Everyone had a breaking point.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” Kai’s voice was soft, and he rested his chin on my head as we stood in the middle of the beach.
“I’m trying,” I admitted. “I know you don’t lie. You’re the most honest person I’ve ever known, and I’ve known that since we first became friends.”
“Come on.” Kai untangled our bodies and linked his fingers with mine.
“Where are we going?”
“I’m going to make love to you until you believe me,” Kai smirked, and I couldn’t help but laugh. God, this man was something else—he was insatiable. My stomach clenched and need spread through my body. As of tomorrow morning, I wouldn’t be able to look at his face, touch his hand, or make love to him anymore.
I couldn’t fathom why I was letting him go.
My stomach growled, and I put my hand over it to quiet it. Kai looked over at me as we walked, always perceptive.
“After I feed you.” He walked a few feet and then stopped me again. “Natalie, I need to tell you something.”
My stomach dropped and the need dissipated. I nodded, not able to speak.
“I’m worried about you, and I talked to your brother about it.”
I was shocked by his confession but had no clue what he was referring to or what he could be worried about. I hadn’t done anything. “Worried about me for what reason?”
Kai placed his hand on my stomach, where it gurgled and turned under his touch. He looked down at his hand for a moment before lifting his gaze to my face. “I’m worried because of what happened the other night and that you don’t eat enough.”
Ice-cold fear gripped my heart and traveled into my stomach, making me feel like vomiting. My eyes filled with tears. No. I stepped back, forcing him to drop his hands from my body. Not again. He was going to bring this up again.
“Natalie.” Kai’s voice held warning like he knew what I wanted to do. Run. Avoid. This is why you don’t get close to anyone.
I couldn’t speak. I didn’t have another excuse ready for this attack. I wouldn’t be able to convince him. Kai didn’t want the truth. No one did. And I couldn’t go there. He talked to Beau. The whole time they were over there talking, I thought Beau was grilling him about dating me. But, in reality, Kai was telling him that he was concerned about me. My thoughts ran to what Beau must be thinking and what Kai must have said to him. But if Beau was worried, he hadn’t approached me about it. I had to force myself to take a deep breath and not allow myself to go from zero to sixty in two seconds flat.
“When was the last time you ate?” Kai’s voice was soft but insistent. He wasn’t going to let this go, and this was a characteristic of his I knew and loved. He didn’t sweep things under the rug or pretend. It was refreshing on a good day.
But not now.
Not today.
Anger sparked to life inside me, and it began to spread, making my hands shake and my jaw set. “I eat every day, Kai.” I turned my back to him and glared out at the water, crossing my arms in front of me in defense. “Why won’t you just let this go? Why do you have to keep bringing it up? You told me to tell you if you’re ever hurting me, so I’m telling you to stop. You’re hurting me.”
He stepped up behind me, and I stiffened, knowing he was going to touch me. Anger swirled inside me, and I wanted to lash out but was desperately trying not to. I rarely let myself show any extreme form of emotion, and I couldn’t start now. I already cried in front of the man.
“Natalie, I don’t want to hurt you, but dammit.” He turned me so I faced him again. When I didn’t look at him, he forced my chin up. For the first time, I saw frustration mixed with fury in his eyes. Directed at me. “I’m just trying to help you. That’s what people do when they care about each other.”
My jaw hurt from clenching it so hard. Words of aggression raced through me, trying to force their way out. “I don’t need your help, Kai. I’ve been just fine my entire life without someone constantly questioning me.”
His jaw ticked in irritation. He had no right to be irritated with me. “Maybe you do need someone to question you. You can keep trying to sell me a song and dance, but I’m not blind. I see it. I see the way you push food around on your plate but don’t eat. I see you throw food away and avoid putting it in your mouth. You run like someone’s chasing you. When you almost passed out, it did something to me, seeing you like that. It all started clicking together.”
“What is? You have all the answers on me now?” I couldn’t help it; rage laced every word that came from my mouth.
“No. I don’t have any answers, Natalie. But I want them. I did some reading online—”
“Reading?” I interrupted. “On what exactly?”
Kai crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked at me pointedly, his gaze never wavering. “Anorexia.”
“What?” This was bullshit. “Did you spew this nonsense to my brother, too?” My heart pounded in my chest, painfully crashing into the surrounding bones. My hands shook with resentment, and my chest heaved.
“Not specifically about anorexia because I didn’t have a name for it. But when my mom brought it up—”
“Your mom?” Enough was enough. I had it. “I need a moment or a hundred, Kai. Please. Go back to my house. I’ll be there in a little while.”
“You need a moment? I just want to help you, and you need the moment?”
“Yes. I do.” I turned my back on him. “I’m furious with you and I don’t want to see you right now. You tell me you love me, but is this really what love is? You want me to trust you, but you went behind my back to my brother and your mother after I told you I’m fine. I’m fine, Kai. You’ve known me in person for a week and a half. Somehow I don’t think you have all the answers to everything about me already. If you can’t accept that and trust me, then you can just go get on your plane back to New York now.” I may regret saying that to him, but dammit, I meant it. Rage controlled my head, so my heart lost.
