Page 35

Hooking my finger around the silky strap of Parker’s pajama top, I slide it back into place, smiling as it falls again. Her deep breathing lets me know she’s still asleep, so I drop my lips to her soft skin, lingering to appreciate the sweetness radiating from it.

My phone vibrates on the nightstand continuously, but I make no move to answer the call. For one, I know it’s Coach calling, even though I emailed all staff explaining I was stuck in DC and will miss a voluntary meeting ahead of a holiday. And two, nothing could drag me away from the happiness I feel waking next to Parker, watching the early day’s light come through the break of the curtain.

The light paints pictures on her skin, kind of like the shadow puppets we used to make as kids against the wood planks inside the clubhouse. But this time, I don’t see an elephant or a duck. I see bits and pieces of us filling the constellations connected by the freckles and beauty marks on Parker’s back.

And when she stirs, rolling onto her stomach, I see the top of the scar. I don’t look at it for more than two seconds—more than I can take—before my eyes are called to the portable lock sandwiched into the door. I try to ignore how my skin grows tight and prickly and scoot closer, lying part of my body gently on top of her.

Parker lets out a soft sigh and snuggles into me, her foot rubbing against my calf.

“You’re here,” she mumbles, finally turning her head.

I lean back so I can see her face. “I’m here.”

Parker rubs the sleep from her eyes while I hold my breath, wondering if we’ll backtrack to yesterday and further even though we’ve started a new day.

But even after last night, it’s this moment—when she reaches out and cups my cheek of her own volition—that I’ll never forget. I drop a kiss into her palm, hiding in it. The ring on her finger presses against me. I kiss that too.

“Fitz…”

“I did have a crush on you when we were younger,” I confess, wondering if she can feel the race of my pulse drumming against her wrist angled against my neck. “But now, it would be insulting to call it that.”

Reducing my feelings to a crush at any point seems inappropriate, but what the hell am I supposed to say after last night? After, in a moment of panic, I stopped Parker from removing my underwear and exposing what I’ve been hiding for what feels like the entirety of my life, what can I possibly say?

Somehow I’ve been in love with you forever and I’m terrified now that you know you’ll run away seems like, well, a pathway to destruction of whatever I have in this moment.

The truth is, I could’ve turned the light off and stripped away the barrier, said fuck it to the boundaries, slid myself inside her, and given her every part of me.

But if I don’t give Parker my heart, I’m not giving her much at all.

I start small. Baby steps.

“I’d be lying if I said I’m fine with this having an end date before we gave it a shot. Before you give me a real shot,” I add.

Parker swallows heavily before I continue, her eyes sleepy no more. But they’re wary. I can tell, and that should make me nervous.

I clear my throat. “And for me, that means, all this”—my eyes flicker around the room—“it’s for show. It’s the means to get you to an end, and that’s fine with me as long as this is real.” I press her hand firmer against my cheek. “Because none of this is how I’d do it in real life anyway.”

“W-what do you mean?”

“Well,” I begin, “Our first kiss, it wouldn’t have been rushed in the back seat of a car with two strangers in the front seat.”

A breathy laugh escapes her mouth.

“Our first date would’ve been romantic. Definitely not bowling.” I bite my lip before I continue, “I wouldn’t have made you move in before you wanted to. Even though I like that you’re there. I like that you made it your home and you…” I look away.

Parker redirects my gaze onto her, and when I meet her eyes, I’m kicking myself. How can I waste one second not appreciating the view that is her gorgeous face so close to mine?

“What is it?”

My tongue darts out of my mouth to quickly swipe my lips, as if I’m prepping the space for the hard things to come. “In the real version of events, I would’ve wanted you to feel safe with me.”

Now it’s Parker’s turn to look away, and even though I don’t want to, I let her. I can’t force her to talk with me. I won’t. No matter how much I wish I could. When her hand slips from my cheek, I make no effort to put it back. Parker’s throat swells with a swallow, and maybe it’s not that she wants to keep things from me. Maybe her throat is stacked so high with pain, the words have a hard time getting over it.

“Where would they have been?” she asks, bringing her face back toward me. “The kiss and the date?”

I want to tell her that the answer to both of them is the same—somewhere meaningful.

“If you give me a re-do, I’ll show you.” I offer her a small smile, but it goes unmatched.

Parker sits up, leaning forward. Her strap slips down again, leaving her scar more exposed, just inches from my face. “Where they sent me? That”—she pauses, and I hear the frustrated breath fight its way out—“ school ? I’d rather be dead than ever go back to a place like that. Or even close to it.”

Goosebumps invade my skin with full force. She means it. I know she means it.

I push up on my elbow as my stomach twists. “Is that what’s out in the Berkshires?” When Parker nods, I gently press my hand against her spine, just to the right of the scar. I can feel her heart racing. “Is that where you got this?”

