Page 140

“What does that mean?”
His fingers danced across my jaw, then my cheek.
“It means baby.”
A small smile curved my mouth. He called me the sweetest things, I swear. His words, his touch, his scent soothed me like nothing else could. Lulled by his presence and worn out from my nightmare, I felt my eyes drifting shut…
Until the tentative stroke of his fingertips slid up my thigh. I knew where this was headed. His hand brushed over the sickening scarring on my leg, and my eyes filled again. I’d seen the shock and horror on his face. I always wanted him to look at me with that mix of affection and desire I had gotten used to. But tonight, when he saw my body, he didn’t.
“I know it makes me ugly,” I mumbled.
He surprised me by laughing softly. “Theory… there’s no fucking way at any fucking time in any fucking universe that you could be ugly,” he whispered.
“Targen—" I choked suddenly, overwhelmed by his sentiment, wanting desperately to believe he really felt that way.
He massaged my ravaged thigh, the scarring still so brutal because I’d refused any kind of reconstructive work. I’d convinced myself that I deserved it, like so many people around here believed. See, the scars weren’t even the ugliest part of the story.
“Talk to me,milaya.”
“I am,” I said, pretending not to know what he meant.
“You not. You worried about my reaction. Theory, you need to accept that, one way or another, I’m gon’ find who hurt you. You need to accept that I’m gon’ enjoy watching them suffer. That’s the truth. I told you there would be no secrets between us, and there won’t be.”
I was shaking my head already. “If I tell you?—"
“When,” he interrupted me.
Frowning, I looked up at him. “What?”
“‘When,’ not ‘if’ you tell me, baby.”
Sighing, I leaned into him again. He was always so self-assured. With anyone else, it would border on annoying, but with him, it was sexy as hell. He was determined that I would tell him, and I was tired of fighting.
“I’ll talk… if you promise to listen to my reasoning when I finish,” I conceded.
He pressed his lips against the top of my head. “I’ll always listen to you, baby.”
That wasn’t the answer I was looking for, and he knew it. One look at his face let me know he wasn’t going to concede anymore, though. Pressing closer to his solid body, I began to talk.
“You already know I dated Jacob in high school.”
A low-pitched growl shook his chest. I smirked at the jealousy-tinged sound.
“Anyway, my senior year, one of his former teammates, a guy named Chauncey tried to shoot his shot at me. I ignored him. I wasn’t a cheater, and he was already off at college back in Mississippi where his mother’s family was from. Fast forward two years. He had transferred to LSU where Em and I were. He tried again. That time, I gave in. He was handsome and funny, and he paid attention to every little detail about me. It was like he knew me inside out. It was flattering, I guess.”
I laughed, but it wasn’t an amused sound. I was bitter when I remembered how naïve and somewhat conceited I had been. I felt like I deserved Chauncey’s devotion, even if it bordered on obsessive sometimes. Instead of being alarmed, I thought of him as charming and extra-attentive. I asked myself over and over how I missed all the little signs, the controlling behaviors he disguised as taking care of me, the gaslighting that kept me guessing and uncertain, the?—
“Hey. Stay here with me. I got you,” Targen’s voice interrupted my disturbing thoughts. “Take your time.”
I nodded, suddenly aware of how tight my hold on him was. Loosening my grasp, I rested my forehead against his chest for a moment, searching for my next words.
“We dated for the rest of college, through my grad program. At that point, it was clear to me that we were headed in two different directions. I was excited about the future and my teaching and writing. He was still bitter about the past and being cut from two NFL teams. He had gotten so mean and he wanted to… I don’t know… possess me. He struggled with depression, too. He always had. I stayed, thinking I could help him. Then, one night…” I stopped, swallowed hard. “He just… he just went too far. I told him that I was leaving. Poured out everything I’d been feeling. I thought he understood, but the next day, he proposed.”
“What the hell?” Targen pulled back enough to look down at me.
“Down on one knee, little velvet box, the whole thing. Thankfully, it wasn’t public. I said no. He begged me to stay just a little longer, talked about how he needed me and how he really thought marriage and a family would make things right with us. I didn’t agree, but I stayed.”
I dropped my head, shame flooding me. I felt like the laterincidentwas partly my fault, because I didn’t follow my first instinct. For years now, I had beaten myself up about it. With hindsight, I could see that Chauncey was unbalanced, and repeated disappointment had changed him. Or maybe he was just revealing more about who he really was all along.