7. Alison #4
By the time we leave the restaurant, Victor is already on another call, and Dad spends most of the elevator ride looking at his phone.
Two cars are waiting outside the hotel when we step onto the sidewalk — one to take me home and another to take them directly to the airport.
Apparently lunch was only one item on their schedule.
Victor stands beside the open door of my car with one hand around my waist. “I enjoyed today.”
“So did I.”
“I knew you would.” His fingers tighten slightly against my side before he bends and kisses me.
I let him. Dad is standing five feet away.
The driver is standing five feet away. And even if neither of them were there, I know better now.
Victor takes his time. His mouth moves against mine while his hand slides higher along my back, holding me close enough that his cologne fills every breath. I count. One. Two. Three.
When he finally pulls away, he looks pleased. “I’ll call you this week.”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll have those planners sent over tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
His thumb brushes my bottom lip. “You’re welcome.” Then he kisses my forehead. “Be good for your mother.”
“I will.”
“Good girl.”
My stomach turns.
Dad opens the other car door. “Alison.” I look at him. His expression is perfectly normal. No indication that less than an hour ago he had me trapped inside a coat closet with his hand around my arm. “Go home. Help your mother with Tobias.”
“Yes, Father.”
“We may be gone overnight.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll call Jane when I know.”
“Yes, sir.”
Victor gives my waist one final squeeze before releasing me. Then I’m inside the car. The door closes. Through the tinted window, I watch the two of them climb into the other town car. Neither looks back.
I don’t breathe properly until we’re moving.
My arm throbs beneath the sleeve of my dress, but somehow Victor is what I feel everywhere.
His hand on my knee. His arm around my waist. His fingers against my back.
His thumb against my mouth. His fucking mouth.
I scrub my palms over my thighs. It doesn’t help. His cologne is still in my hair.
I pull out my phone. Ryan has texted three times.
Ryan: you alive
Ryan: pretty girl
And two minutes ago:
Ryan: if you don’t answer me I’m going to start committing felonies recreationally
in car. alone. they’re flying somewhere
Ryan: where
don’t know
Ryan: you okay
home in like 40
By the time the town car turns into Edgewood, I’ve made up my mind. I need Ryan. Not tomorrow. Not at school. Not through my phone. Tonight.
The driver drops me at home, and I go inside wearing the same expression I’ve worn for hours.
Mom asks where Dad is. Tobias wants to know what I ate.
I tell Mom that Dad and Victor went to the airport and might be gone overnight, tell Tobias the restaurant didn’t have a single chicken nugget on the menu and therefore he’d hate it, and escape upstairs before either of them can study me too closely.
I lock my bedroom door. Then I take off the dress.
The bruises have already started coming in.
Four dark marks curve around the outside of my upper arm with another forming beneath them, purple spreading through angry red skin.
Fingerprints. His fingerprints. I stare for approximately three seconds before pulling on leggings and an oversized sweatshirt.
I don’t shower. I want to. I can still smell Victor in my hair, and every part of me wants to scrub until my skin hurts, but I don’t want to stand beneath the water alone with today running through my head.
So I wait. Until Tobias is settled downstairs with Mom. Until the movie gets loud enough to cover the ordinary sounds of the house. Until I’m sure Mom isn’t coming upstairs. Then I turn off my bedroom light and open the window.
The stupid thing sticks halfway up and nearly ruins my escape before I manage to shove it the rest of the way. My bedroom isn’t high enough to make getting out especially difficult.
I lower myself down, drop the last couple of feet, and immediately cut across the dark stretch of lawn between our houses. No front door. No lights.
I circle around the Harrington house and climb onto the back deck. The kitchen light is on. I tap softly against the glass. Once. Twice. Movement inside. Then Ryan appears.
The second he sees me, everything about his face changes. He crosses the kitchen and unlocks the door. “Ally?” I step inside. His eyes move over me. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He closes and locks the door behind me. I stare at his chest because looking at his face suddenly feels impossible. “Pretty girl.”
“I just needed you.” His entire posture changes. No questions. No demands. “I don’t want to talk yet.”
“Then we don’t talk.”
“I don’t want you asking me what happened.”
“I won’t.”
“I just—“ My voice cracks.
Ryan reaches for me. Then stops. His hands hover between us. “Can I?”
That nearly destroys me. I nod. His arms close around me.
The first breath I take against his chest hurts.
The second is worse. By the third, I’m gripping the back of his shirt with both hands and burying my face against him.
Ryan holds me. That’s all. One hand at the back of my head.
