It was like the scene out of a scary tale that older kids would tell the younger ones at night back home just to terrorize them. It was worse than any of the stories our Elders used to warn us of what awaited us here in the English world.
Yet it wasn’t a story at all. I’d just witnessed it, a few feet away from me. I began to fear that Sarah had been right after all. Leaving home might have been a terrible mistake.
18
Wyatt
I was actually pretty impressed with both of my brothers and how they had handled themselves in that fight. The four guys that were starting to pick themselves up off the ground weren’t pushovers—those guys were built to battle—and yet we had laid them down fast, and very hard.
Especially Ash. He was a bouncer, but I’d got the impression that although he knew how to fight, his job was more about de-escalation and trying to avoid violence. I didn’t know what had come over him today, but if Reid and I hadn’t pulled him off that tattooed fuck, we might have been standing here waiting for the coroner. The only clue to his actions were some random mumblings about a promise he’d made to keep Hannah safe. Even though he’d mentioned the protection deal he’d struck with her when he had called the other day, I had no idea how serious he took it.
So I was kind of surprised when he shrugged away from Reid and me and stormed back to where the girls were standing, demanding to know what was going on from Hannah.
Her response was quieter, but I could tell by her body language that she didn’t really have an answer. Then suddenly Sarah broke away, saying something like “I can’t right now” and making off towards the woods again. That seemed like a pretty bad idea, given what had just happened, but as soon as she started off, Reid followed after her.
Beth looked just as spooked, her eyes following Sarah’s disappearing form. She had her fingers in her mouth and was biting down on them, hard. I moved closer, trying to think of words that would make her feel better. Safer. I knew how she felt about violence, this couldn’t have been easy for her to watch. But she had to know this hadn’t been our choice. I had no idea who the hell these guys were, but it seemed like a good bet that they were the whole reason Hannah had been looking for protection in the first place. So the explanations really needed to come from that direction.
Hannah saw me approaching and held up a hand. Maybe she was having the same thoughts that I was. Maybe she recognized that it was finally time for her to come clean.
She approached her sister, gently pushing her hand away from her mouth. “Beth… how are you holdin’ up?” she asked softly.
Beth was still staring towards the woods, but Sarah and Reid were no longer in sight. When she finally turned to answer, it wasn’t in English. I could see fear in her eyes.
Despite not having a clue what they were saying, I still listened intently to every word, as if by sheer concentration I could puzzle it out. On the one hand, I was worried about what was going to come out—mainly regarding the bet and Beth’s reaction to it. On the other hand, I almost welcomed it, weary from having to keep the secret from her for so long. The confrontation was inevitable, after all. I was anxious to put it behind us.
As I continued to listen helplessly, some movement from the corner of my eye distracted me. The men we’d beaten were helping to lift their leader up off the ground, the one Ash had done a number on. I was fairly sure that they weren’t going to attempt a round two—not right now, anyway—but I still watched carefully as they made a wide circle around us and exited on the far side of the building. Neither Hannah nor Beth even seemed to notice.
Their conversation had become more heated now, and the fear that I’d first seen in Beth’s blue eyes had turned to anger. She finally said something that seemed to knock the wind right out of her sister. Hannah seemed dazed by the accusation, turning away from Beth as if to leave. But Beth wasn’t ready to let it go. She grabbed her sister’s arm and yanked her back around.
“No!” Beth yelled, switching back to English now. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to run away from me again!”
Was that what they were fighting about? About how Hannah had abandoned her sisters when she decided not to come back home? I wasn’t sure how they would have gotten onto that old subject from what had just happened, though.
Hannah was shaking her head. “You don’t understand. I’m not—“
She couldn’t finish before Beth flung her arm away and interrupted. “Stop treating me like a child, Hannah! I’m a woman now! In the eyes of the church, and in the eyes of God!”
My eyes flew to Ash’s and he met my gaze with a somber stare, unsurprised by the sudden admission. Then I remembered we’d already practically admitted as much to him earlier.
“Tell me the truth,” Beth continued. “I deserve it. I deserve to know what made my sister cry, what she almost got us kidnapped for!”
“She was going to tell you about the bet!” Hannah snapped.
And then everything stopped for an instant. No one said another word. I was still staring at Ash, and I saw his eyes widen as he turned to Hannah. I knew I had to turn as well. I had to face Beth as she learned the truth. Watch her eyes to see how she took it. Figure out what I needed to say or do to explain myself. When I did, she looked stunned. Confused.
Hannah launched into an explanation at breakneck speed. She spoke about how she feared her sisters would be in danger if they left the village, about her father not wanting them to go, that the English world would be foreign and that they would need protection from its worst elements. Then she admitted how she also hoped that she could give them a reason to want to stay with her. To not go back home at all. She explained how she had approached Ash for help, but that she hadn’t know about the bet until later.
My eyes never left Beth during the whole explanation. The entire time, she just stood there trembling, the look on her face blank and faraway. I wasn’t even sure how much she even heard of what Hannah said. When she finally spoke, she focused on one specific point.
