Chapter 30 Lainey
Lainey
Inever want to leave this cabin. It is freaking magical.
The past two days have been cozy, lazy perfection.
We have spent a lot of quality time exploring each other—staying up late and sleeping in is easy to do in the comfortable king-sized bed.
If there was some way to copy and paste the claw-foot tub into my real life somehow, I would do it in a heartbeat.
It was big enough for both of us to soak in last night, and I’d never felt more relaxed than I did laying in that tub, Remington at my back, his strong arms cocooning me in.
Today is our last day, and Remington promised an easy hike that ends with a surprise.
I don’t have hiking boots, but he told me my running shoes would be fine.
I paired them with black bike shorts, a pink sports bra, a loose white running tank, and pulled my hair half up in a small claw clip.
When I stepped out onto the back deck where Remington was waiting for me he let out a low moan of appreciation when he took me in.
Now, we are hiking hand in hand through the quiet forest. The soft sunlight, fresh mountain air, and summer breeze are stirring up emotions in me that are hard to describe.
One of the things that is so refreshing about being with Remington is that we don’t have to fill time with chatter.
Of course we talk to each other, and I love each conversation, but I also appreciate these moments, too.
They feel so intimate and completely ours.
It’s as if he knows when my body just needs him, whether we are wrapped around each other in bed, him controlling every ounce of my pleasure, or if I just need his solid strong presence. Right now, it’s the latter.
Rounding a bend, Remington helps me down a rocky incline, and we hear a rushing sound of water that we couldn’t make out before. He grins at me and says, “Ready for the surprise?” I nod at him, and we walk a bit faster toward what I assume is our intended destination.
When we come to a bright clearing, my breath is stolen straight from my lungs.
A stunning waterfall is pouring over a cliff face that must be a couple hundred feet high.
The powerful water pools in a small lake of some kind where we are standing.
It is not massive but is still impressive.
There are wildflowers dotting the open, soft grassy area around us.
The breeze ruffles the hairs around my neck, and I shiver, not because I’m cold, but because I am trying to lock in the feeling of this moment. Looking up at Remington, I find his eyes already on me. “This is amazing,” I say honestly. “It looks like a painting, but a million times better.”
“I knew that this was at the end of the hike, Walker told me about it. But, yeah, it’s way more than I expected.” Tucking some hair behind my ear, he kisses me gently. “Come on,” he says, “let’s cool off our feet.”
We take off our socks and shoes and I hesitantly wade into the water.
“Shit, that’s cold!” Remington yells. He jumps as his feet hit the water making me laugh.
He looks at the glint in my eye as I bend down and says, “Lainey, don’t even think—” but is cut off as a cold splash of water from my cupped hands hits him right in the chest, soaking his already sweaty shirt.
“Oh, you asked for this,” he says. The look he gives me back is much more heated and determined than the playful one I delivered with my jest. I expect him to splash me back but only have a split-second to realize that’s not his intention.
He scoops me into his arms and we fall backward into the deeper water.
I don’t have time to tell him to stop.
I don’t have time to warn him.
I don’t have time to try and figure out how to take a breath.
I just have time to panic.
We pop up, and I am trying to not sink back down into the lake. Coughing on what water I just sucked in, the fear is overwhelming.
I can’t breathe.
I am dizzy and disoriented.
Black spots dot my misty vision.
The water is not going to drown me, but my trauma just might.
Strong arms band around me and tug me close. My body locks up in deep fear until I hear Remington’s voice, terrified and gruff, right next to my ear. “I got you, baby. I got you. You’re okay.”
Before I can form a thought, we are on the grass next to the lake and I am coughing, crying and shaking.
My heart is racing, and the fear I had in the water is still flowing through my body.
I am trying to calm myself down, but I have lost all control.
Remington just pulls me tight against himself and holds me through it, murmuring and reassuring me.
Eventually, my breathing evens and my shaking subsides.
I have no idea how long we have been sitting here, surrounded by wildflowers, my pain, and the rushing sound of the waterfall.
