Chapter 30
Serenity
I ADJUSTED THE TURTLE NECK, ensuring the bruises on my neck were covered.
After only two days, the marks were still as visible and ugly as when they’d been made.
I wanted to tear off the sweater and show everyone around me what had happened.
I wanted them to see the marks, but … what if they didn’t care?
What if no one believed that Bradley, the upright and perfect gentleman who worked so hard, really laid his hands on me?
What if my dad really chose him over me?
That fear had me tightening my own hand over the material of my top, covering the bruising with quivering fingers.
“Ready?”
I sucked in a startled breath as Bradley waltzed past me and toward his truck. He didn’t look at me. He kept walking, and with shaking legs, I followed after him. Dad and Scarlett had invited us over for dinner, so with work over, the two of us climbed into his truck to head there.
And I hated myself for it.
I hated that, after what he’d done to me, I was still following after him. He knew me better than I wished. This bastard knew all of my weaknesses and fears, and he used them against me. It was like he said—I was a loser, a nobody. If I didn’t choose him, who would choose me?
“I hate this,” I whispered under my breath, leaning my forehead against the cold glass of the truck window.
“What?” Bradley asked as he drove.
“Nothing,” I murmured, my foot tapping listlessly.
“What happened to your forehead?”
I picked at my thumb in my lap, all while I watched the passing trees. “You really don’t remember?”
Tense silence filled the cab of the truck. Finally, he sighed. “Doll, look. I … can’t really remember a whole lot from this past weekend. I know you showed up. I know you saw my alcohol. I remember a lot of yelling, but … Are you trying to say I did that?”
I didn’t have the energy to answer. He could use his two brain cells to figure out the answer if he really cared.
“If I did, it was an—”
“Accident,” I finished for him as I closed my eyes. “So I’ve heard.”
More silence filled the tight space. “I can see that you’re mad.”
“Mad?” I asked dully.
“Mad, upset, whatever. You’re emotional.
I’m sorry. I want you to know that, regardless of what happened this weekend, I love you.
Okay? I’m not mad that you showed up unannounced or started a fight with me over the alcohol.
There’s nothing in this world that matters more to me than you.
I-I guess I have a drinking problem. I’ll go get help for it, okay?
If you’re saying I really did that to your head, I’ll—”
I whipped around in my seat so that my body faced him. He stared at me with startled eyes as I pulled the turtleneck down to show him his hands staining my skin with their vileness. “You love me? Nothing matters more than me? What an interesting way you choose to show your affection.”
The color drained from his face as his gaze bounced between the road and my neck.
I turned back in my seat to press my head against the window.
My thumb burned as I peeled back a layer of skin along the nail.
I gritted my teeth and pressed down on the tear, relishing the pain that came with it.
This pain was better. This pain was far easier to stomach than the rest. More.
I needed more pain to dull the one in my soul.
When we pulled into my dad’s driveway, Scarlett’s white G-Wagon sat in its spot. We parked behind her, leaving the space for Dad to park whenever he got home from the office.
Bradley cut the engine off, dousing us into more silence. I felt his eyes searing into my profile, but the lingering lacerations scouring my heart kept me from meeting his gaze.
“Serenity,” he croaked. “I am so fucking sorry. I swear, I—”
“I don’t want your apology. I’m done with apologies.”
“I can fix this. I can. I’ll go get help for my drinking. I’ll—I’ll stop going out with friends. I’ll finally make real plans to settle down. A ring, marriage, a family. I’ll do it, Dollface. I will. Please, let me fix this.”
His words fell on deaf ears. The curtain of the farmhouse window fluttered as Scarlett tried to peer out secretly, and my face burned with shame as she spied on us.
“I have to get dinner started,” I said monotonously before climbing out of the truck.
His jaw worked, and I knew he wanted to push to finish the conversation.
But thankfully, he let it go. He didn’t like people in our business, just as much as I didn’t, though he’d never think ill of Scarlett.
Despite hearing all of my horror stories involving the woman, he was as much under her spell as Dad was.
Maybe he’d fucked her, too. They were both heartless cheaters, after all.
The minute we walked inside, Scarlett looked over her shoulder from where she lounged back on the couch—as though she hadn’t just been watching us through the window. Her eyes brightened upon seeing Bradley at my side, and she beamed at him.
“Bradley!” She got off the couch and swiftly wrapped her slender arms around him. “I’m so glad you could make it for dinner.”
Bradley wore an equally warm grin as he hugged her back. “You know I wouldn’t miss family dinner.”
Scarlett kept a gentle hand on Bradley’s forearm while she looked at me. Her face tightened in a way only I ever noticed. “The stuff to make dinner is in the kitchen.”
I nodded and excused myself, eager to not breathe the same air as my step-mother. Instead of following me, Bradley settled in the living room with her. Their animated conversation about Bradley’s current job assignment—Addie’s house—was my only company as I moved about the kitchen.
Every time I was invited over for dinner, I wasn’t really a guest. I showed up and was immediately tasked with cooking the meal for everyone, just as I’d done all the years I’d lived with my dad and step-mother.
My distaste for cooking was typically my companion while I made the meals, but tonight, I didn’t mind the task.
I was thankful that it kept my mind and body busy.
Anything was better than feeling trapped in this never-ending nightmare.
The two phonies laughed about something in the living room.
The sound was a reminder of how much Dad and Scarlett had always loved Bradley.
They saw his good grades and sport accolades during high school as signs of his excellence, and when he began working for Dad, that praise only became greater.
Bradley kissed the ground they walked on, and they worshiped his every move.
They love him more than they love me.
The front door opened, and Scarlett’s high-pitched voice only got more excited as she welcomed Dad home. He made no move to come in this direction, staying in the living room to smile at Bradley and Scarlett.
