I hushed her, rocking, holding, supporting all of it. Absorbing her heartache, sheltering her abuse.
With a choked cry, a sound escaped her that I would swear was close to a laugh. I peeled myself from her, confused. Though the pain was still there, a hint of a smile danced in the water in her eyes. She laughed again, and I wasn’t certain it wasn’t sarcastic. I had hoped she wasn’t losing it.
“I had a dream once. I was carrying all these heavy bags, stumbling under the weight. You appeared, and I dropped them at your feet. I remember the feeling of the burden leaving me. It’s ironic, that’s kind of what you’re doing now.” She finally focused on me then, a calm settling over her that resembled acceptance rather than defeat. As the muscles in her cheeks relaxed, she wasn’t giving in to the fact that she had no choice but for me to know. She was agreeing to be okay with it.
A warmth took hold of my core, grateful that we were finally on the same page. Where everything was out in the open, and where we were both okay with that. Her expression was the most serene it had been since the moment I’d met her, and I knew then we were entering yet another stage of our relationship. And when her delicate fingers slipped into my palm, joining our hands, a burst of new life entered my veins. Of future years and open-ended happiness. It was a sign of no barriers, no lies, and no secrets.
I felt her soul wash over mine, and mine over hers to cleanse it and rid her of the shame from her past. Knowing this wouldn’t be easy, I laced our fingers and brought our knotted hands up to each side of her face. I closed my eyes and dropped my forehead to hers, rolling side to side as I attempted to tamp down my heaving chest. I wanted to reassure her with everything that made me up that she would be okay now. I would never let her down. But I couldn’t find words as heavy, as powerful, as meaningful as what I felt at that moment. So I let my lips speak the words my tongue couldn’t.
As they slid over hers, mingling with her warmth, I inhaled her exhale, taking another piece of her inside of me. In a heated rush, she raged through me, dancing amongst my darkness, sending a glittering light into my pores.
She answered my call with an urgency of her own, hopefully hearing all of my unspoken words, solidifying a bond that I knew would withstand any obstacle. I drew back and placed a full kiss flush on her lips, then dropped my forehead to hers again. A smile spread my face just as the sound of her mother’s voice broke through our moment.
“She’s up? Eva?” There was a pause as I left one more chaste kiss on Eva’s lips, then pushed some encouragement into her with my expression before moving to her side so her mom could get a good look at her face.
“Oh, thank God.” The worry deflated from her voice in a crackling euphoria, the heaviness melting from the words as she sank to envelop her daughter in her arms. Tears rained down her face as she sobbed into Eva’s neck. Eva’s father, Joe, stood behind his wife with a red nose, moisture pooling in his swollen eyes.
Her mother drew back to take Eva’s face in her trembling hands, inspecting her. “Are you okay? How do you feel? What do you need?”
“I’m fine, Mom.” She smiled, her gaze skirting away to find the blanket. “A little sore, and my head aches, but I have a good doctor.” She moved our joined hands to her lap, smirking at me with the insinuation that I’d been taking care of her.
Her mother’s gaze fell to the action, and her lips pulled into a hard line as she straightened her spine, running the back of her hand sharply below her nose with a sniffle.
My spirits sank. While Eva was out, her parents and I had gotten into it. They’d demanded answers, and I’d refused to give them. Not without her. I now understood why Jace had kept her secret for so long and I wasn’t about to betray that. It was her story to tell, and she’d do it. When she was ready. I could see where they were coming from. Especially when their other daughter was freaking out over what I had done to her fiancé. I hoped more than anything that this would all end soon, but I wasn’t about to push her.
Eva’s face buckled a little as she took in the look of distaste on her mother’s pursed lips. Then her gaze drifted to mine as she searched for the answer of what had gone on in her absence.
I dropped my line of sight to the waffle blanket, not wanting to be the reason for any hard feelings between Eva and her parents.
“What’s going on?” Eva’s voice was slow, unsteady.
Her dad dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “We were worried about you, lovebug.”
