Ivy
Hampton, Virginia
I shouldn’t have let him see.
That’s the first thought that hits me.
Not embarrassment. Not even fear of what he thinks of me.
Just that I should have worn something that didn’t show the evidence of what happened.
The studio feels too small now. The mirrors are reflecting back more than I want them to. I don’t want to face him, but I do. I slowly turn in the mirror, my eyes finding his almost automatically. I regret not taking my pointe shoes off immediately, my feet are already aching.
Dalton’s question hangs in the air between us, quiet but impossible to ignore.
What happened?
My stomach drops and for a second, I just stare at him because I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t even know where to start.
“I—” My voice catches, and I have to swallow around it. “It’s nothing.”
It’s automatic. The deflection. The lie I’ve used for years without even thinking about it.
I’ve told people I was in a bad car accident at barre classes and in ballet studios so that I don’t have to keep the scars hidden all the time.
I did at first. For years. But then I started missing the pretty, backless leotards and sundresses I used to love.
They took enough from me so I took something back.
Even if I took it under a false pretense.
Dalton doesn’t move. He doesn’t push, but he doesn’t let it go either. “Ivy,” he says, softer this time.
There’s something in his voice that makes my chest tighten, it’s not pressure and certainly not judgement. It’s concern.
I shake my head, taking a step back like I can physically put distance between me and the question. My bare back meets the cold mirror and I immediately shiver. “It’s old. It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters.” The words aren’t sharp, but they land anyway.
I let out a shaky breath, turning away from him because I can’t hold his gaze right now. Not when I feel like everything inside me is suddenly too close to the surface.
“It was a long time ago,” I try again, weaker this time. “I’m fine.”
The silence behind me stretches and for a second, I think maybe he’ll let it go. That he’ll respect the boundary I’m trying—and failing—to hold.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he says quietly. “I get the feeling you haven’t told anyone.”
My eyes close. He sees me and somehow that’s worse.
“But,” he continues, just as gently, “you don’t get scars like that from something that doesn’t matter.”
My throat tightens painfully. I wring my fingers together, red manicured nails digging into my skin as I try to hold it in. Hold everything in.
I’ve done this before. I’ve kept it buried.
After I got home, I kept my back covered for months while it healed.
Then even longer out of shame. When Lila and Alinna first saw the scars they freaked out.
Wanted to know what happened. That’s when the car accident lie started.
I said it happened in South Africa. That part, at least, was true.
My friends wanted to know the details, and I didn’t want to lie, but it was so much easier than the truth.
That I was abducted. That they planned to sell me to the highest bidder.
That they tortured me after looking through my phone and seeing pictures of my boyfriend in United States Army fatigues.
Like that meant I knew something, anything, that could be useful.
I didn’t. I never have. That I watched Kyler stab someone to death a couple of feet in front of me.
I will never unhear the sound of his knife.
The cold, icy look in his dark eyes, or the way the body crumbled to the floor.
Lifeless. I know he did it for me and I have hated myself a little more everyday that he was forced to take someone’s life in order to save mine.
I can lie again. Except…I don’t want to. And that realization terrifies me. I turn back to the mirror. “I don’t talk about it,” I whisper. My voice barely sounds like mine.
Behind me, I hear him take a step closer.
Not enough to crowd me. Just enough that I can feel him there.
I expect to feel his calloused hand on my skin.
Maybe my shoulder to turn me around, maybe my back again, against the hideous markings.
Instead he just speaks, “I figured.” His voice is low and gravelly and there’s no judgment in it. No frustration. Just understanding.
And something in my chest cracks. Because he’s not pushing. He’s not demanding answers. He’s just here.
I drag in a shaky breath, my vision blurring as I stare at my reflection in the mirror. I don’t recognize the girl looking back at me right now. Tears slip before I can stop them. I wipe at them quickly, frustrated. “I hate this,” I mutter.
“Hate what?”