I cleared my throat as I continued stirring the soup and leaned back to peer through the archway separating the kitchen from the living room. “Welcome home, Dad.”
His gray eyes flicked away from his wife to meet mine through the archway. His smile tightened. “Hi, honey.”
No sooner had the words left his lips than he turned back to Scarlett and Bradley.
I smothered the rush of rejection and stared down into the spinning yellow broth, willing the pain away.
I willed it to stay back, hidden in its crack.
I told myself that he just couldn’t see the bruise and cut on my forehead from that far away.
He doesn’t care. No one does. Bradley’s right.
Pulling the bread from the oven, I divided the potato soup into four bowls and plated the bread while the trio moved to the dining room, waiting for me to bring dinner out.
I tried to keep up the internal mantra that I was okay, even as Bradley’s earlier words filtered into my head.
Family dinner.
I glanced at Dad as he listened to Scarlett tell some story about a newly wed couple she’d shown a house to today. Meanwhile, I circled the table, placing everyone’s dinner in front of them. A nod of thanks was all I received from Dad as his entire focus remained on her.
Family.
We hadn’t been a family since I’d first learned what the word meant.
“Thanks,” Bradley whispered as I finally placed my own food at my seat to his left. He squeezed my leg softly beneath the table before focusing on his food.
Scarlett sampled the soup before scrunching her nose slightly and meeting my eyes from her place at Dad’s right hand side. “A bit heavy on the salt, sweetie. Careful next time.”
I wanted to tell her that she could fix dinner for once if she didn’t like it, but I knew that was what she wanted.
She wanted to get a reaction out of me so that I looked like the bad guy in front of everyone here.
I’d learned her game a long time ago, and while sometimes, I couldn’t keep my retorts back, it was easy tonight.
I was too tired and too far gone to care.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized flatly, trying my own bite—which was fucking perfect.
“Serenity,” Dad said, leaning forward to look at me. “Did you hit your head on something?”
I met his gaze, and sweet pinpricks of hope tingled in my chest. He noticed. He noticed me!
I opened my mouth to respond, but Scarlett jumped in with a light chuckle. “You’re so clumsy, Serenity. You’ve always had such a bad habit of falling or knocking something over, leading to you getting a bruise or two. What was it this time? Slip on some ice?”
I stared at my step-mom, and that hope fizzled away until I couldn’t even remember what it had felt like.
Those excuses were ones I’d learned from years with her.
Every time she left evidence of her “punishments,” I had a rehearsed response—I’d tripped on the stairs, I’d slipped on some soap, I’d had a clumsy mistake.
When I still knew what courage was, I’d tried telling Dad that Scarlett had hit me or thrown something at me.
He never believed me, and this time would surely be no different.
I looked down at my soup and watched the spinning current around my spoon. “I’m fine.”
Awkward silence fell over the four of us. Dad cleared his throat. “Um, how was your book signing? I’m sorry I couldn’t come. Work has been busy.”
That signing was a month ago. It took an entire month for him to ask.
Sure, we hadn’t had dinner like this in that time, but he had a phone.
He could’ve called or even fucking texted to ask me how it went.
But radiosilence was all I got. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek until the taste of copper filled my mouth.
Only once that burn swept through my body did I finally have the strength to answer.
“It was good. My friend—” I swallowed hard as emotion suddenly clogged my throat with the memory of Dante’s smiling face and constant presence that day. I cleared my throat and finished roughly, “My friend came.”
“And what book number is this? Your second book?” Dad asked.
“It was my third.” I pressed my nail into the corner of my raw, bleeding thumb.
He nodded absently, shifting his attention to his food. “Oh, that’s right.”
“How’s the book thing going these days?” Scarlett asked as she stirred her soup. Her gaze briefly met mine. “Making money from it, yet?”
My nail cut harder into my thumb as I peeled a fresh layer of skin back, but that burn didn’t compare to the one churning in my gut. Book thing. That was what she and Dad liked to call it. Not a job. It was just a “thing” I did.
Scarlett’s other question settled inside of me like a bitter pill.
It was a question people loved to ask for some reason.
You didn’t go up to other people asking if they were making money from their job, so why did they feel the need to ask me that?
If it was their way of seeing how things were going with my author journey, there were other ways to inquire that didn’t involve asking about whether I was making money or not.
“You know,” I started slowly, my foot now tapping along to the pace at which I picked at my thumb. I used my free hand to continue stirring my soup in an effort to appear at ease. “It’s … It’s getting there. I made $13 this month off of book sales.”
“So not there, yet,” Dad chuckled.
Ice drenched my veins.
“One day, though. Right?” Bradley nudged my arm.
“Right,” I mumbled as that all too familiar burn in my gut began to ebb into something bigger. Something darker. “One day.”
I slumped in my chair as the conversation drifted to the work Bradley was doing for Addie. I didn’t hear any of it. The crater inside of me had opened wide, sucking me into the darkness that lurked within. I went numb. I went cold. I went empty.
The others at the table were loud and animated as they conversed.
Bradley laughed when Scarlett told a story about a client, who got lost in the mansion she took them to last week.
Dad gushed over Bradley’s fine work on the projects he’d been involved in.
They talked and ate, but I couldn’t find the strength inside of me to pretend.
That ability had been swallowed up by everything else I was feeling—or rather, everything I wasn’t feeling.
My insides had hardened until all that remained was … nothing.
I scanned the faces of everyone at this table.
I was surrounded by people and laughter, yet I’d never felt more alone.
I could disappear right now, and it wouldn’t make a difference.
The laughter would continue, and the conversation would go on.
I was the perpetual dark cloud that loomed over their happy evening.
They’d be better off without me.