Chapter 34
thirty-four
It’s never happened to me before… My dick goes soft even as I’m still inside her.
A creeping venom fills every artery, pumping through my blood. My ears ring. Air stills. Brain goes numb.
Her tear-swollen blue eyes widen as I slip out and stand, fumbling with my zipper. I slap a palm over my face, drag it down hard, trying to restart my heart.
“Explain…Ashlyn. Explain yourself.” My voice cracks, high and foreign.
Has she lied to me all these years?
She slips beneath the blanket and holds it up to her chest like it will shield me from the memories.
“You were eighteen, Aiden. I was only fifteen. They would have— My father… Either you’d be dead or in prison if they found out what we did and what we had planned. I had to tell my family something…”
Her words become a drone. The floor tilts. I can’t get enough air. Push-ups, my mind mutters. I need to do my push-ups.
Hands stroke my hair, as if that will soothe the agony building inside me. I pace the room, not really having any aim.
“So—you—” I can’t even get words out.
“I told them it was Talon. After I’d, you know…hurried to make sure it would make sense.”
Something inside me snaps. My body freezes like I’ve stepped off a cliff but never hit bottom. Blood drains into my feet until I feel hollow. “So you slept with him…to pretend he was the father.” My throat contracts around the word. “I always used condoms! How do you know he wasn’t—”
Lashes lowering, she swipes her nose with the back of her hand. Her fists knot in the blanket, curling into herself like she could shrink until she disappears. “Because I found out before that.”
The floor pulses. My temples pound. Push-ups. Get on the ground. Do push-ups until this stops. Fucking kill someone just to feel it. Taste their eyeball.
“And…our”—my tongue stumbles on it, dry and uncooperative—“son?”
She gets some faraway look, as if she’s removed herself from the pain until she doesn’t even feel it. “I carried him, and he was okay, but then they said he died. He died inside of me, along with everything else.”
The words crack like glass behind my ribs.
Quieter, as a shaky whisper, she mutters, “I gave birth to him alone in my room.”
My chest caves. I can’t breathe. I had a child with her. A boy. She endured that alone…
I have to clench my teeth to keep my jaw from rattling out of my skull.
“When?” It scrapes out like a plea.
Instead of showing any emotion, she repeats the words like they don’t matter.
“January. The ground was frozen. I found a shovel. And a box.” Her voice tilts, sounding wrong—like a laugh but too high, too thin. It has my stomach churning. “It was hard to dig the hole. My dad yelled at me the next day.”
I’ve never really cried before. Heated droplets fall over my cheeks as I search for air in this dank and dark place. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me? You didn’t think you could trust me?”
“No, Aiden! You’d come to get me, and I’d ruin your entire life.
I was fifteen. A child. And you had this entire…
future. Besides, Dad would’ve sent everyone he knew to find us.
Then kill you. It was easier to pretend it was all Talon, the golden boy with a newly tainted reputation.
They let me skip the last summer of Crest then. Because I was…”
Her face focuses on the comforter in front of her, one finger trailing along the seam. “And then I homeschooled my junior year but didn’t pass. So I had to catch up later.” She swallows back a strained sound. “I was not well.”
Not well.
Not well.
I slam my fist into the craggy wall, my knuckles immediately bursting with blood. “You weren’t well? You weren’t? I was a fucking wreck, Ashlyn! You didn’t show up. I thought you’d abandoned me. I would’ve done anything to keep you safe.”
“Why?” Eyes blazing, she whips her head toward me. The covers slide off her shoulders as she kneels, crawling closer. “Why would you? I’m damaged. With a broken womb. And we make each other worse.”
Something violent surges within me—an urge to shake her, beat the thought out of her until she understands. But the fire in my chest folds me in half instead. I press my thumb hard under my eyes, smearing tears, trying to hold myself together.
It’s not her who’s broken.
It’s me.
Push-ups. Drop to the floor. Do them until your arms give out.
Carve someone open. To see how it feels.
I need to gain some sort of… I need to do my push-ups.
Without another word, I fling the door open and wave out into the hall.
“You’re free. I don’t know…” Chest heavy, I heave a sigh. “I need some time.”
The hallway swims. My body stumbles up the stairs without permission. Mind narrowing to one command: push-ups.
By the time I’m in my room, I’m already tearing off my clothes. Shorts. Bare floor. Knuckles planted.
Planks until my arms tremble.
