Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
I don’t have time to react. Mason invades my personal space, crowding me against the wall with his bigger, taller body. His hand snags my forearm, the grip too tight, and I try and fail to yank it free.
“What the fuck was that?” he demands, and I panic. Words escape me as my body freezes up, because I know by now that it doesn’t matter if your friends are downstairs. There’s always a locked door available somewhere. Always a wall to hide behind, and I walked right into the trap.
His grip tightens. I want to tell him to let go of me, but the words get stuck in my throat. “Are you jealous I gave another girl attention?” he demands. “You want a repeat of last time, Ivy Combs? Is that it?”
He squeezes my arm so tight my bones creak. I will myself to speak. “L-let go of me.”
“Playing hard to get?” His mouth is inches away from my face. I smell the liquor on his breath, and I turn away, giving him my cheek. “What, Wes not man enough for you?”
“I’ll tell him,” I threaten, though there’s no hiding the tremor in my voice. “I will.”
He smiles then. “You didn’t tell him at the beach house, and you didn’t tell him after. I’ve known him since we were eight years old. Who the fuck do you think he’s going to believe? Me? Or some slut he’s been fucking for a few weeks?”
There.
There it is.
The question that’s been holding me hostage for months.
The fear of telling Wes the truth and seeing doubt in his eyes.
The tiniest bit will shatter me, but I can’t—I can’t—live with myself anymore until he knows the reality.
Not when this man’s hands are on my body for the second time without my consent.
Not when it makes me want to scream and kick and claw his eyes out.
The shock wears off, and I see red, my vision shaking with it, my body raging with it, because even though I was too naive and too trusting and too flattered by male attention, he didn’t have my permission to touch me. He doesn’t have permission to touch me now.
I suck in a breath between my teeth, ready to scream at the top of my lungs, but then I hear the footsteps.
At the sound of someone approaching, Mason immediately releases me, scurrying back like I’m the one who did something to him.
Like I’m the one causing a scene, crying wolf, playing the victim, asking for his hands on my body.
But I’ve never asked for them. Not now. Not then. It was never consensual. It was violating. It was traumatizing.
It was rape.
I was raped.
“Ivy?” I glance to my left to find Wes frozen in the doorway.
My heart sinks to my stomach as he looks between Mason and me in confusion, like he’s trying to draw conclusions in his head but the pen ran out of ink.
“What’s going on?” he asks, frowning as he absorbs the scene.
His tone’s not accusing, though. Just puzzled, like he genuinely can’t figure out why his childhood friend and his almost-girlfriend are up here, alone, in his bedroom. “What are you guys doing?”
“Go on,” Mason urges, full-on smirking at me now, and my spine stiffens. “You said you’d tell him, so tell him.”
I open my mouth, but no words come out.
Say something. Say fucking anything.
I don’t think I can do this in front of him.
“Alright,” Mason says, sighing like he’s taking one for the team, and he looks at his friend. “Ivy was scared to tell you.”
“Scared to tell me what?” Wes asks slowly, his gaze shifting to me. His expression is cautious now, anxiety swirling behind his eyes, and my heart threatens to burst free of my chest.
Mason exhales an exaggerated breath. “Look, man. This is all in the past, okay? We didn’t mean to lie about it, I swear. We fucked a couple years ago. Nothing serious. Just sex. It happened at a party. It’s really not a big deal.”
And Wes, loud-mouthed, always-in-the-mood-to-talk Wes, doesn’t respond.
He just keeps looking at me, unblinking, eyes boring into mine.
And then his eyes drop to my wrist, narrowing when they notice the angry nail indentations left by his friend’s overbearing grip.
When his gaze meets mine again, I watch the pieces click into place.
I witness the exact moment he solves the puzzle once and for all.
The blood drains from his face. His eyes cycle through emotions, never once straying from mine. Realization. Horror. Disbelief. Fury.
Mason is oblivious, and when Wes doesn’t respond and I remain silent, he continues on. “You shouldn’t be mad at Ivy, man. It was a long time ago. No feelings there or anything. Just a hookup. We should have told you at the beach.”
Wes’s jaw ticks. His voice shakes as he utters one word. “Him?”
I give a single nod.
And that’s all it takes. Wes’s eyes ease away from mine and settle on his childhood friend’s. I don’t recognize his voice, the tone deep, ragged, eerily low. “What the fuck did you do?”
A shiver wracks down my spine. Mason laughs a little, holding up his hands. “Dude, I told you. We just fucked. I’m sorry it happened, but it’s not a big deal.”
Wes takes a step forward. “We all know that’s not what happened.”
Mason blinks in surprise. Throws me a hasty glance. “Wait, you think…you think I did something to her? She wanted it—”
In a movement so fast I nearly miss it, Wes’s fist flies at Mason’s face, catching him off guard.