Eva’s eyes roamed each of our faces, pink prickling her cheeks as she fidgeted to sit up straighter. She winced. “That’s not it. What’s going on? Tell me.”
“We’re all just concerned. Wondering what happened. That’s all.” Joe slid his arm around his wife’s shoulder and held on tight.
Eva’s mouth opened to respond, but before she could, Abby’s high-pitched voice floated into the room. “Damon’s awa—” The end of the word hung unspoken as she froze and took in her sister sitting upright, fully conscious herself. Abby straightened her spine, gulping down a ball of nerves as her eyebrows puckered.
Questions.
Answers.
Truths.
Anguish.
Every emotion seemed to float between them as they focused on one another.
As though she had learned all she needed to know in that gaze, Abby crossed her arms over her chest and swapped the weight on her feet with a shrug, clearly uncomfortable although she was trying to portray some kind of stuck-up strength, probably thinking she could intimidate the truth from Eva.
“Well, I guess now everyone can answer all our questions.” Tears welled in her eyes, seeming to send the moisture straight to Eva’s as well.
I covered Eva’s hand with my own, lending her support. “Abby, your sister has been through a lot. She just woke up. Why don’t you back off a bit?”
“No.” Although Eva’s gaze was downcast, her eyebrows drawn into a painful center as though she were breaking, the strength in her voice was unmistakable.
A flutter whipped around in my chest, and I wondered if she was really ready. If now was the best time—while she was so fragile, so confused. “Baby?”
After a slight pause, Eva sighed, her gaze dragging to her mom’s, the weight of it sending her mother’s hand to cover her gasp. With a tear-filled sparkle, her line of sight drifted to Abby, who looked faint, like she had stopped breathing. The circle of Eva’s lips parted and words I never thought I’d hear floated between them.
“I’m ready.”
EVA
~ And in the light, the truth shall lead you home.
THE AIR FEELS heavy.
Tingles paraded along my flesh.
Am I getting enough oxygen?
Blake squeezed the edges of my fingers, reminding me he was by my side, allowing me to draw from his strength. After years of building up a wall so high, convincing myself it would keep me safe, it felt good to allow someone else to shoulder some burden. To give into it. Finally.
The ice in my sister’s green stare sent a shiver down my spine. She hates me.
“Eva?” The weight of my mom’s questions sat in my name like a torpedo ready to launch. I hadn’t even been awake ten minutes, and my world was about to change. It was time to unload the boulder I’d been carrying for far too long. I only hoped it didn’t roll back and crush me in the process.
The noise from the hall lulled to silence, and my gaze drifted over as Jace turned and stood in front of the now-closed door. Appreciative, I silently thanked him. He blew me a kiss before clasping one hand in the other and giving me an encouraging nod. I closed my eyes and blew a slow breath through a pinhole between my lips, releasing whatever negative judgment still sat within me. When the last grain of self-hatred floated on that breeze, I opened my eyes and met my family’s waiting gazes. The water building in those familiar eyes told me my hesitation spoke as loudly as my words would.
“Eva, what’s going on?” The lines of worry cut deep on my mom’s forehead, the pinch b
etween her eyebrows showcasing her pain. She didn’t even know yet, and already I could tell her heart was crumbling.
An ache consumed my chest as I dreaded the agony I was about to cause her—cause this whole family. Once I said the words, she would know for certain—and she could never not know again. My mother was about to find out that the baby part of her baby girl had been stolen way too soon.
How devastating.
Tragic.
Life-changing.
Aware that I had shielded her from that burden for as long as I had provided some comfort. Solace washed over me briefly, a sense of serenity that I’d sheltered her from this for all of these years, and for the first time ever, I felt I had made the right decision in doing so. Unloading my burden was sure to explode bits of grief into all of the people I loved, slipping their own load to bear beneath their skin, but I couldn’t think of such things, or I would never go through with it.
It was time to end my nightmare.
I didn’t look at any of them, kept my line of sight trained on some blurry faraway place, where snippets of my story floated about in space, moving in and out of focus. Blake squeezed my hand once more, and the first of my words dropped like a rock from my lips.