“Feeling like this,” I admit, my voice breaking. “Like if I say it out loud, it becomes real again.”
I finally feel his hand. He gently takes my wrist, guiding me around to face him. “Ivy, it already is.”
The words don’t hurt the way they should, they ground me.
I let out a broken breath, my shoulders dropping slightly like I don’t have the strength to keep holding myself together anymore. I meet his warm brown eyes. “I was taken,” I say finally.
The words feel foreign in my mouth, heavy, like they don’t belong to me.
Dalton goes completely still.
I let my gaze drop to the floor because I can’t see his face.
Not while I say this. “When I was in college, I went to South Africa to study abroad and teach ballet to young girls. There were four of us that went.” My voice wavers, but I push through it.
“They came in the middle of the night. To where we were staying. Someone must have leaked that there were four American girls staying there because they knew what they were after. We didn’t even…
we didn’t understand what was happening at first.” My chest tightens, the memory pressing in too close.
“I thought it was a robbery,” I whisper.
“Something simple. Something we could just…survive and move on from.” A tear slips down my cheek, and I don’t bother wiping it this time. “It wasn’t.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
“They had us for six days,” I say, my voice barely holding together now. Six days felt like a lifetime.
“They—” My breath stutters, and I have to stop, pressing a hand to my mouth as the rest of it tries to come out all at once. I can’t say it. Not all of it. Not like this.
“Ivy,” Dalton says, he gently tilts my face so that my eyes will meet his again.
I shake my head quickly, refusing to look at him until I get the rest out. “I can’t—I can’t do the details.”
“You don’t have to.” His voice is immediate. Firm in a way that steadies something in me. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
I nod, even though the tears are coming faster now. “They hurt us,” I say instead, the words shaking. “They hurt me the worst.” That’s all I can give him.
I finally meet his eyes. And I almost wish I hadn’t.
Because the look on his face—
It’s not pity.
It’s not shock.
It’s something deeper.
Something raw.
Like he’s carrying the weight of it with me.
“They targeted my back a lot,” I add, my voice quieter now, like I’m confessing something I’ve never said out loud. “They thought I knew something, I guess. I don’t know why.”
Dalton’s jaw tightens hard, his hands curling slightly at his sides like he’s holding himself back from something. From touching me. From reacting. From losing control.
“I’ve never told anyone,” I admit. “Kyler knows because it was his unit that rescued us. But I never shared more than what he saw. I’ve never talked about it, not once. Even though he begged me to. Even though I’m sure it would have helped me heal in some way. I just…I couldn’t.”
“You don’t have to,” Dalton says again, softer this time.
“But I should have. Maybe we wouldn’t have a failed marriage if I did.”
His eyes flash. “Ivy…”
The way he says my name makes my stomach twist. There’s hesitation there. Something he’s deciding whether or not to say. And suddenly I feel it. The shift.
“What?” I ask, my voice small.
He exhales slowly, grabbing the back of his neck before meeting my eyes again. “I was there.”
My breath catches. “You… What?”
His gaze doesn’t waver. “I was TDY in South Africa,” he says, his voice steady but low. “At the same base they brought you to after you were rescued.”
The room tilts slightly.
“I saw you in the med bay,” he continues. “You were…” He swallows, like the memory is harder than he expected. “You were a zombie.”
My heart is pounding now as I stare at him, trying to process it. Trying to reconcile that with everything I thought I knew.
“That’s why,” he says after a beat. “That’s why I couldn’t stop looking at you when we met at Logan’s.”
My stomach drops.
“It wasn’t the first time I’d seen you.”
The words settle between us. Heavy. Irrevocable.
His gaze flickers, like he’s back there for a second. “It’s just that you weren’t” —he swallows— “covered in blood.”
Suddenly the past doesn’t feel so far away anymore and I’m stuck on the fact that he’s seen me at my worst and still standing here looking at me like I’m something worth putting back together.