13. Shiloh #3
He raps his knuckles on the stone and heads for his bedroom.
I remain in my seat, flipping through the years in my mind of Grey and I.
Surprisingly, I don’t cry. Reliving and going over the past years of your life that feel like a waste should make me cry.
But a little part of me is glad he cheated.
Who knows how much longer I would have stayed with him then?
I could have done without the beating. But it happened. It’s done. I survived.
While Ledger’s in the shower I decide to make us both dinner. I’m hungry, and he probably is too. Opening the fridge I reach for a roll of ground beef and bile crawls up my throat as all the memories of that night come up like a geyser.
Forgetting the beef, I close my eyes and try to box away every detail of that day. There’s a reason I tried to forget.
“Hey, are you okay?” Ledger says placing his large warm hand on my back.
I nearly jump out of my skin and stand up straight.
“Yeah, yes. I’m fine,” I say a little breathless.
“Why were you standing like that? Are you light-headed? Should I call Tatum?” he asks.
“No, it’s okay. I was thinking.”
Turning around, I finally get a look at him in his sweatpants and t-shirt, highlighting his toned muscles.
“Did something come to you?” he asks.
I was hoping he’d let it drop, but if I’ve learned anything about Ledger, he is persistent in his consistency. I have to give him something or he’s not going to let it go. So I offer the partial truth.
“We were partying one night, and Grey asked me to use my car. He wasn’t drunk or anything. I thought it was odd, but I shrugged it off and told him to go for it.”
I take a deep breath and remember the look in his eyes and the blood.
“He was gone for a long time. But midnight rolled around, and he still wasn’t back, and I was sober and tired.
I called him, and he didn’t pick up, which made me start to worry.
Normally, I would’ve gone to bed, but I stayed up this time.
And when he got back, he had blood on him.
It wasn’t all over his face, but it looked like it was before he wiped it off.
I asked him about it, and he said his dad needed help with butchering.
I thought it was odd because they usually move so much cattle that they have an agreement with a processor. ”
“I don’t think he was helping to butcher Black Angus, Shy,” Ledger says tonelessly.
I know he wasn’t but I can’t tell you that.
“Anyway, when I left for work, the next day my car was clean, and I mean clean. Someone had detailed every inch of it. I told myself it was because Grey wanted to do something nice for me. I forced myself to believe it but…”
Ledger squeezes my shoulder, cutting me off. “Thank you,” he says.
I nod, suddenly not hungry anymore.
“Does anyone else know about this?” he asks me.
I rub my arms, suddenly feeling cold. No one who will talk.
“Do you think Grey is concerned that you know this information?”
“Maybe, I can’t be sure.” Yes.
“Okay, well, we’re going to assume he thinks you told me something about them, and in this case, being married probably reinforces that, so we’re going to let him keep assuming it.”
“Why?” I ask him.
“Because most criminals, especially the ones who beat their girlfriends after cheating on them, and think someone is watching, take extra precautions, which includes not killing someone.”
“Not killing me?” I whisper.
I should have gone to Dad. I should have left.
“Maybe, but everything’s okay, there’s a plan, and if we can find where the bodies are buried, so to speak, then it could change everything,” Ledger says.
I cringe, rubbing my chest. “I’m going to lie down. I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Can I get you something?” he asks, and I can feel his eyes on me as I walk down the hall.
Grey didn’t beat me because he’s a piece of shit, little bitch ass boy. No, he beat me to keep me quiet about everything else. Which makes me wonder, aside from that night, what else have I seen that I chose to ignore?
It’s amazing what someone can put up with so they aren’t alone.
Being away from Grey has not only made things clearer.
It forced me to ask myself why I wasn’t strong enough when I knew things were going bad.
Why was I so afraid to be alone that I allowed myself to stay with someone who never really loved me?
I believe he did at one point, and we had a lot of fun together.
But as we got older, I understand now that he never intended to give me the life we dreamed of as kids.
While I was working hard to build, he was only coming in behind me to tear it down.
Now I’m rebuilding again, and part of me says I can do it by myself, but that’s the problem I have been for a long time.
Grey was merely a fixture. I don’t want to do it by myself anymore, but I have to.
Yet, all I can think about while I stare at the ceiling is how Ledger is someone who can build.
He’s someone that can keep, and I may barely know what his mouth feels like against mine, or how his heart beats under his skin, but I don’t have to know those things intimately to see what kind of man he is.
Only I wish I was the kind of woman he could see building with.