Birds I didn’t even notice are singing, unaffected, and the sun is not in the same position in the sky as it was before.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, not even sure Remington can hear me, but when his body stiffens, I know he has.
This is when he realizes it’s too much, I’m too much.
“Baby, please look at me,” he pleads. “I am the one that is sorry. I am so fucking sorry.” He grips my face, rubbing his thumb along my jaw, his eyes honey-filled pools of pain.
“I can’t swim.” I look away, ashamed to admit this to him.
“I had no idea, Lainey. I would have never done that, I swear. We were just messing around and then, God. Baby, I’m so sorry.” Distress is all over him, and I hate that I am the reason for it.
“Remington, it isn’t your fault. I never told you, how would you have known? It’s embarrassing, and not something that I go around openly telling people, proudly shouting it from the rooftops. What adult doesn’t know how to swim?” I look at him hesitantly.
“I’m sure a lot of people, and I shouldn’t have assumed you knew how before doing that. Please forgive me.” He runs his hands up and down my legs soothingly.
“I forgive you, and I also owe you an explanation.”
“Lainey, you don’t have to share anything you’re not ready to.” He strokes his warm hands up and down, still comforting me, soaking into my chilled skin.
“I want you to know all the pieces of me, even the ones that are so broken they probably won’t ever totally heal.
You just might not want me after you know all the damage that’s been done.
Like I told you before, my family is not like your family, Remington.
” I whisper his name painfully and look away at the waterfall in shame.
He turns my face back to look directly at him.
“I have told you before, I know you. Who you are now, that is what matters to me. You’re so strong and have been through so much.
Everyone is a little broken, but the important thing is finding your safe place.
You are mine, Lainey. And I hope I can be that for you, too.
” His words hold so much meaning, so much value.
My hot tears fall, and I kiss Remington. “Yes, yes, you are my safe place. I’ve never had that with anyone, and that’s why you get all these pieces of me. I didn’t know if you wanted them, or if I should just keep them to myself.”
“Let me carry them for you, with you—whatever will make it easier for you, baby. Just let me in, please,” he begs.
I nod, wiping my tears, ready to tell him what so few people know.
“I never went on any kind of family trips or vacations. I have never even been on a hike like this. My dad’s job was always his priority, impressing the people around him.
I was used as more of a prop and a placeholder in our family.
Sit here, say this, act this way, answer this way.
There were rules and expectations, and if I stepped out of line I got verbally berated, ignored, and gaslit into thinking I was the problem and a tarnish to our family name that he worked so hard to polish and perfect. ”
Remington’s face is passive and stone-like.
I can tell he’s trying to control his rage and emotions for my sake, so I continue.
“Everything I did was a direct reflection on my father, good or bad. And I tried so hard to do it all just right, to make him happy. My mom was there to poke me along and try to keep just enough peace, but it was always tense. Cal was the perfect one, and I was constantly the problem.”
Pausing I take a deep breath.
“I didn’t like swimming at all, but the country club they were a part of had a pool.
Lots of their friends had fancy houses with pools too, including us.
Swimming was a requirement, but water always made me uneasy.
Instead of getting me lessons when I was really little and making me comfortable, he just threw me in the water one day. ”
Remington sucks in a breath. “Your dad?”
“Yeah, right into our pool. I was twelve, but he knew I never liked being in the water, could not really swim, and was afraid. He told me he was sick of me being an embarrassment, only hardly being able to doggie paddle around in the shallow end, never putting my face in, and I needed to get over it. He picked me up and tossed me right into the deep end. I thought I was going to die. Obviously, I didn’t.
Somehow I managed to get to the side and pull myself out, and when I did .
. . he was gone. He walked away, left me in there all alone. ”
I can feel the anger pouring off of him now, and Remington stands up and starts to pace in front of me. “What in the actual fuck!”