“I believed him.”
I faintly registered a sharp intake of air, but I wasn’t sure who it came from, and I didn’t dare stop. My insides felt as though they were being bashed with stones, my gut swirling with fright, nauseous and unyielding. I attempted to tamp it all down, to move past the flight of angry butterflies whipping through my core. The next words were uncertain as I lost a bit of the nerve I had built up.
“It was innocent enough, I thought. The first time he—” My throat tightened, and I tried clearing it, my eyes still swimming in a hazy mist. “The first time Da—” Fear of his name, of the truth, the lies, the filth and betrayal that they would slay at me halted my tongue. I squeezed my eyes shut, my face pulling into a pinch as I found the courage.
“Damon,” I spit out the disgusting taste of that name, “approached me, I believed what he said.” My upper lip twitched into a curl as I recalled the dip in my bed that fateful day, the look in his eye as he stared at my chest a bit too long. I remembered the confusion. “He was so close to us. I never thought he’d hurt me.” A small sarcastic laugh escaped me in a hmph, the memory fizzing into the washed out fog before me.
A strangled cry was swallowed down, and the hazy, gray hues snapped to a focused picture as my gaze swung to Abby in a far corner of the room. Her hand was clamped over her mouth, her posture feeble as her head swished back and forth in disbelief. My eyes burned with an ache as I tried to keep them dry, looking at the horror etched in my sister’s green eyes. Knowing it was because of me cut deep and weakened my strength. If I thought too much about it, I wouldn’t continue, so I looked away and finished the rest.
“It was only the beginning of the hurt . . .” I pinched my eyes shut for a beat, feeling the pressure on my chest escalate like I was sinking. “The scratch at the belly of the Titanic.” I gulped. “The water began to seep in at that point in a slow drawn out nightmare. As much as I prayed it would stop, it just kept rushing in, suffocating me until it took it all, drowning me.” I simultaneously leveled my breathing, and my gaze so there would be no misinterpretation. “After that first time—he never stopped hurting me. Each time he came to my room, he’d leave with another piece of me. He’d take a little more until eventually there was nothing left.”
“Oh, god.” My mother clutched at her chest and started to weep.
A shuddered breath hiccuped from my chest while I gathered a bit more strength, trying to pull out from under the weight of the memory. My father caught my mother’s shoulders with his hands, his own eyes brimming with tears. A look of confusion mixed with anger brewed on his face.
“But, how . . . why wouldn’t you tell us?”
How could I tell them? “Because I . . . He . . .” I hung my head. “I agreed to it the first time—kind of,” I rushed to add. “I didn’t think you’d believe me.” My voice cracked. “I thought you’d be mad.”
Their faces crumpled, that final declaration taking the last bit of restraint. The flowery world that had painted their existence was now tarnished in a coat of tar lying at the foot of my mother’s cries. Abby fled from the room in hysterics, knocking Jace in the shoulder on the way out. His spine sharpened as his gaze followed her and then fell back to me.
“Let her go,” I instructed, being pulled tightly into Blake’s side.
He kissed the top of my head, whispering, “I’m so proud of you. You’re so brave.”
I closed my eyes and wrapped my mind around those words, letting them soothe the open wound in my heart as I looked at the pain ripping into the people I loved most. In less than a week, Abby was supposed to be flitting around her engagement party—champagne in hand, euphoric and celebratory. Instead, she was getting the biggest bomb of her life dropped on her. I wasn’t sure she’d ever speak to me again. The hovering gloom was squashing the liberation I thought I would feel unloading this.
“I just don’t understand.” My mom’s voice strangled in her tears. “How did we miss this?”
I pushed thoughts of Abby aside, knowing my mom would need the attention of my answers. “He was calculated about it. Quiet. And . . . you love him. You always loved him. He puts on a good show.”
My mom wailed, her head dropping into the blanket covering my lap. Blake’s fingers dug into my side, reminding me that he was hearing this story from my mouth for the first time as well. This couldn’t have been easy for him. I kept my focus on my parents, but grazed a soothing thumb along the back of Blake’s hand, never more thankful for the support he was giving me.
