Chapter 28
Enough of the lies! Richard Darlington is innocent.
Those sluts are just jealous. #FreeDarlington #NotAllMen
Ethan
Hours later, my throat still felt raw, as if my words and tears had sliced it like razor blades.
I had only ever shared what I’d just told Grace with my mum.
And James, at boarding school a few years ago—nightmares had woken me in cold sweats and kept me up for nights on end, which had been hard to hide from him.
Since then, I hadn’t spoken to anyone about it.
And I’d done everything I could to avoid thinking about this part of my past.
Some days it had been incredibly hard, while others, it was almost shockingly easy.
My childhood was a patchwork quilt of memory gaps.
I had read online that this could be a protective mechanism of the brain, because I hadn’t experienced the things that children were supposed to experience in childhood.
Instead of comfort, love, and security, there had been only severity, expectations, and disappointment.
I still found it hard to accept just how much this man, whom I should really call my torturer rather than my dad, had shaped and twisted me.
But now Grace had made me feel anything but broken.
In her arms, for the first time in a long while, I’d let myself feel the pain instead of pushing it away.
Which was what I’d done all those years before, partly because I’d refused to let my dad continue to have that kind of power over me; partly because I hadn’t wanted to disappoint him with my weakness.
It made no sense, but that was the power he still had over me.
Because of him, I’d been trapped in a vicious cycle I couldn’t escape for far too long.
For years, I hadn’t seen a way out. I hadn’t even believed one existed.
But maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe there was a way out after all.
I looked at the woman sleeping beside me.
My hand rested on her stomach, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her breath.
Her blond hair was spread across the pillow, and her face was turned towards me, completely at peace.
Watching her was calming, and yet I still couldn’t sleep.
Lying in her arms, I had surrendered to the pain.
I had allowed myself to feel, and now I had to deal with the consequences: my memories.
A cruel film played out in my head. I thought about all the times I hadn’t lived up to my dad’s expectations.
I thought about his blows, about the pain.
And about my tears, which he’d seen as proof of my weakness.
In the past, I would have resorted to booze like my mum or thrown myself into the party scene to escape my spiralling thoughts, but those days were over.
I didn’t want to go through life feeling numb anymore, because that was exactly what my dad had always wanted: power.
Power over me.
Power over my body.
Power over my thoughts.
I refused to give him that victory. I only had this one life, and it was mine.
I was going to live it the way I wanted, and what I wanted was to be with Grace.
It probably wouldn’t be easy, considering our history and the fact that my dad was likely covering for the person who had killed her twin sister.
My mum would lose her shit if she found out I was involved with a hotel employee, just like Henry had been.
But I didn’t care, because what I had with Grace felt real.
She touched something deep inside me. I didn’t just want to know her body; I wanted to know her heart and soul.
And I wanted her to know me just as fully, inside and out.
Because after tonight, there was no denying it anymore: I was falling in love with Grace Claymore.