“What was the bet about?”
Such a simple question, but the answer could bring down worlds. Mine, at least.
“Please… don’t make me say it.” Hannah was practically in tears.
Beth’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “Hannah… Please. I have to know.”
Defeated, Hannah gave in. “It was about yours and Sarah’s virginity, Beth. They made a bet about which one of them would get to bed one of us first.”
Until now, my gaze on Beth had been unreturned, her focus solely on her sister as she finally got to the truth. I’d wanted her to look at me, to see my eyes, to read the truth in them. About my innocence in it all. But now that she finally looked at me, I practically withered under her glare. I opened my mouth to try and say something, but nothing would come at first. But then Beth spoke instead.
“God damn you. God damn all of you.”
That was it. Those words came out of her mouth, and then she turned and ran towards the apartment. Broken.
And it was my fault.
Before her sister could run after her, I took off as well. “I’ll go,” I murmured, half wishing they would stop me but knowing that even if they tried I wouldn’t let them. This was my fuck up. If I wanted any chance of fixing it at all, I needed to finally man up and face it head on. Avoiding the issue was what had landed me in the mess in the first place.
Ahead of me, Beth disappeared through the entrance to the building, so I knew she was headed back up to Hannah’s apartment. At least she was safe there, I didn’t need to rush to catch up to her. I preferred to give both of us some time. She needed to cool down, and I needed time to think. So instead of taking the elevator, I chose the stairs.
Big mistake. I hadn’t exactly forgotten about the fight I’d just been in, but I wasn’t thinking either of some of the kicks I’d taken to my legs and how they would feel as I hiked up the flights of stairs.
Instead of turning back and taking the elevator after all, I
considered it penance for my sins. Not enough, of course, but a start. I was sure to get plenty more once I reached Beth.
It wasn’t that I considered myself innocent in this situation, but I had a feeling I was going to get far more blame than was fair. After all, Hannah didn’t seem to fault Ash for his part in it, although I had no idea how or when he told her about it. Then again, Sarah certainly wasn’t letting Reid off easy.
All I could hope for was that Beth felt the same way about me as I did about her, and that those feelings would be enough to get us through this. That she would at least give me a chance to explain—to tell my side of it.
By the time I reached her floor, my legs were aching something fierce, and the gash above my eye felt like it had started to ooze blood again. I ignored both of those distractions. Physical pain was something I was used to. I wasn’t a stranger to pushing myself to the point of screaming muscles or battered skin, whether it was from the gym or during my MMA training sessions.
What I wasn’t used to was the pain in my chest. The tightness that came from my fear of losing the best woman I’d ever met.
“Beth?” Fortunately, she hadn’t locked me out. “Beth, I want to talk to you. I need to explain,” I called out as I stepped into her sister’s apartment.
From the hallway leading to the bedrooms, Beth emerged, a scowl on her face. Her eyes were red, but dry. “Oh, I’ve heard enough about what you want and what you need, Wyatt Brody,” she snapped. “And I think I already fulfilled all of those desires this morning and last night, didn’t I? Or was that not enough for you to win your bet?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not like that, Beth. Just let me—“
“Go away, Wyatt. I wish to be alone.” Then she turned back from the direction she’d come.
I felt my own anger rise, but I tried to swallow it back by reminding myself that she had a right to be upset. Still, I also felt like I deserved a chance to explain.
“Stop,” I demanded. “I think I have a right to tell you my side of this. You owe me that, at least.”
I heard a sound, like a gasp, and then Beth turned. She looked even angrier. “Oh, I owe you that, do I? You don’t think I gave you enough already? You don’t think you took enough from me? Maybe it’s you who owes me something, Wyatt. Maybe you owe me back my virginity. Maybe you owe me all of the time I’ve wasted, listening to your lies.”
“Goddamit, Beth, they weren’t my fucking lies.” My anger exploded at the accusation and I turned, slamming my fist into the wall in frustration.
I knew even before I looked at Beth’s face what a mistake that was. Her eyes were wide and she was just shaking her head.
“Is the answer to everything in your world simply more violence?” she asked quietly.
“Beth…” The rage within me dissipated immediately on seeing her face. The disappointment in her eyes.
“I’m beginning to see that my father was right to try to keep me from coming out here. He was just trying to protect me from all of the dangers and violence.”
“Beth, it’s not like that, please. I was just frustrated and… scared. I don’t want to lose you.”
“And this is how you prove that?”
“No! No, of course not. I just… seeing those men out there try to grab you and Sarah, it just made me furious. And then the stuff with the bet came up, which was a huge mistake from the beginning, more of a misunderstanding, something I’ve wanted to talk to you about since our first date. Only… I was never sure how to bring it up, and the more time I spent with you, the more scared I got that if I told you, you wouldn’t understand, or wouldn’t believe me when I told you that it meant nothing to me, and that I’d lose you. I didn’t want to risk that. But not telling you was stupid. I know that. I knew it the whole time.”
