by LJ Evans
But, she shook her head at Tate. It wasn’t worth speaking about. Truly, she was unable to speak of that time. Unable to share that humiliation. But when she glanced at Seth, she could tell he was thinking the same thing she was. It had been her own words when she’d told him about the boys in high school.
Tate asked several more questions and then closed her book and stood.
“Do you know where he is?” Seth asked, his voice cold and hard. Unreadable except to PJ who knew it held that lethal tone to it.
“No,” Officer Tate said honestly.
“But you’re going to arrest him?”
“We’ll bring him in for questioning.”
“You heard what PJ said. It's fucking him,” Seth seethed.
“We understand that’s what she believes, but until we have hard proof or a confession, it’s all we can do,” she responded.
Seth pushed himself up off the wall, but Justice blocked his path to the officer.
“What does that mean?” Justice asked, brushing his hand through his hair in a way that Locke normally did. “Don’t you believe her?”
“I believe her, yes. Very much,” Tate reassured. “But if we want the arrest to stick, we have to have more than a word that both men happened to speak.”
“The same shithead,” Seth growled.
Justice hadn’t moved. He was still blocking Seth’s way to the officer. Seth seemed to understand that it was to help him.
“I’m going to go touch base with my partner. We’ll let you know when we have more information.”
“The… DNA?” PJ asked.
“From him licking you?” Tate asked.
PJ nodded.
“We’ll have to see what comes back. Sometimes we get solid markers. Sometimes we don’t. I’m not saying this to piss anyone off,” she looked at Seth. “I’m saying this so that I give you the lowest expectations possible in hopes that I can come back and give you much better news.”
Liv thanked her and the officer left.
Everyone was quiet.
She was getting sleepy again from all the medication and the pain and the emotion. And the truth was, she wanted to sleep. Sleeping was better than thinking. Thinking about the fact that she might have started this avalanche rolling towards her years ago. But they wouldn’t let her stay asleep long because they were watching her concussion. Her eyes drooped anyway, the medicine kicking in.
“Peej?” It was Justice, rubbing her arm.
“Hmm.”
“Liv and I are going to take off for a bit. Just enough to take care of Cole. We’ll be back. Call us if you need us before then, okay. For anything. Even if you just need to talk.”
“K.”
There was a hushed conversation going on, but she was so tired, she didn’t even care to listen to it. She didn’t want to know what they were saying about her.
Eventually it got quiet, and she knew everyone had left. Everyone except Seth because she could feel him in the room with her like she always did.
She managed to open her eyes and saw him in the chair next to her bed, eyes glued to her. She rolled onto her side with a little groan. Every piece of her body felt like it had been hammered into submission. She watched him as he watched her. Their fight and their unspoken words and the questions and answers were still whirling around them.
But she didn’t want to talk.
“Go back to the house. Change. Get some rest,” she told him.
“Is that your way of telling me I look like hell?”
“No. I just… there’s nothing you can do here.”
“I’m not leaving until I can take you home.”
And she couldn’t tell him then. But she wasn’t going back to his house. She couldn’t. She needed a break. She needed space. She needed to heal in more than one way. She needed to be able to breathe without him taking the air as she did it.
“I’m just going to be sleeping. You should too.”
“No.”
“Ugh!” she rolled away from him. It didn’t help, she could still feel his eyes cutting into her back.
But she was too tired to fight him. She fell asleep with him watching her, knowing that when she woke, he would be exactly where she left him. In the chair, with his hand outstretched toward her.
* * *
When she woke the next morning, Seth was still there but he’d changed. He had on his typical jeans and a t-shirt. A pile of clothes that was once his tux were sitting on the floor. She didn’t know who had brought him the clothes, but it was obvious he hadn’t gone anywhere to get them.
He was drawing something on his sketchpad that must have been brought along with the clothes.
She must have made a noise, or just his normal panther senses made him aware that she was awake because he leaned forward and put the sketchpad down on the bed as he kissed her gently on the lips.
“Bella,” his voice was gruff from his own exhaustion and emotions.
She looked down at the picture he was drawing. It was another cage. Not unlike the cage on his shoulder. Not unlike the one he’d made for Cam. And her jealousy and anger from the party hit her all over again. She wasn’t stupid. She realized that Seth loved her, PJ. God, he was so over the top crazy protective that it would be impossible to not realize that. But it also didn’t remove the hurt from finding out that she was just a reflection of this woman from his past that he couldn’t have. From the little seed of doubt that said this is why he loved her, PJ, because he was trying to obtain something he hadn’t been able to have before.
“Is it her?” she asked as she ran her finger down the picture. He looked confused. “It’s the gilded cage, right? The one you destroyed?”
“No, it’s not,” he breathed out, realizing what she meant.
He pulled her from the bed into his lap, and she yelped as the wires tugged at her veins.
“I know you think…” He seemed to struggle for words because they weren’t something he was good at. “I know you think I still have feelings for her. But there is nothing there. Nothing but relief that losing her has brought me to you.”