The other around my waist. His mouth pressed against my hair while everything I’ve been holding together since Boston starts coming apart.
“I needed you,” I whisper again.
“I’ve got you.”
“I know.” His hand moves slowly over my back. “I just need to feel like me again.”
Ryan goes still for half a second. Then his mouth brushes my forehead. “You’re always you.”
My eyes close. “Not today.”
His arms tighten around me, and when I shift closer, the fabric of my sweatshirt pulls across my upper arm. Pain shoots through it. I flinch.
His hand stops. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Ally.”
“Don’t.” I try to tuck myself back against him. He doesn’t let me disappear, but he doesn’t grab me either.
His hands settle lightly at my waist. “What hurts?”
“Ryan.”
“I’m not asking what happened yet.” I look up at him. His face has changed. “You told me not to ask. I’m not asking.” His voice stays quiet. “I’m asking what hurts.”
My throat closes. “My arm.”
His eyes drop immediately. “Which one?”
“You’re going to lose your fucking mind.”
Something cold moves through his expression. “Probably. But I’m not going anywhere. I’m not calling anyone. I’m not doing anything. Show me.”
I hesitate. Then slowly pull the sleeve of my sweatshirt up. Ryan stops breathing.
The bruises looked bad upstairs. They’re worse beneath his kitchen lights. Four dark marks curve around the outside of my upper arm, another deeper one beneath them, purple already spreading through the red. Fingerprints. There is no pretending they’re anything else.
Ryan stares. He doesn’t swear. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink for a few seconds. Somehow that scares me more than if he’d punched the wall.
“Say something.”
His jaw moves. “Who?”
I look at him. “You know who.”
His eyes lift to mine. “Roman?” I nod. Ryan closes his eyes. Just for a second. When he opens them again, he looks back at my arm. “Did he do anything else?” I hesitate. That’s enough. Ryan’s eyes come back to my face. “Ally.”
“He slapped me.”
His entire body goes still. “Where?”
“My face.” His gaze moves over me. “It didn’t leave a mark.”
“That’s not what I fucking asked.” His voice isn’t loud, but the edge in it makes me blink.
Ryan catches himself immediately. His eyes close.
“Fuck. Sorry.” The apology comes instantly.
Not because I’m afraid of him. Because he knows exactly what I’ve spent all afternoon around. He lowers his voice. “Can I see?”
Ryan cups my face so carefully it makes my eyes burn. He turns my head toward the kitchen light. One side. Then the other. His thumb barely touches my cheek. “Here?”
“Yeah. Afterward. He checked my face.” Ryan just stares at me. “He made sure nobody would be able to tell.”
Something in his expression changes. Not loudly. That’s what makes it worse. He looks back at my arm.
Ryan looks away. His tongue presses against the inside of his cheek. “I need approximately thirty seconds to not become a person my father has to bail out of jail.” He doesn’t touch the bruises. His fingertips settle below them, barely there. “This is why you came over.”
“Part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
“Victor.” His face hardens. “He didn’t hurt me.”
“Okay.”
“He just wouldn’t stop touching me.” Ryan waits.
“My hand. My knee. My waist. My back. He kissed me before we left the house. He kissed me again when they put me in the car. He kept touching me during lunch, and I—“ My voice catches. Ryan’s hands leave me immediately. Not because he doesn’t want me.
Because he’s giving me the choice again. “I can still smell him.”
“His cologne?”
I nod. “It’s in my hair. I changed my clothes, but I can still fucking smell him.”
“What do you need?”
“A shower.”
“Okay.”
“With you.”
Something shifts in his face. Not hunger. Not yet. Something softer. “Yeah, pretty girl.”
“I want him off me.” His jaw tightens. “And I want you touching me.”
His eyes meet mine. I step closer and catch the front of his shirt.
“I don’t want you to fix anything right now. I don’t want to think about my dad or Victor or the Chairman or anything else. I just need you.”
His forehead lowers to mine. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“You can change your mind whenever you want.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know, Ryan.” I close my eyes. “I need to feel like my body is mine again.”
“Come upstairs.”
He takes my hand and leads me up the steps to his bedroom, then into the bathroom. He turns the knob and the water starts.
The shower runs hot enough to steam the glass within minutes. I step beneath the water first. Ryan follows. He doesn’t touch me. He waits.
Water runs through my hair and over my face, down my shoulders and across every place Victor touched today. I close my eyes. Ryan is right there.
I hold out the soap. “Wash him off me, please."