“Maybe I will.” The three words he said cut me in half, but it was what I wanted. This is what I did—push people away until they broke. He couldn’t come here and act like he knew what I was going through or what my reasons were for running or eating the way I did. How dare he.
I didn’t turn around as he walked away, even though I fought everything inside me not to run after him and fall to my knees in apology. I walked the opposite direction, concentrating on allowing my heart rate return to normal. My hands shook uncontrollably as I fought to force the anger away.
The truth was, I knew I had a problem, but I could handle it myself. I didn’t need anyone’s help or pity. I hadn’t been able to eat properly in a long time. It all started when Beau was admitted into the psych hospital when we were kids. The day my mother walked away and never came back. When we were put in foster home after foster home, the only thing we could count on was each other. There was no control in my life, so I created some. It had been so long now it was just a part of my life, to control things by not allowing myself to eat. To exercise to exhaustion. To hate the way my body looked. To shut myself off from everyone.
The fact that I let Kai see my body naked, every day, multiple times a day for the last week, was a huge turning point. But it hadn’t stopped the fact I couldn’t eat. When I ate a whole meal, I felt like I instantly gained weight. When I looked in the mirror, I saw pockets of cellulite and bloated skin.
I hated myself.
I spent years with Beau at therapists. I knew why I had self-deprecating thoughts, but I never talked to any of those therapists about me. About my control issues. My eating issues. My issues, in general.
Anytime I felt out of control, like with Kai, it got worse. I knew this about myself, but I couldn’t stop it. I knew what I saw in the mirror wasn’t what everyone else saw, but it didn’t change.
I sat on the damp beach and let the tears come. I watched as they dripped into the sand below and wondered what the hell I was doing. Kai says he lo
ves me, but I’m not sure I’m capable of being the person he wants me to be. The person he thinks I am. Now I just pushed him away and told him to go home.
He’s right. I’m a mess, and I know it. I got angry because he’s the first person to call me out on my issues. Mac and April have alluded to having the same concerns, but I didn’t get angry with them because they dropped it, they didn’t harp on it.
I closed my eyes and Kai’s handsome face appeared in my head. The way he looked at me like he could see my soul, the way he touched me like I was the most precious thing he’d ever known—the way he got me like no one else ever had.
I didn’t know why I was mad or why I was sitting here alone while Kai was at my house by himself. I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling and wondered if I’d already managed to ruin everything precious about us. If he was packing and getting ready to go home, I couldn’t blame him. I practically drove him there myself.
I stood up and brushed the sand from my shorts. I looked out at the water for a few moments, watching as it lapped the shore, over and over again, washing away whatever was in its path.
Kai was like the waves for me. He was eroding everything I believed about myself, challenging me to stand strong while the tide pulled away all the things I needed to let go.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the waves. I knew I needed to say it to him, and I would. I would allow myself to be vulnerable—show him all my cards. I would be honest and tell him how long I’d struggled with my control issues.
I would admit I need help.
I would take time for myself and take care of me instead of everyone else.
I would.
I turned to walk back to the house and beg Kai’s forgiveness for my hatefulness when the world began to spin. I clutched my chest, my heart constricting painfully.
No. Not again. I stopped, closing my eyes and willing the world to stop spinning. I was fine. I just needed to stop and breathe.
I wished I had some water; it helped a lot the last time. I made sure I stayed hydrated to try to prevent this from happening again.
I could hear Kai’s words bouncing around my head, asking me when I had last eaten. I hadn’t had much today, just picked at both of my meals. I promise I’m going to eat. I’m going to get better.
I dropped to my knees, trying to force oxygen in and out of my lungs. Blackness edged into my vision, and I fought against it, willing it to go away. I shook uncontrollably, and I tried to call out for Kai. For anyone.
The last thing I remembered was my head hitting the hard sand as I lost consciousness.
Chapter Seventeen
Kai
I stood on the back porch the whole time, watching Natalie sit on the beach. I wanted nothing more than to run out there, fall to my knees on the sand, and apologize for upsetting her.
But I couldn’t.
It had to be said.
Something was going on with her, and she needed to come to terms with it.
I wanted to help her, but I couldn’t if she refused to acknowledge she was in trouble.
So I waited, forcing myself to watch as she sat there, working through the thoughts in her head.
There was no way I’d allow her to push me out and leave, no matter how upset her words made me.
I was angry with her because I was terrified for her.
But I loved her, and eventually, she will know that love doesn’t walk away when times get tough.
Natalie didn’t know how that felt, but she would.
If she would let me prove it.
When she stood and turned to come back to me, my heart clutched in my chest. I didn’t know what she’d say when she got back up here. I prayed she wouldn’t kick me out and insist I go home. I wanted her to fall into my arms and let me kiss the heartache and pain away. I couldn’t believe this would be the last night I’d sleep with her in my arms for weeks, maybe months, and we just had our first fight.
She stopped, facing me. I saw her clutch her chest, and I gripped the railing, watching. Panic instantly set in wondering what was going on in the sand down below.