“Why would you even agree to something like that in the first place?”
“I didn’t agree, not really. It was just something that Ash had said to try and get me and Reid to talk to you three. He thought we needed an incentive, but I never did. Since the first second I saw you in Trick Shots, I knew I wanted to know you. So when he and Reid started talking about the bet, I just went along because it meant that we could stop sitting around fighting about shit and just go over and I could finally meet you. I didn’t care about it, and I swear to you that it meant nothing to me at all. Everything I’ve ever said or done with you has been genuine.”
I took a tentative step forward, relieved when she didn’t back away but disappointed that she didn’t move towards me, either. “I’m so sorry Beth, I really should have come clean about it earlier. I was just hoping it would all just go away and be forgotten about. Please forgive me.”
Beth hadn’t stopped watching my eyes, studying my face as I spoke. Her own expression was unreadable, and I had no idea what she was getting from mine. I just prayed that she could see that I was telling the truth.
Finally, she let out a tiny little sigh, her shoulders slumping forward just a little. “I thought I was strong enough for anything, Wyatt. I thought that I was ready for the English world, but I don’t know that I am. Those men out there… they were terrifying. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen back at my village. How can I live in a world where I have to worry about men popping out to grab me at any moment?”
“I’ll keep you safe,” I said, closing the final distance between her and reaching out to take her hands in mine and squeezing them. Our little signal. Beth didn’t squeeze back, but she didn’t let go.
“You won’t always be next to me,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve never had to worry about such things when I was growing up. And yet we’ve only been here a few days and already we’ve seen horrible trouble a couple of times—Sarah almost getting grabbed at the carnival and then both of us being chased today. And you…” she reached up and brushed her hand across my forehead, right above the cut that had finally stopped bleeding again. “Look what’s happened to you. I don’t want to see you get hurt trying to protect me.”
“I would do anything to protect you,” I said. And I meant it.
“I believe you,” she nodded. “But that’s the problem. I shouldn’t need protection.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Wyatt, I won’t say that I regret coming on Rumspringa, because if I hadn’t, I would have never met you. And believe me when I say that despite everything, my time with you has been wonderful. I really don’t regret any of it.” She paused for a moment, and I could see the decision form on her face before she even opened her mouth. “But I think I need to go home now.”
19
Beth
I hadn’t said a word to Wyatt since Hannah’s apartment. It’s not that I didn’t want to, but more that I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust my voice not to crack or the tears not to start to fall. The tears seemed especially threatening, hanging in pools around my eyes while I stared out the window at the swiftly moving tree line that whipped by us in the fading light of the afternoon sun.
But most of all, I didn’t trust myself not to change my mind.
My head and my heart were at odds; one urging me to run from all this violence and the other pleading with me to stay with the first man who had ever made me feel both alive and desired. The first man I’d ever felt real desire for myself. And not just physical desire, although that part was hard to ignore, but the desire to spend all my time getting to know him and letting him get to know me. Sharing experiences and teaching each other new things about the world from our own very different perspectives.
I’d loved doing that with Wyatt. He was so full of surprises, seemingly just as eager to do things with me outside his own interest that he believed I’d enjoy as he was in demonstrating his own passions.
If anything, I’d been more judgmental about his life than he’d been about mine.
But then, I hadn’t tried to keep secrets from him, either.
The bet was bad enough. Even though I did believe Wyatt when he claimed that he never really took it seriously, it was
still hard to accept that men in the English world propose such things in the first place. Either way, not telling me about it was wrong. And not just by Wyatt. It was obviously something Hannah knew about as well, which was why Sarah was so angry with her when she found out. Hannah was more at fault than anyone for not telling me. Whether she left our community or not, she was still my sister. I should have been able to expect more from her than a man I’d really only known for a few days.
That’s why I didn’t feel guilty about returning home without telling her. In fact, I even made Wyatt promise not to tell anyone I was leaving until I was safely back. “You all have had a chance to keep secrets from me,” I argued. “The least you can do is let me have a secret of my own.” I knew that I couldn’t give Hannah a chance to change my mind. She was always the one urging Sarah and I to join her out here, I knew she would do her best to keep me from leaving again. I’m not sure who would have had an easier time of convincing me—Wyatt or her.
I did feel bad about not telling Sarah, though. It turned out she had been the voice of reason this entire time. Since the beginning she had been reluctant to follow our older sister, warning how the English world was full of danger and corruption. That mindset had come directly from our father, but it looked like she had been right to listen to it. I had just been too headstrong and anxious for adventure to think clearly.
Still, after the fight Sarah had had with Reid, I wouldn’t be surprised if she joined me back home very shortly anyway. I would apologize to her when she did.
Not that everyone back home was always completely honest, although in truth I couldn’t remember any lies of much consequence. But there was the violence, too. Even father hadn’t sufficiently prepared me for that.
The Brody Bunch Collection: Bad Boy Romance Page 53