“He claimed that it never even happened. I was told I made the whole thing up, because afterward he did sign me up for swimming lessons. They were at the country club, private lessons with one of his friend’s older sons.
He was in high school. I had to go twice a week .
. . for two years.” I let out a breath, not wanting to tell him more, but knowing I need to get this out.
Nobody but my therapist knows this part of my life.
“I still wouldn’t put my face in the water after what had happened. I was terrified. I felt like I was suffocating, and it made me panic every time I got close. The instructor told me I just needed to relax, that he would h-help me.” I swing my sad eyes to Remington, and he is frozen in place.
“Lainey,” he whispers, knowing nothing good comes next.
“He t-touched me.” I can barely get the words past my lips.
“I was s-so young, and I had no idea what was really going on. He told me that it was part of my lessons, that it was h-helping me get ready to be a good swimmer. My dad was paying for me to go to these, these private lessons, to be t-tortured and I couldn’t do any-anything.
” A sob rips from my lungs and Remington is right there, where I need him.
“You didn’t tell anyone?” he asks softly.
“I told my dad that I didn’t like the lessons. That they made me uncomfortable, but he told me that he didn’t have time to listen to me complain. He told me I was b-being ungrateful.” The shaking in my body returns as I remember that day, the hopelessness and knowing I was utterly alone.
“What happened?” Remington cautiously asks.
“He went away to college. My ‘lessons’ stopped, and I obviously never learned to actually swim.” I wipe my eyes and sit back.
“Who is he? Where the fuck is he?” Remington’s voice is deeply menacing, and his eyes are full of pain for me, a promise of destruction for the person that tortured me.
“It’s okay—” I start to say but he cuts me off.
“The fuck it’s not!” he roars, making me jump. “This sick bastard hurt you, Lainey, a child. And who knows if he did it to someone else—is doing it to someone else?”
“He’s not,” I whimper.
“You can’t know that.”
“Yes, I can,” I say more sharply than I intend.
“How, how can you know that? Where is he? Has he tried to contact you?” Remington is up and pacing again, but my next words stop him in his tracks.
“He’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes, he was involved in a drunk driving accident his junior year of college. It was his fault. I know because my dad is still friends with his dad. I was in high school, and we all went to the funeral. Maybe I am a horrible person, but all I felt when I heard the news that he was dead was relief.” I look back to the waterfall where it splashes the lake and mists over the surface of the water, hoping Remington can forgive me for my evil thoughts.
“I’m glad he’s dead too, but I wish I could have killed him myself.” His admission makes me suck in a shocked breath.
“What?” I look at him, gaping.
“It makes me absolutely furious to know that nobody was there to protect you, baby. That you suffered in silence because there was not one person in your life that you felt safe with. I wish I could go back in time, but I can’t.
” He pulls me into his arms. “All I can do is promise to keep you safe from this day forward.”
“Thank you.” I hold on to him and weep, letting out years of pain that had been so tightly locked away.
After some time, I look at him and say something, trying to be brave by sharing another fear.
“I don’t want you to treat me differently.
I’m not made of glass. It took a lot of therapy for me to feel ready and capable of any kind of relationship.
I just always allowed for really terrible ones up until I found you.
And I also had to do a lot of work to allow myself to be, to be touched.
But being with you . . . It has unlocked something totally different for me.
I don’t want me telling you all of this to change that or take it away. ”
Remington spins me so that I am straddling his lap, placing his hands firmly on my waist. “The only thing I feel after what you told me is pure fucking awe for the woman you are, gratitude that I get to be the man you allow to hold you, touch you. And I promise to worship your body every day the way it deserves, the way you deserve, Lainey.”
Leaning in, we meet each other in a kiss laced with passion and healing.
Healing that I never thought I would find, let alone feel worthy of.
And as we lay in soft grass, surrounded by wildflowers, a soundtrack of nature, and the rush of the waterfall, Remington does exactly as he promised and worships my body.
Healing me, holding me, loving me just as I am.
And I know in this moment, that he has fully claimed me—body and soul.