Natalie needed me. I took a step to go down the stairs when I saw her fall to her knees. No. Not again. I began running, my legs not moving fast enough to get to her when I saw her collapse on the sand head first. I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed 9-1-1 as I ran, shouting instructions at the operator on the other end.
It took what seemed like years to reach her crumpled form. I skidded to a stop and fell to my knees in front of her. I turned her lifeless body. Sand covered her face and body. I put my fingers on her neck and felt a slight pulse.
“Oh thank God,” I said out loud.
“Does she have a pulse?” The 9-1-1 operator’s voice came through my phone. I almost forgot they were still there, on speaker to enable me to run full speed down here.
“Yes. Faint, but there.”
“Okay. Is she conscious?”
I looked at Natalie’s closed eyelids, her mouth slightly open. “No.”
“But she’s breathing?”
I leaned over her, both feeling for her breath and watching her chest. “Yes.”
“Okay. The ambulance will be there within two minutes.”
“Please hurry.” My voice broke, and I allowed it. I knew something was wrong, and I didn’t do anything about it the first time.
This was all my fault.
I dropped the phone in the sand next to me so I could lift Natalie in my arms. “Love, wake up. I’m sorry I upset you. Open your eyes and look at me, Natalie. I love you. God, I can’t lose you. Don’t leave me. I would never leave you. Never.”
Natalie’s head flopped back as I held her, and her arms lay lifeless next to her. I heard sirens in the distance, and I prayed. I prayed that whatever this was, she would come back to me.
I had to call Beau. He needed to know. “I have to hang up,” I said to the operator. “The ambulance is here, but I need to call her brother.”
“Okay, sir. I’m glad they’re there already.”
I saw the paramedics running across the sand. A few spectators from down the beach watched as they ran up to us, carrying a stretcher and a bag of equipment.
“Lay her down if you will, sir,” one of them said. I did as they asked, lying her back on the damp sand.
“What happened?” The other paramedic asked as his partner started checking her vitals. I summarized what I’d seen, as well as what took place last night.
The one working on Natalie spouted medical jargon I didn’t understand to the other. “What does that mean? Is she okay?”
“We need to get her to the hospital.” He looked at his partner. “Let’s load her up.” They worked to roll her onto the stretcher and secure her. She still didn’t move or open her eyes.
“We’ll start an IV in the rig,” the one said. He turned to me. “You can follow us in your car.”
“I–I’m not from here. I don’t know where I’m going.”
The two men exchanged a look. “You can come with her. Let’s go. We need to get her in.”
I jogged behind them, my phone in my hand. I needed to call Beau, but I’d wait until we got into the ambulance.
When we reached the waiting truck, they loaded her in quickly, and I jumped in with one of the paramedics into the back while the other ran around to drive.
Please hurry, I willed him. I watched as he hooked her up to machines and started an IV as the ambulance sped through the streets, the siren wailing. He talked into a walkie talkie, updating the hospital on her condition and their ETA, but I couldn’t understand what he said. The words jumbled in my head, and all I could think of was how the last thing I did was upset her.
I caused this.
My hands shook as I found Beau’s contact information on my phone. The phone rang twice, and he answered.
“Hello?”
“Beau, it’s Kai.”
“Hey, Kai. What’s going on?”
I opened my mouth to answer, bu
t a sob escaped instead.
“Kai, talk to me. What’s wrong? Is it my sister?”
I nodded before realizing he couldn’t hear me. “Come to the hospital, Beau. I don’t know what’s wrong, but they just brought her in by ambulance.”
“April!” I heard Beau calling his wife. “What happened, Kai?”
“Sh–she collapsed on the beach.”
“Is she conscious?”
“No. Please come, Beau.”
“We’re on our way. Which hospital? I’ll call everyone else.”
“Which hospital?” I asked the paramedic.
“Gulf Coast.”
I repeated the information to Beau.
The line went dead, and I jumped up as the ambulance pulled into the emergency entrance. I followed Natalie as they wheeled her into the hospital and directly into a private room, shouting more medical information at the doctors as they put her behind a curtain.
“You need to stay here for now.” A nurse appeared in front of me. “The doctors need space to determine what’s going on.”
I nodded my head in agreement, even though I wanted nothing more than to burst into the room, hold her hand, and beg her to come back to me.
But I needed them to fix her more, so I could see those beautiful eyes look at me again.
“Wait over there, and I’ll come to get you when I know something.” She indicated a row of chairs against the wall. “Are you family?”
I nodded again, knowing there wasn’t any way I would sit here and not know updates on her.
“Okay. Let me get in there and see what they need.” She disappeared, leaving me standing in the middle of the emergency room, feeling lost and terrified. People moved around the crowded waiting room. Babies cried, and people slept, but I couldn’t think about anything other than the way her face looked when I got to her.
Within minutes, Beau and April burst through the doors, followed by Mac, Tanner, Johnny, and Bex. Mac and April both had tears streaming down their faces. Following the band into the hospital were several members of their security team, who went immediately to the nurses’ station, more than likely to get a private room. Once someone figured out who they were, pandemonium would ensue, and we didn’t want to deal with that right now.
Exposed: A Jaded Regret Novel Page 20