“No. That happened when they took me.”

My hand falls and it takes all my strength to overcome the tautness of my muscles and use them to sit up and scoot closer. “What do you mean took you ?”

I almost don’t recognize the venom in my voice.

Parker stares straight ahead. “That night after we climbed the fence at school. It was late. Maybe three in the morning. I didn’t hear them. Not in the hallway, because there was a rug. That’s why I didn’t take the upstairs room in the apartment. There’s carpeting on the stairs and outside it. It makes it too hard to hear someone coming. I guess I kind of lied about the break-in.”

As much as Parker kind of lied, she kind of told the truth.

“And I didn’t hear them when they came in, because the door was so old it never closed right.”

My eyes flick to her extra lock. I feel sick.

“I thought it was a nightmare, you know? But I could feel things.” Parker drops her head. “Like their hands on my wrists. The pillow against my mouth…”

The sickness in my stomach flees. Rage takes its place.

“I stopped fighting, you know? Because I thought… I thought someone broke in and maybe they were going to rape me, and if I didn’t fight so hard”—her voice cracks—“maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

My body lurches, fueled by a need to touch Parker, to hold her. But I don’t. I grit my fucking teeth and remember I asked for this. But god, I almost wish I hadn’t.

Parker continues, “When I felt them lifting me off the bed, I started to fight. I hit one of them with a trophy. I tried to bite and scream, but one guy had his hand so tight on my mouth…Nothing worked. I knew we were going downstairs, and then I started to really panic. Like if they got me out of the house, they’d kill me.”

Parker goes silent for a moment, her shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths. I almost intervene, and let her know she can stop.

“I guess,” she speaks even more quietly now. “They did.”

Leaning forward, I press my lips to her shoulder. “I promise, you,” I whisper against her skin. “They didn’t.”

Parker shivers, so I move back.

“They must’ve taken me out the side door. Do you remember the one that opens to the pebbled path?”

“Y-yes.” I must’ve run in and out of that door and along those stones a thousand times. And now, I feel I’m dying a thousand deaths.

“My foot skimmed the railing so I pushed against it as hard as I could. I must’ve knocked the guy off balance because Iflipped backward and I just ran. I kept telling myself to scream, because maybe Mom and Dad were asleep but would wake up. I’ve never felt more stupid…”

And I’ve never felt so much as I do right now as Parker tells me how it was so dark, she didn’t know where she was even running.

How she ran barefoot, the pebbles from the driveway and the concrete tearing up her feet.

How she could hear them coming after her.

“Which way did you run?” I ask. “Do you remember?”

“If you’re asking if I ran toward your house, I didn’t.”

I clench my jaw. “Why?”

Parker turns, peeking over her shoulder. “What if they hurt you then?”

The look in her eyes eats away at me, but it’s how she answers my question—like it’s obvious—that will haunt me forever.

She lets out a deep breath, facing forward again. “There were more of them than I thought because, all of a sudden, one of them tried to grab me, and I fell. And then he did grab me”—Parker reaches behind, bunching her hair—“ here . And he dragged me back on the street.”

Parker releases her dark locks and twists her arm behind her, her fingers running along the edge of the rectangular scar. I take her hand in mine, bringing it back down where I can hold it at her side against the mattress.

“I felt it, Fitz,” she whispers so quietly I almost don’t hear her. “Every piece of skin—of me—peel away. And the light was on at the house. The light by the front door, and I thought for a second I would be safe. Like they’d let me go,” Parker says, her voice hoarse. “Like they’d leave. But then I saw Mom and thought it was so strange she wasn’t in pajamas when it was so late. She still had makeup on. She just stood there while I was screaming. Then Dad and Madeline came out when they were loading me into the car, they didn’t even come close. I don’t even know if they heard what Mom said to me before they shut the door.”

I squeeze her hand. “What did she say?”

“You always have to make things so difficult,” she tells me before a sob bursts from her chest. “Don’t you, Parker?”

I push up on my knees and envelop her from behind, crushing her into my chest, cocooning her. Her tears flow down my arm, pooling in the crook of my elbow as my hands—as gently and lovingly as possible—rub over every part of her I can.

I arch, peppering her turned face with so many kisses, each one a silent promise to never let her feel like any part of her—her fears, her struggles, her rebellious antics—doesn’t matter. I whisper to her over and over that I’m with her, that she isn’t alone, that she never will be again.

The moment I feel the scar on her back pressed against my racing heart, I slide down, kissing the unhealed part she carries around with no other choice. I tell her I’m with her, but inside, deep in my heart, I promise I’ll love that part of her too. Because for me, it’s all of Parker or nothing. There’s no other choice for me either. As long as I can remember, there never was.