She heard what he was saying, and she believed him because Seth always told the truth, but it was like her brain and her heart and her body were separate entities all reacting to him in different ways. She had tears pouring down her face again, and she wasn’t even sure why.
“God Bella,” he wiped at her tears. “You’re so goddamn much more than she ever was.”
He pulled her chin back to face him and his lips found hers in the way that always reminded her of how much he needed her. Of the current that tied them together like the water and the shore, and yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had landed on their beach that didn’t belong and was tainting the water red.
And she knew again that these were all the reasons she wouldn’t be going back to his house with him. Because they had to fix it before they moved forward. She had to fix herself before she could move forward with him.
* * *
And even now, that she is in New York, and he is in L.A., she still feels the current that draws them together. She feels it and is still struggling against it. She hasn’t necessarily found peace in New York. But she’s been able to think and to breathe and learn how her past was trying to tear up her future.
The psychologist and distance have allowed her to see the way her past impacted her view of Seth and his non-existent relationship with Cam and his real relationship with her. And she’s finding ways to forgive herself for being a screwed-up teenager, and ways to convince herself that what happened with Michael was not her fault.
She’s getting there. She’s not sure she could have done that with Seth breathing over her shoulder, trying to force her to see it because he believed it. He tried so hard to show her the beauty and strength that he saw in her, and she’d rejected it. What he didn’t know, because she’d never done a great job of showing him, was that she saw it in him too. That same strength. That same resiliency. He’d s
urvived so much in his own life. More in many ways than she had, and he hadn’t run away. He was just facing it every day. Confronting the loss and the addiction and trying to love.
She finds herself being drawn back to the pictures of the cracked plate welded together with gold that she’d found on the website about Kintsugi, and she’s wonders if Seth is right. If somehow they can fuse themselves together in a way that makes them more than their experiences. More than their mistakes.
I’d Die For You
Letter Ten
“If you could see inside my heart, then you would understand. I’d never mean to hurt you, baby I’m not that kind of man.”
-Bon Jovi, Child, & Sambora
DEAR BELLA,
I knew you were agitated and worried. I knew you were terrified of Michael and the fact that he was still out there. I knew you were frustrated with me and Cam and my inability to let you out of my sight. But I didn’t know that you were really going to leave me. That you were going to move out and not come home. Even though you’d talked about Pratt, you hadn’t brought it up again, and I had deluded into thinking I’d convinced you to stay.
The reality was that I’d held onto you so tightly that you’d actually slipped through my fingers. When you left, there would only be a piece of myself left.
When the doctor said his was releasing you, my heart soared because I thought I was going to be able to take you home where I could take care of you. Liv and Justice were there without the baby, and I guess that should have been a clue. Like they thought they were going to need to fight me.
Justice was grabbing your things, and I stopped him.
“I’ll take it.”
But he looked from you to me, something unspeakable passing between the two of you that caused me to freeze in a new way.
“You haven’t told him?” Justice asked.
You wouldn’t look at me. And that’s when I knew. You were running. You were leaving.
“Bella?”
“I’m going to stay with Justice and Liv.”
“No.”
“You can’t tell her no,” Justice said, dropping the bag and stepping between you and me.
It was Liv that stopped us from going at it again. Even though I hadn’t moved a muscle, she put her hand on my arm. “Seth, PJ just needs some space. Some time. This…. Everything has just been a little too much.”
“I want her to say it.” Did you hear the hurt in my voice? Probably not. I’m good at hiding my emotions, but you were slowly battering my shield apart. I knew eventually the feelings would show. Just like my tears had flowed for the first time in my life.
“I’m going to stay with Justice,” you said quietly, but you wouldn’t meet my eyes.
What could I do? Fight your family? Fight you? I knew that if I could just touch you, you’d know the truth because our bodies always spoke the truth to each other even when our minds got in the way, but to touch you, I’d have to go through them and that would just cause you to hate me more.
I’d already lost.
You were already gone.
So instead of fighting you, I left.
And you didn’t stop me.
* * *
I didn’t go home. I went to the gym. I boxed until my fists were bruised inside my boxing gloves. I boxed until my legs were weak and the desire to run to the bar had softened. I boxed until the anguish inside me started to feel as senseless as my body did.
And then I got in the car ready to drive home.
But, I didn’t.
Instead, I drove to the fucking police station because Officer Williams called while I was in the car. He said that Michael had come down to the station sometime before you’d been taken and had filed his assault charge against me. Williams and Tate had not been informed because Michael had specifically asked for different officers, saying that he felt like they were harassing him and wouldn’t take his report seriously.
In any event, the charge had already hit the prosecutor’s desk, and the prosecutor knew about my shit-faced, gang related father, and so of course he wanted to talk to me. I could imagine that he thought I’d be some big headline for him, New York Gang Kid Goes Berserk in Orange County Bar.