“Don’t beat yourselves up over it. You couldn’t have known.” I rubbed circles over my mother’s back, trying to soothe the race whipping through her.
Red bumps paraded along the skin of my father’s neck and cheeks, his eyes bulging in a watery rage. “I’ll kill him,” he seethed through bared teeth, no doubt finally absorbing all that had gone on. He was always so passive and easy going. I couldn’t remember any other time in my life he’d looked so enraged. “All these years. Right under our goddamn noses.”
“I can’t!” My mom sat up, violently rocking.
I smoothed my hand down her arm. “Shhh. It’s not your fault. I’m okay.” All eyes were on me as I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and nodded, reassuring myself just as much as I was them. “I’m finally okay.”
My voice cracked as liberation flooded in, the weight that had sat on my chest for so long finally breaking into a million shards in an explosion of happy. Of acceptance. My rib cage expanded as I drew in a giant gulp of air, letting the lightest oxygen I had ever felt filter in. Reliving this secret from my past was the final piece of my healing. When you’re bogged down with burden, even the air feels different as it travels through your lungs—thick and unsatisfying. Regardless of what happened from this point forward, I was free. I could never change the past or what had happened to me, and I was okay with that. It made me who I was, and I was pretty kick-ass.
JACE’S FINGERS COMBED through my hair, comforting me on this unforgiving hospital bed as I relived my story once again, looking into Jessie and Sandra’s glossed-over eyes. Doctor Christianson had been right when she had instructed me to tell anyone who would listen. The more I told it, the freer I felt. The less dirty. Each time I recited some of the hellish details, it made me realize even more that none of it was my fault. I didn’t know how I had convinced myself for so long that it was, but the mind does funny things when there’s a parasite infesting it.
My friends were draped all around me, supporting me in a big love-bubble. Though my body ached all over, my heart was full. Never far away, Blake sat at the end of the bed, grazing his thumb along my toe as his whole hand enveloped my foot. That one touch lending all the support I could ever need. And now that I had my parents and friends behind me as wel
l, everything was starting to feel like it was finally coming together.
Except for those eyes. I couldn’t get Abby’s green eyes out of my head. The hurt. The anguish. No one had heard from her, and her phone had been going straight to voicemail for hours now. I prayed she was okay.
I prayed she wasn’t with him.
“Knock, knock.” A soft tapping of a knuckle accompanied by Drew’s voice floated into the room. Victoria lingered, close on his heels.
A smile spread across my face. I hadn’t seen either of them since before the fight. “Took you long enough. Where’ve you been?” I sat up straighter.
“Someone had to handle business for you guys.” He smiled. To most, the twinkle in his eye would look happy, but I saw the distance in it. I knew him.
Jessie hopped down from the bed. “Next shift.”
“I’m almost out of here, you guys. My last CT scan looked much better. I don’t even have many beepy things anymore. I think it’s safe to head back home now. No sense in all of us waiting around here.”
“You sure?” Sandra asked, pushing her arms through her denim jacket and flipping her hair out of the back.
I nodded. “Positive. I’ll be home in a couple days, I’m sure. Don’t hold yourselves up. I have plenty of babysitters.” I rolled my eyes with a playful smirk. I loved the fact that I had so many people behind me now. Now that I had it, it was almost hard to recall how empty and alone I’d been before.
How did I survive like that for so long?
I hadn’t noticed how warm my foot felt until the heat of Blake’s hand was gone as he stood. My eyes trailed up the tense lines of his body to the hard-set of his jaw. He shoved his hands into his pockets, his sinewy muscles twitching and bunching from the restraint. Everyone else must have noticed as well because they hurried their goodbyes.
“Call us if you need anything,” Jessie threw back as they shouldered past Drew in the doorway. I could see the wheels spinning in his head as his eyes never left Blake’s movements.
Breathe You (Pieces of Broken Book 2) Page 37