Page 19

He says nothing to me but keeps driving.
Shane rents a house about three miles from mine, tucked away behind the high school. I’m so exhausted that I must have dozed off during the drive because the next thing I know, I’m being placed on his bed. He sits down next to me, the mattress dipping, his hands wandering up my thighs. “Let me show you how much I love you.” He begins to take my dress off, kissing my shoulders. His mouth moves, making his way toward my exposedneck, his tongue tracing a path over my collarbone. He brings his hand under my chin, lifts my face up for a kiss.
“Shane, please stop.” I plant my hands on his chest, turning my head to avoid his kiss. “We’re not together anymore.”
“What if I don’t stop?” He hovers over me, held up by his extended arms. “Then what?” His wild eyes fill with hatred. “Is itreallythat bad that I get a little out of control because I want you so much? You should feel good that I can’t control myself around you.”
Shut up, shut up,I think to myself as I search his hard face. “Thisis why we’re not together. You don’t listen to my words, and you hurt me.”
He blinks slowly, and then lets out a growl under his breath. Rolling off me, he sits up, runs his hands over his face. “I fucking listen to you. Ido.”
There’s so much I can say to him right then. So much I should say. But I don’t. I can give anyone a piece of my mind, but not Shane Larson.
“I should just take it,” he says, leaning back on his hands. He lifts a finger, tugging at the edge of my panties.
I push his hand away. “I told you that we were over. When you knocked me unconscious the second time. When it ended with me losing our baby.” I ease my dress back down, not that there is much to pull down, but I try anyway. He twists his head and searches my face. My tears roll down my cheeks and for the first time in a while, I think he sees what he’s doing to me. I move to my knees on his bed. Hesitantly, I lift my dress up over my hips to reveal my stomach. “And the time you kicked me in the stomach because you said I lost the baby on purpose.”
He shifts his position on the bed, his arms wrapped around my middle. I can feel his breath against my stomach. My heart races, my whole body shaking. Angling his face, he looks up at me, his expression apologetic and sadder than I’ve seen in a while. “I’m fucked up. I know it.”
I touch his face and utilize the softness to my advantage. Ican’t decipher the look in his eyes. His face twists into something else and he blows out a breath, dropping his eyes to my stomach. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I know.” Don’t mistake my calmness for weakness. I’m simply using it to deflect a reality that comes with aggravating him more. His lips meet my skin, fluttering over my hip. I hate his touch almost as much as him these days.
“Please don’t leave me.” He grips my backside, pulling me down on his lap. We’re eye level now. His mouth finds the shell of my ear and I don’t feel my pulse stutter like it did when Grayson did it earlier. All I have inside me now is sadness. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
He knows what he’s done, and he’s not forcing me to stay any longer, but I’m also not fighting him. Lying back, he takes me with him, our bodies intertwined. I don’t move. I wait. With my back to him, his arms around me, I stay frozen.
It’s about ten minutes until he isn’t moving, his apologies have stopped and his breathing is heavier. It takes me another ten before I slide out of his bed, careful not to wake him. Standing at the edge of the bed, I adjust my dress and watch him sleeping. As much as I hate this man for what he’s done to me, I hate myself more in this moment than I ever have before. For accepting his apology the first time and leaving myself broken enough to give him another chance. Because this guy, he doesn’t know how to love. He knows how to hurt.
10
GRAYSON
The devastation in her eyes is enough to bring me to my knees.
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say, or how to react to this. A reality rushes through my veins. Not too long ago, I was there, and now I’m here, like just because I’m back in my hometown, everything is supposed to be normal again? Or maybe I hoped it’d be that way. I kept telling myself it’d be better here. I could sleep at night and function throughout the day, if I was home.
But what’s normal anymore?
I’m in a war one day, peace the next?
Nobody who goes to war is the same. Regardless of what you think will or won’t happen, there’s a whole other side of life you’re dealt and forced to accept. You embrace death. You harden and become a version of yourself you once were.
You know what else happens? The people around you change. Maybe not in the ways you would expect either. They look at you differently. You went to the dark side, immersed yourself in it. And now they’re waiting for you to lose it and they need to be on alert at all times. If I’m being honest, I don’t understand it, or what I’m doing here, but I do know this. Eventhe simplest of things can set me off now. I’ve always been extremely hotheaded, always had a temper, but since what happened in Iraq, it’s more explosive and harder to ignore. Like now.
I’ve always been very aware of Evie, her feelings, the way she reacts. The real meaning behind her words. Observant, aware, whatever you want to call it, we had that ability with one another and that hasn’t changed. That guy’s touch, his harshness around her, she wasn’t comfortable with him. A cloud of helplessness washes over me watching her walk away with him.
Whatever the reason, I’ve come all this way, to come home to this. Her rejecting me. I’m not going to say it’s justifiable, because I don’t want to admit it, but in some sense, I suppose, I was there, and now I’m here. I can’t expect that just because I fought for my country and left her to do it, she’d be here waiting for me upon my return. That’s not fair to either of us.
My heart pumps hard in my chest. My body tenses, my fists clenching in anger. His touch on her, the expression on his face, her reaction to him, it’s all on me. I’m to blame for this because I left her. The only reason she’s with that guy is on me because if I hadn’t left, she wouldn’t be with him.
What in the hell have I done?
I’m not stupid. I knew coming home there would be a possibility of her being with someone else. Deep down, I’d prepared myself to a certain extent, but not for this pain in my chest. Not for the guilt that slams in my chest. It’s… unbearable.
My temperament seems to go downhill after that. I feel jumpy and agitated, like I’m going to explode at the drop of a hat. My ears start ringing and the more I try to relax, the worse it gets.
In the parking lot, Ethan catches me, his eyes wide underneath his hat shading his face. “I know, it’s fucked up. All of it,” he mumbles, giving me a look I don’t understand. “But walk away.”