Hanging leg raises until my grip numbs.
Krav Maga drills until sweat pools under me.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Don’t think.
Don’t.
Remember.
My breath puffs in white clouds. Toe taps against slick leather. Is that a branch snapping? I whip my head toward the sound, but there’s no one there…
I check my secure messages again. Press the number to her burner phone. There’s still no answer.
The longer I stand here, the more my stomach tightens. We had a plan. Ashlyn’s arriving by a rideshare, and I’m taking her straight to our house. The one she doesn’t know I bought for us right after my eighteenth.
I’ll keep her safe and hidden until we can get to the courthouse.
We’ll get married as soon as her birthday hits, then we’ll get her emancipation papers.
I’ve already got one of the family lawyers on it.
Dad doesn’t know. Her parents won’t be able to say shit after we’re officially husband and wife.
Where the fuck is she?
Our tree is soaked from the autumn rain, and I kick at the base mindlessly, shivering in my leather jacket, holding my motorcycle helmet in one hand. Glock tucked in my waistband in case anyone follows her here…
Bark flakes off, revealing a hollow. Light from my phone finds a bundle wedged inside—a soggy book. My heart hiccups. Her handwriting blooms across the page.
Ashlyn.
There’s a tiny lock on the front, and it makes me smile… The key I found in her room that I stole. It fits perfectly.
I sit on the damp ground and read until my eyes blur. Little notes—petty cruelties, soft apologies, hearts above the AIC she signs like it’s a sacred vow. Sometimes she hates me. Sometimes she loves me. Every entry smells like midnight lakes and bittersweet nostalgia.
By the time dawn fattens the sky, I’m frozen. Teeth clattering.
But she never comes…
It’s been days. Days of me trying to reach out in any way I could find. Sure, our communication has always been spotty. But the realization strangles me like a noose.
She’s ghosted me. I can’t bust through her family’s mansion gates; they’ll kill me. So I do the only thing I know…
Show up at her high school.
Last night, I got a tattoo of the key I’d used to open her diary. Positioned it right over my heart. I can show her. She’ll see how serious this is for me and come with me to hide in the woods.
It’s easy to blend in as a student, standing in the halls, waiting for classes to change so I can find her. And I do. Right after lunch.
She’s with Talon Moretti—skinny, smug, arm slung possessively across her shoulders. He’s got that public-boyfriend swagger, the one I’ve seen in their pictures online. When she turns, my breath leaves me cold. I blink at the vision in front of me, but it doesn’t go away.
Is that a belly?
When did that happen?
“What are you doing here?” she asks as I stand, stunned, in front of a locker.
Some of the students pause to watch.
“Who are you?” Talon says with a grin like he’s already collected whatever this is.
I take one step forward, and my voice drops into a hard edge. “Who the fuck am I? I’m—”
She cuts me off, bright and practiced. “This is my boyfriend, Talon.”
The hall narrows. Students circle. My hands go slick on my jacket. My pulse hammers in my throat. “I’m sorry, your…what?”
“My boyfriend.”
“Yeah,” Talon says, puffed with ridiculous pride. “And the father. Right, babe?” His hand slides, arrogant, down the front of her sweater, over her stomach, like he owns what’s inside of her.
Ashlyn’s eyes are unshakable. Unreadable. My jaw opens and shuts several times.
I whisper, “Baby…”
Ashlyn shudders delicately, but steps back into her boyfriend. “So please leave me alone.”
“Leave you… What the actual… What is happening here?”
“You heard her. Back off, bitch.”
Something cold uncoils inside me. My knees want to fold. Instead, my body answers with a movement older than thought—two hard swings and Talon’s face explodes. He collapses, nose a red smear. With a swift kick in his ribs, I leave him winded on the floor.
Teachers shout down the hall for me to stop and rush toward us as I grab Ashlyn’s arms and shake her violently. “What did you do? Why?”
Ashlyn’s mouth trembles. “I lied. I’m sorry. I don’t want you.”
Keys from the security guard’s belt jingle. Hands try to grab me, but I shrug them off like dead weight and go for the doors. Fury makes my eyes blurry.
Thumbs on the handles, I push down, but they’re locked.
And the police block my exit.
My brain, a machine that should have a manual, shorts out. Riotous voices, broken glass shattering, punches, and slaps cleave through the crowd noises.
Dad’s going to kill me.
Maybe I’ll do it for him first.