? or Do you have any idea how fucked up that is?”
She paused, as if she was reconsidering. Shit, she was reconsidering. Justin’s stomach, which had halted its freefall at the sight of her slight smile, resumed its plummeting. But then she shook her head.
“Well, I have other questions. But don’t think I realized quite how deeply the bullying had affected you.
And maybe I should have, given what happened in that pub, but god, Justin, I…
” She took in a breath, clearly searching for her next words and coming up empty.
Instead, she leaned forward and before he could move, she’d wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled herself closer to him.
She pressed her face into his neck. Held him tightly, and with determination and focus, the same way she did everything else.
Justin sat, his own arms frozen at his side as she clung to him and breathed against his skin.
Her perfume, that spicy floral something he’d become so accustomed to in New York, swirled around him, and it made him think of stepping into a ray of sunlight on a bitterly cold day.
Carefully, as though moving too quickly would make her pull away, he lifted his arms and wrapped them around her waist, pressing his cheek against her hair.
He held on to her, because god, he wanted so badly to hold on to this.
“So you don’t think I’m fucked up?” he asked after a moment, attempting a light tone as he blinked away the moisture in his eyes.
She lifted her head and pulled away from him then, and looked at him, face serious. “No, I do,” she said matter of factly. “But you’ve earned it. And I think it’s the kind of fucked up you can fix, with some help.”
“I think I’d like that. I don’t want to feel like this ever again, about anyone. And I know you said some people deserve to be punched in the face, but I don’t want to be the one doing the punching.”
“I don’t want that either. There are people you can talk to. I know the company has some people on staff, but this is probably beyond their expertise. We’ll find you someone who’s a good fit, okay?”
He nodded. His throat was too tight to speak.
“I’m sorry for what you went through. For what that town did to you.”
“Me too,” he managed. But it was time to let it go now. Hillstone had driven him all these years, had given him this life in a fucked-up kind of way, but it had taken too much from him. And now its people had lost everything. He didn’t deserve what happened to him, but neither did they.
Ivy cupped his face in her hands. “You’re a good man, Justin Winters.”
He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, pressing a cheek into her palm.
The words were a balm to the raw, ragged parts of him that the last few days had exposed.
To all the fear and doubt and uncertainty.
And he knew she meant it, too. Ivy Page always picked her words wisely, and he knew better than most that she didn’t hand out praise unless she thought it had been earned.
“I should tell you,” she said after a moment, and he opened his eyes warily. “I’m going to start looking for other jobs soon. I don’t think PR is for me. I’m not leaving ANB right away, but this isn’t what I want to do with my life. No offense,” she added quickly.
“Was I that difficult a babysitting client?” he joked.
“At the beginning, you were impossible,” she said drily. “And then you were irresistible. And now, you’ve ruined all other clients for me, and I have no choice but to leave the profession entirely.”
She was making a valiant effort at lightheartedness, but he didn’t miss the wistfulness in her smile.
“What do you want to do next?” he said. He reached out and took her hand, twining their fingers together.
“I don’t know yet. I’m taking some time to figure it out. I’m going to try not to rush into anything this time. What do you want to do next?”
Justin thought for a long moment. The truest, most immediate answer was that he wanted to take Ivy to bed and kiss her for hours.
But—he looked down at their joined hands, relief and anticipation filling him in equal measure—he knew there would be time for that.
Lots of time. Right now, he wanted to do something to help. Something to heal.
“I want to rebuild that church hall,” he said. With the hand that wasn’t holding Ivy’s, he gestured down at his silent phone. “I want to make sure that when those kids go home, there’s a place for them to dance.”