Page 55

“Of course!” Helen sets the book on her lap.

“Love and War is a story written in the first person point of view, from the female lead’s perspective only.

It’s a coming-of-age tale, spanning the protagonist’s early years and the love she shared with her male best friend all through their school years.

There was an inciting incident during the time surrounding graduation which changed the trajectory of what she thought her life would look like, and soon after that, we’re taken on a tour of sorrow and loneliness.

Marrying another man and giving birth to a beautiful baby boy.

Alana has, in my humble opinion, encapsulated the raw and honest reality of a life plan changed by someone else’s villainous actions. ”

“Make it stop.” Alana trembles. Her hands shake, and her jaw quivers.

Her entire being vibrates with a desperate devastation that propels me forward.

I pull her to her feet and draw her around, pressing her cheek to my chest in the hopes I could give her a moment of reprieve.

But she bounces back again, bucking free of my embrace and slamming into the back of the couch.

“Lana—”

“No. You can’t… We….” She knuckles the tears from her eyes and brushes my hand away. “Tommy…”

“What do you need?” I snag her wrists and force her to stay put. “Alana? What do you want from me?”

“I want you to leave.” She exhales a shuddering breath and swings her gaze to Chris. “Both of you. I need you to go. Turn the TV off and don’t?—”

“You speak of tragedy,” Tanya continues. “But when I consider books and tragedy, I think of Romeo and Juliet. Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Death, perhaps, for one of the main leads. Is this what you mean?”

“Tommy?” Alana grabs my face, forcing my eyes down to hers. “I’ll give you anything . I’ll be with you forever. I’ll marry you if you want or leave you alone if that’s what you’d prefer. I’ll be anything you want me to be. But you need to go now. Please,” she chokes out. “Don’t watch this.”

“In the case of this story,” Helen pushes on, “the tragedy is in a young woman’s stolen innocence. It’s in the loss of her autonomy and, ultimately, not having a voice when she needed it most.”

“Tommy, please,” she weeps. “Please stop.”

“Without giving too much away, I could say that, on the night of their prom, these minors had made a poor choice and consumed alcohol. Which,” she adds happily, “despite the law, we know is apt to happen. The female lead’s home life wasn’t wonderful, and turning up with alcohol on her breath was not something she felt comfortable doing.

So she and the main male lead went to his not-so-great home instead.

He had been responsible, choosing not to drink so he could keep his friends safe, but after arriving home and falling into bed to rest, he received word of a friend in need.

A hero is not a hero unless his protective instincts spread far and wide. ”

The heavy slick of nausea coats my stomach as I cast my eyes to a horrified Oliver. And beside him, Eliza and the tears in her eyes.

“While the hero was away, having left our heroine safely asleep in his bed—or at least, safety was reasonably assumed—she awoke to the hero’s father… well…”

Helen hesitates, as though her marketing schtick makes her almost as sick as it makes me to hear. “He did things to her that the heroine spends the rest of the book running from. This is how she ended up with a son: flowers growing after a rainstorm, so to speak.”

“Oh my goodness,” Tanya presses a hand to her lips. “And this story is based on real events? I-it’s a true story?”

“Tommy?”

Rage is like a drug slicing through my veins and sharpening my vision.

It’s like waves in my ears, and still, I hear every scrape of a grasshopper’s legs outside.

It’s slowing time but speeding my actions.

It’s like an elastic band, pulling, pulling, pulling at my sanity as I bring my eyes back to Alana’s and the tears that trickle onto her cheeks.

And then it snaps.

“Stay here.”

“Tommy! No!” She grabs my arm, only to cry out when I shake her free and stalk across to the door. “Tommy!”

I stop in front of Ollie. “You keep her here. No matter fucking what, you don’t let her leave. ”

“Tommy!” She sprints across the living room, slamming through the door after me and grabbing my belt just like she did at the cemetery. But there is no walking away anymore. There will be no discussion.

There’s just me and my father. And soon, there will be one less Watkins in the world.

“Tommy!”

I exit the kitchen and stomp onto the front porch, but when I’m met with curious stares and startled surprise from the kids on the lawn, I work on fixing my expression so I don’t scare the shit out of them.

“Don’t go,” Alana sobs, pulling me around and cupping my face in her palms. “Please. This is why I didn’t tell you. This is what I was afraid of happening.”

