5. Blake
BLAKE
When I finally regained consciousness, I didn’t know how much time had passed.
But I instantly knew where I was.
I’d spent so many nights crashing on the Barrows’ couch, long before they’d invited me to sleep in the spare room. The offer had warmed me, but I rarely made it up the stairs. It was hard to explain to them why I preferred the couch, but I did.
Even lumpy in odd places, on nights when I’d been too lazy to pull out the sofa bed beneath the cushions, it felt like a dream compared to waking up in my father’s house.
Stretching my arms and legs as gently as I could, I released thoughts of him with the tension in my limbs. I inhaled deeply, breathing in a scent I associated with comfort—love—before wondering if I’d overslept.
If so, Mrs. B would come along in a minute to tsk at me about there being a perfectly good guest room upstairs. She didn’t see it either—why I always slept on the couch.
I wanted to get up and help make breakfast.
Sighing happily, still caught somewhere between sleep and awake, I mumbled, “The early worm gets the bird.”
An unmistakable chuckle came from beside me.
I opened my eyes, searching for the sound. Or rather, I opened my eye. One of them felt like it had been glued shut.
Addie appeared, her hair falling forward as she tried to hide her quiet laughter. “That's not quite how the saying goes. I should check with Mom. See if this is a bad sign.”
“What goes how now?”
“Oh, boy.” She eased off the couch and knelt beside my head, bringing something cold up to my cheek. “Could be a stroke. Stick your arms out and sing happy birthday.”
I stuck my arms straight up in the air, and I rattled off a verse of “Happy Birthday to You” until I earned myself a big smile.
Addie pressed the ice pack against my swollen cheekbone, easing off when I winced.
My hand covered hers, holding it to my face and silently letting her know I could take the pain.
“I’m so glad you’re alright.” She exhaled a heavy breath, brushing the hair off my forehead. “You had us all worried sick. Even Mom wanted to take you to the hospital instead of taking care of you here.”
“I deserved it.” When her eyes snapped to mine, I reached up to grab her other hand, pulling it to my chest. “For what I said to you. It’s not your fault you’re—It’s not your fault if some douchebag disrespects you.”
She sniffed, making a show of lifting her chin. “I know it’s not.”
“I never want to be the voice in your head telling you it is.”
Her shoulders relaxed slightly, tension easing at my admission, and she gave me a lopsided smile. “Yes, well. While that was certainly an unfortunate way to start my eighteenth birthday, I finally calmed down enough to hear Adam out. We were almost home when he told me what Travis had said.”
She shrugged, putting on a brave face, but her lower lip trembled with the truth.
My words had hurt her. Deeply.
And I needed to make that right.
I tightened my grip on her hand. “No matter what Travis said or did, I shouldn’t have said what I did to you. It was wrong, and…I’m really sorry, Addie.”
She returned it with a gentle squeeze. “I could’ve heard you out before I jumped down your throats. And you certainly didn’t deserve to have that asshole and his friends blindside you on your way home. God. I could kill them for leaving you like that, practically for dead.”
My brows shot up. “What?”
Addie’s furrowed. “You don’t remember?”
I shook my head, waiting to hear the story he’d come up with.
It didn’t surprise me that my father had offered them an alternate version of events to cover his tracks. He’d never admit how often he’d left me for dead.
Addie gnawed on her lower lip, guilt sneaking in at the edges of her expression. “After Adam told me what happened at the party, we went to get you…to bring you home with us.”
My chest tightened at her words, but I didn’t interrupt.
“By the time we got back, Travis and his friends were gone, and someone told us they saw you head down the street. We couldn’t find you anywhere on the roads, and then Adam recognized the neighborhood.
I think we drove past all the houses twice before he remembered which one was yours.
It had been so long since he’d been there, but we finally found it. ”
My lip curled, and Addie gave me a sad smile.
“When we pulled into the driveway, the front door was open. We ran inside and found you on the floor, bleeding while your dad tried to help you up.”
I shuddered lightly, hating the thought of him being that close to her. Being that close to either of them. If I had it my way, the Barrows would be the one thing my father never touched.
He wouldn’t take them from me.
Sympathy flashed across Addie’s face at whatever she saw on mine, but she didn’t understand what caused my reaction. Since I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that yet, I forced a smile, encouraging her to keep telling me what happened.
“Adam got you to your feet, but you were barely conscious. When I asked if your dad had called 911, he yelled at us, asking what we’d done at the party—what you’d done—like whatever happened must’ve been your fault.
Then you croaked out the word ‘kicked,’ and your dad told us about the guys attacking you. ”
Fury at the wrong people flooded her cheeks with heat, and I brought her hand down to my chest. It beat steadily beneath her palm, assuring her I was alright.
