Page 54 of Ruled Out

I don’t know whose gasps they are, but they fill the silent apartment as I take in his black-and-blue torso.

He continues to allow me access, and I peel more of his shirt upward, taking in the marks.

It’s horrific, heartbreaking, sickening. These injuries are the kind only another human could inflict. They aren’t from hockey.

“Jessie, please tell me … was this from your dad?” I don’t sound surprised because I’m not. The nausea swirling in my stomach the past few days was a result of what I’d already known.

He nods once, but doesn’t say anything more, almost like he’s accepted that I’m not backing down. I’ve pushed the red button and seen a glimpse of the real world he lives in. But I’m not pulling away at the sight of his bruises.

My breath catches in my throat as he slowly turns around to face me. The front of his torso is arguably worse. His skin is so black and blue that it’s hard to make out the tattoos I asked him about in my dorm.

“Jessie, you need to see a doctor.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You do. I—you?—”

“I don’t go and see doctors, Mia. I never have, and I never will. If I show up looking like this, then they’ll ask questions, and when I don’t answer them, they’ll start talking to the team.”

“But you’re in pain. This looks really bad,” I say, tracing a very light hand over some of the marks.

“This level of pain isn’t anything I can’t handle. I’m used to it.”

“But this could be really serious. I’ve never seen any?—”

His palm lands on my cheek again, cutting off my rambling, and I look up at him with glassy eyes.

“I need to see it all.” I tug upward on his shirt, asking him to remove it. “Take off your top and show me all of it. Everything you’re feeling.”

“This doesn’t scare the shit out of you? Knowing my own family, my own flesh and blood, did this to me?”

I shake my head. “It sickens me, and, yeah, it’s shocking to know your dad could do something like that. But nothing about you could ever scare me. I’m more interested in making sure you’re okay.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Tough.”

A cocky smile pulls at his lips. “You can be really stubborn sometimes—you know that?”

His face contorts with pain as he pulls off his top to reveal more of his upper body. Bruises stretch from his waist to his shoulders with some starting to turn yellow, but they’re especially bad across his rib cage.

I shake my head and look at him. “Is this why you didn’t call me? Because this had happened and you didn’t want me to know?”

Jessie continues to stare down at me as I take in his injuries, which have given me more answers in thirty seconds than I’ve had over the past four years.

He huffs out a dry laugh. “I didn’t want you to see me this way, and I was in too much pain yesterday to go watch a game. Even with my pain threshold, the guys would’ve noticed.”

“I don’t see how we can have a friendship if you won’t tell me what’s going on.”

Jessie squeezes his eyes shut and leans down to my height. When he rests his forehead against mine, my body trembles at the contact.

“We aren’t friends, Mia.”

My heart drops. “We aren’t? But I thought that’s what you wanted?”

He puffs out another humorless laugh and his breath tickles my lips. “I’ve got plenty of friends in my life, male and female. But none of them makes me feel the way you do. They show up for me, yeah, but I don’t want to show myself to them. Only you. I’ve never shown my bruises to anyone, except you just now.”

I want to tell him the same, but I don’t. Instead, I place a warm palm over his heart.