Wes doesn’t stop at one hit. He goes at him again, his knuckles crushing through skin and bone and cartilage, and I shriek as blood splatters across his face.
Mason stumbles back into the dresser before lunging for Wes, but he’s had too much to drink, and Wes dodges his attempt instantly.
Wes shoves him to the floor, punching him a third time.
A fourth time. For a moment I worry that he’s not going to stop, too caught up in the frenzy of violence I’ve been carrying around in my chest and heart and stomach for the past two years.
“Wes,” I cry. “Wes, you need to stop.”
Hearing my plea, his fist freezes mid-air. His entire body is shaking, eyes wild and face twisted with the anger I know all too well. It breaks my heart to see him like this, and I can’t stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks.
Wes lowers his face toward Mason’s. His voice shakes with emotion. “I want to make this crystal fucking clear. You come near her again, and I’ll end you. You’re—I can’t even—who the fuck are you? How the fuck could you? You’re sick.”
Mason groans but doesn’t say anything. Maybe he can’t say anything, his face a bloody, mangled mess.
Before Wes can threaten him further, Kaden and Ben appear in the doorway, taking in the scene with wide eyes.
“We heard a bang,” Ben says, staring at Mason.
“What the fuck happened?” asks Kaden.
“Get him out of here,” Wes snaps. “Please, just…just get him the fuck out of here. I can’t even—I can’t fucking look at him.”
Ben and Kaden must realize that something is really wrong because they don’t ask questions.
They don’t hesitate. They hoist a bleeding Mason between them and drag him out of the room.
I half expect Wes to follow, but he doesn’t.
He shuts and locks the door, then sits on the edge of the bed, staring down at his torn, bloody knuckles.
He flexes his fingers, wincing, before looking up at me with lost, unfocused eyes.
He’s spinning out. I see it happening, I recognize the spiral, and I know he needs me to say the words out loud to wrap his mind around it fully and completely.
I take his good hand, gripping it tight in my own, and I finally fill in the blanks. I finally tell the whole story.
“Mason Bryce is the man who raped me.”
My words hang in the air between us for a long time, and then Wes swallows, tears springing to his eyes at my devastating admission. In this moment, he looks shattered. Unfixable, even, and I hate that I have to rip him apart before I can put him back together again.
“He dated Alexis when we were in high school,” I say softly. “That’s how I met him. After the party, Alexis was suspicious that something happened. He wasn’t very discreet about it, and she accused me of hooking up with her boyfriend. That’s why she hates me. That’s why she started the forum.”
“Ivy,” he murmurs.
“After that night,” I continue, “I tried to tell my mom what happened, but the moment I mentioned that I snuck out to a party, she didn’t want to hear anything more.
So I…I drank a bottle of whiskey to mask the pain and ended up in the hospital.
And I never spoke a word about it again.
Not until I told you a vague version of events that day in your room. ”
His hands find my face, fingers weaving through my hair as his thumbs brush across my cheeks, and he presses his forehead against mine. I hear the strain in his voice as he holds back tears. “No.”
I grip his wrists. “Yes.”
“I want to kill him,” he says, and I hear the sincerity in it.
“You can’t.”
He nods. “I can. I will. Ivy…”
“I’m sorry,” I breathe. “He’s your friend. I should have told you sooner.”
His head snaps up, eyes sharp on mine. “Don’t apologize.
Don’t you ever fucking apologize. I feel sick to my stomach hearing you say that.
” He jolts to his feet and begins pacing.
“I made you sleep in a house with that guy. I made you go on vacation with him! I left you alone with him. I—” He freezes, scrubbing his hand down his face as it crumples.
“He left marks on your skin tonight. Fucking marks.”
I rush over to him, gripping his waist. “None of that is your fault. I should have told you, but I just…I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t—”
He pulls me into his arms, pressing a kiss on the top of my head.
When he speaks, his voice is a broken whisper.
“How could he do that to you? What kind of evil person…what kind of sick person would do that? Could do that? I can’t—I think I’m in shock.
I’ve known him since we were fucking kids. I feel sick. I don’t—I can’t—”
Abruptly, he releases me and stumbles into the bathroom. Moments later I hear him retching, and I drop to my knees with my head in my hands. I can’t contain my own sobs anymore, the emotion bursting free and overflowing, and my chest heaves as I sit on Wes’s carpet and just cry.
Sometime later, strong arms wind around me, pulling me up onto my knees.
Wes kneels in front of me, and I fist his bloody, wrinkled button-up, burying my face in his chest. The tears keep flowing, I don’t think they’ll ever stop, soaking the fabric of his shirt.
His voice is almost detached when he murmurs, “What kind of person would do that? How could someone fucking do that?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper back. “I don’t know.”
Because I don’t.
I don’t think I ever will.
And I have to learn to somehow accept that.
It’s the only way I can move on.