“He kept asking us who had done that to you. He wanted to go after them, but he hadn’t even called for help. When I pointed that out, he said you’d shown up a few minutes before and then…” Her jaw tightened. “He said we could deal with you since we’d gotten you that far.”
Her eyes dropped to my hand, where it clutched hers to my chest. I followed her gaze to the rapid rise and fall of it. My breathing had grown significantly tighter, my heartbeat more pronounced than it had been a minute ago. It thundered beneath her palm.
She’d questioned him. Stood up to him, and I—
“Blake, what’s wrong?”
“You know that’s bullshit, right?”
She drew her shoulders up, her eyes intent on my face. A hint of recognition sparked in her gaze, but she still questioned me. “What do you mean?”
Because I’d never told them.
I’d never told anyone what he was like, sure that if anyone saw the truth, they’d either say I deserved it or see him in me.
But Addie and Adam had seen me at my worst that night, and they’d still come into my father’s house last night to bring me here.
Sometimes, I wondered how much they’d already picked up on, regardless of how I tried to hide it.
But if they saw the truth, they’d never let me go back there.
I believed that, even though my father’s lies worked well to plant seeds of doubt. He teased the line between fiction and reality, tiptoeing over it so carefully, even I struggled to separate the two in his words.
Each time they bled into my subconscious, picking at my deepest fears and turning the blame back onto me, I believed the worst of it.
How I deserved it—his fists—but not his love.
How I wasn’t good enough for anyone to give me that.
But Addie and Adam? They were proof he was wrong, and I wouldn’t let him take them from me. Not with the truth or his lies.
My jaw tightened, and I changed course, making one of my father’s lies perfectly clear. “You and Adam had nothing to do with me getting that far. I—It was my fault for picking that fight with Travis. You know that, right?”
“I know what your dad said wasn’t true.” She nodded, holding my gaze as tightly as I held onto her hand. “But you didn’t deserve what they did, either. You know that, too, right?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, unsure if I said it because I believed it or to put her mind at ease.
I’d stiffened into a seated position without realizing it, and pain shot through my ribs.
Sagging back onto the couch cushions, I released a breath. “God, my dad’s such a prick.”
Addie nodded again, and we sat quietly together, lost in our thoughts before she spoke again. “You know…I forget, sometimes, that you’re not technically ours.”
She blushed furiously, scrunching her nose and looking away as if that might hide it or erase what she’d said. My heart beat wildly in my chest.
“I mean, we all wish you were, especially after witnessing how he reacted last night.”
Nothing could ease the tightness in my chest, the way it filled almost to the point of bursting, so I pressed her hand into my breastbone and croaked out, “Me too, kid.”
She opened her mouth to say something before she wrinkled her nose and shifted her gaze to a spot beside us. Her brow furrowed as she slowly withdrew her hand from mine. When she stood, she pointed to something on the floor.
“I should probably let them know you’re awake. Your backpack’s there. Do you want to see if you can stand to use the bathroom…or whatever you need to do?”
I nodded, unsure of her abrupt withdrawal. But then a thought occurred to me. Sitting up, I left a spot open for her beside me and jerked my chin toward my backpack.
“Hey, can you hand me that?”
When she handed the backpack to me, I gestured for her to sit down. Unzipping the front pocket, I pulled out what I’d stowed there after the graduation ceremony. I’d been planning to give it to her when we got back to their house—before I blew up our night.
I set a small, poorly wrapped gift box in her hands.
Her eyes lit up, and as she unwrapped the paper with more care than it probably deserved, the smile returned to her face. She lifted the top off and peered inside, reaching in to take the simple white gold chain in her hands.
Her fingers tangled in the braided cord before rubbing the small pendant—a tiny elephant with its trunk curled upward—I’d added to match the charm bracelet she’d get from her parents and Adam later today.
Leaning forward, I pressed a soft kiss to her cheek. “Happy Birthday, Addie.”
“Blake,” she breathed, still staring at the necklace as her cheeks warmed. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”
I took the necklace from her and held it up.
She turned around and lifted her hair off her shoulders.
I brought the thin chain around in front of her, connecting the clasp and brushing my hand over where it rested at the nape of her neck.
Goose bumps erupted down her spine, and I told myself to pull my hand away.
But she was warm, and her skin felt so soft. It took me longer than expected to do it.
She released a breath when I did and turned around to face me. Bright blue-green eyes met mine as her fingers ran down the delicate chain to clutch the charm. “How does it look?”
I smiled. “Perfect.”
Pressing her hand over the necklace, she returned my smile. For a moment, we both just sat there quietly. The hurt from my foolish words faded between us, not completely gone but not deep enough to outweigh the rest.
And even though bruises riddled my body, and I ached with pain, it felt like everything would be okay.