“He. Raped. You.” Voice low, heart pounding, I wrap my hands around her wrists and feel her pulse under my fingertips. “He’s the reason for all of this? He’s why I’ve wondered— shamefully —for weeks—but never had the guts to ask if you slept with my brother?”

Fat, fresh tears dribble onto her cheeks.

“They’re practically the same person, Lana.

Their quirks. Their personalities. The way they eat and think and act.

I’m so sorry.” I groan, my breath pushing her hair back.

“I thought the most horrible things about you, but I was always too much of a coward to ask. I was terrified of the answers, and still, I wanted to be with you so fucking badly I vowed I’d never press.

Better to live in oblivion than face the reality that you might have loved him more than you loved me. ”

“Tommy—”

“I was so focused on me and my pain when, all along, it should have been about you. I should have been supporting you . Protecting you .” Tears burn my eyes, stinging until the ache travels to my throat.

“I blamed you for ruining my life, when all you’ve ever done is comfort me when I hurt.

You shielded me from the very fucking monster that violated you. ”

“Tommy, please?—”

“I blamed you for ruining my life! How dare I, Alana? How could I?”

“You didn’t know,” she whimpers. “I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want to tell you.”

“You left to protect me. To heal and to raise your son away from the town that only ever caused you pain. You stood right in front of me, Lana, toe-to-toe, staring into my eyes while I was absolutely fucking cruel, and no matter how horrible I was, you wished only for my healing and happiness. You sacrificed yourself to save me.” I swallow the aching lump in my throat. “I failed you.”

“No, I?—”

“I won’t kill him.” I draw her to her toes and press my lips against hers. It’s something I’ve been doing all my life, gleefully, without remorse, and so often, without consent. But I do it gentler now. Slower.

Because Watkins blood courses through my veins, and the risk that she may put me and him in the same basket is enough to make me sick to my stomach.

“I won’t. Because that’s the outcome you sacrificed yourself for.

” Carefully, I lower her back to flat feet and peel my fingers from her fiery skin.

I look her up and down to make sure she’s steady, then I take a concentrated step back, forcing my lips into a smile and trying, so fucking hard, to bring her comfort in a shitty world.

“I won’t go to prison, Lana. Not for him.

I won’t make your sacrifice for nothing. ”

Chris stalks through the door at her back, stomping onto the porch in silence. His eyes burn with a rage I feel in my blood. His jaw clenches with the same tight grip I feel in mine.

He doesn’t stop to talk. He doesn’t even slow to look into Alana’s drenched eyes.

He merely nods and keeps going, down the porch steps and onto the grass. Toward my truck because he’s riding with me today.

“Tommy, please…” Alana cries.

I cup her cheek and press my thumb to her deep dimple. “I’m coming home to you, and then we’re gonna discuss the marriage thing you were talking about.”

“Don’t go,” she whimpers. “Please.”

“I know the I’ll be with you forever thing was said in panic. But maybe we could try it out when I get back.”

“Tommy…”

“Lie to me, Lana.” I lean in and feather a kiss to her cheek. “Say the words.”

“I don’t love you.” Her eyes glisten with fat, unshed tears. “That’s my lie. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I’m not carrying your baby right now.”

My heart gives a heavy knock, bruising my chest and stealing my breath as my eyes drop to her hand gently laid over her flat belly.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about this afternoon,” she chokes out. “Now, I’m terrified that if you go, I’ll only ever get to see you through three-inch plexiglass. Is that what you want for us?”

“M-my baby?” My pulse skitters faster and faster, dizzying enough to make me reconsider everything. “You’re pregnant?”

“I wasn’t sure.” She swipes falling tears. “I’ve been sick and stressed and tired. I thought it was just…” She shakes her head. “The funeral and the store and all that other stuff.”

“Lana—”

“I tested this morning.”

“My baby?”

“Tommy!” Chris slams his palm to the roof of my truck. “Let’s go!”

Alana’s eyes widen with fear. “Please stay.”

“I have control over myself.” I pull her to her toes and kiss her plump lips.

“I learned that from the strongest person I’ve ever known.

” Finally, I release her and take a single step back.

“I promise, I’m not going to prison for this.

Wait here for me.” I turn on my heels and head toward my truck, dragging the keys from my pocket as Chris slides in on his side.

But when a pair of hazel eyes, just like mine and my brother’s, follow me across the lawn, I make a quiet detour and stop in front of a watchful Franky.

Not just her son. Not Chris’, either.

My father’s son.