34. Eli
Eli
“After Danny and his team took photos and stuff, Jess, Sutton, and Rem’s mom came in and cleaned up. They, um, didn’t want you to come home to any kind of mess from the . . . wedding day,” I explain to Kendra as we stand on her porch, keys jingling in my hand nervously.
“That was really nice of them,” Kendra says in a quiet voice that is so unlike her own.
I unlock the door for her and push it open. We walk in and everything is neat and tidy. It smells clean, fresh, and looks like nothing horrible happened here just days ago.
But my skin is prickling.
Pulse is picking up.
When I squeeze my eyes shut, I see Kendra’s beaten body at my feet. I shake my head and open my eyes to see her standing next to me, breathing fast and shaking.
“I c-can’t be . . . I have to get out of here,” Kendra chokes, then spins around and painfully makes her way back through the front door.
Her body is covered in the marks of that night, but her soul will bear the scars forever too.
Unseen, but never forgotten by the woman that has to carry them.
It makes me want to rip out a sword and slay an impossible dragon, lay its disgusting, unworthy heart at her feet.
Kendra shuffles her way around the house to her backyard, heading to the garage—her studio, her safe space. I stay silent behind her as she approaches the deep rust-colored side door, a twin to the one we just entered on her front porch.
She sticks her hand out for her keys and I place them into her shaky palm, but they are unnecessary. When Kendra puts her hand on the doorknob it’s unlocked, unsecured in an eerily familiar way.
Thank fuck Kendra is safe, right here in front of me, otherwise I might be sick.
“That motherfucking son of bitch!” Kendra screams when she flicks on the lights and sees her studio. “Nooooooooo.”
The pure rage Kendra is feeling melts into agony, and she sinks to her knees. I go down with her and wrap her carefully in my arms. Her whole space isn’t ruined—no, that devil went right to where she poured her heart and soul.
Kendra had finished all of Rem’s wedding gift pieces for Lainey, plus all the extras she had added to the stunning collection.
They were laid out in the studio so that she could show them off before wrapping them up and bringing them to the newlyweds before they left for the honeymoon.
Kendra was going to take them to Rem and Lainey the day after the wedding when they were meeting back at Rem’s parents’ house to open gifts.
I know this because she told “Wren” when we were texting last week before the wedding.
I was going to offer my help with the whole delivery process, but then everything changed and nobody was thinking of wedding gifts.
She was so happy, proud, and excited. These pieces were not just something that she was making for Brooks and Books or for a random customer—this was as personal as it got.
Obviously she would have told Bennett about it.
So after he left her broken and bloody, it wasn’t enough for him. That asshole had to come into this space and take even more from her by smashing every . . . single . . . piece of wedding pottery that Kendra had made for the new LeBlancs.
It was a clear message.
Nothing else in the studio was touched.