Maybe because I had already battered myself into a state of anesthetization, both emotionally and physically, I didn’t get angry. Instead, I just drove to the police station.
Williams met me and took me to the interview room. He said he was truly sorry, and that if he was in my shoes, he’d be ready to kill someone.
I just nodded. What could I say? I was ready to kill someone, but that someone wasn’t in the room.
It was like after my mom died. I’d wanted to kill my dad. But he wasn’t there, and I’d become that emotionless kid in the hospital bed until my grandparents had showed up and I’d turned angry. It was like my life was on a repeat cycle of anger and loss.
For the first time, I was glad that you were at Justice’s because if I was here and you were at our home, you would have been alone. And that would have made me insane. I would have wanted to be with you to protect you. Instead, I had to trust that your family would do that. Do you realize what a big leap of faith that was for me?
Williams and Tate both joined me in the interview as well as the officer who’d taken Michael’s report. I never caught his name. It was given, but I didn’t really give a rat’s ass what it was. Williams and Tate had gotten the prosecutor, some kid named Schmuck to hold off on actually having me arrested until he’d heard the whole story. But he was chomping at the bit, and I could tell as soon as he saw me and my beat-up fists that he was ready to file.
I didn’t have to say much. Tate took the Schmuck through your case from the beginning. She ended with what had happened to you the day before, and how Michael was nowhere to be found. They told him that the night at the bar when I’d hit Michael, that Michael had not been taking no for an answer.
Schmuck-boy started to back pedal.
“Do you have witnesses to support your side?” he asked with a glimmer that said he was hoping I didn’t.
“PJ and her roommate. I’m sure the bouncers can contest to the fact that he was still coming after PJ even after she started to walk away.”
“Well…,” Schmuck trailed off as he saw his golden egg slipping away.
“Listen, Peter, we know you thought you had an open-and-closed case here, but it really isn’t. I can tell you, the fact that Michael filed these charges before abducting PJ yesterday, that tells us he was thinking about keeping Seth occupied so that he couldn’t protect her.”
I just sat, pinching my palm and trying to breathe so that I wouldn’t punch a wall and get myself thrown in a jail cell where I couldn’t make sure you were safe. Because one thing became clear to me while I was sitting there, Michael wasn’t done.
After some more goddamn questions and a whole journal of notes being taken by the Schmuck, they let me go. And all I could think about was making sure you were safe. I wanted you in my arms where I knew I could protect you, but if I showed up at Justice’s tonight, I was pretty sure I’d be shown the door.
I did the only thing I could, I called Liv because you didn’t have a phone yet and I wanted to hear your voice. I wanted to make sure you were okay, to warn you that it wasn’t over. Liv said you were sleeping. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to tell her about being dragged down to the police station when your family was already on an anti-Seth campaign. So, I just hung up.
I drove home more tired than I’d ever been.
I hadn’t had any sleep to speak of in the hospital chair. I had beat myself to a pulp at the gym. My emotions were swinging every way from the loss of you. From fear for you. From the fight-or-flight adrenalin of being at the police station. That’s the only reason he caught me by surprise. Because I was exhausted.
When I got home, my body was crying for our bed, but I couldn’t face it without you in it. I headed to the studio instead. And when I got there, I stood there in shock.
Everything was destroyed. Your chair with the silk poured over it was busted apart. The shadowboxes of you had shattered glass. Pieces of you were all over the place. My heart was pounding violently, filling my ears with the rush of blood.
As I stood there like a moron, trying to figure out what had happened, he smashed me on the head from behind.
I hit the ground on my hands and knees, my hand going to the back of my head instinctively and coming away with blood. I turned and was faced with Michael and a gun that he’d obviously used against my skull.
This was a Michael that I was sure you had never seen. No sweet nerd in sight. Instead, his eyes were dark and dilated. His mouth was twisted into a sneer. His hair was out of control. He looked like the cover page for a serial killer magazine.
But he’d already made the biggest mistake he could make. I was on the ground. He thought that was a good thing. He didn’t know how the hell we fight in the Bronx. He didn’t know that I’d been in this position way too many fucking times with my dad and that I’d dreamed as a kid of all the ways that I could get out of this exact fucking situation if I was ever in it again. Especially after my mom.
“Some big He-Man you are,” he spit out because he’d thought I’d gone down easy. “Where’s Patterson?”
I didn’t respond. You’d understand that I didn’t have words while I was fighting for control, but my lack of response just seemed to flame his fury.
“I’ve waited four years to have her. Do you know that? She was supposed to be mine in high school. It was my turn.” He scowled and tried to kick me, but I moved myself back so that I could be prepared for the next time.
I stared at his contorted face and was filled with disgust and fury at his thought that he had a right to you. That he and all those jackasses in high school had thought it was okay to pass a human being around as if she was a bag of chips to be shared.
“I thought I’d never see her after she graduated. When I walked in to the gym my first day, I was stunned. There she was. Beautiful as always, but even stronger. And I was almost ready to make my move.”
I waited.