by Ann Garner
“He's in jail?”
I nod my head. I flick my nail across the peeling label of the water bottle. “Yes, and he will be for a very long time. There’s a part of me that doesn't think that's enough. For a long time it was a very large part of me that thought that way. I wanted him to suffer like I had suffered, I wanted him to feel as broken and beaten and worthless as he made me feel. He damaged so much of me. Coming here, away from that place, it was my only chance to try and get something back.”
I've peeled the wrapper off the bottle of water, and I'm rolling it in the palm of my hand now.
“Nobody here knew. The story hadn't made national headlines, but everyone within the state of Oregon knew who I was and what had happened to me. Knowing, it changes the way people look at you, how they act around you.” I lift one shoulder in a shrug, listening intently to the crunch of the water bottle wrapper as it rolls in my hand. “I wanted a chance to have a life where nobody looked at me like that.”
“That day, in your dorm room, what was that?”
“I have to live through those three days every year for the rest of my life, Cole. They come back around, every year, and it doesn’t matter how much stronger I think I am, how much better, they lay me flat. I used to have nightmares every night. Eventually they tapered off. Except for during those three days. So I hole myself up and I take as many sleeping pills as I possibly can without risking overdose and that's how I make it through.”
The silence that follows stretches between us. I want to get up and run out of the house. It takes every bit of will power I possess not to bolt as I wait for him to say something. Anything at all.
“I know I made mistakes with us, Cole. I know that my... insecurities got in the way, and that me being here tonight, telling you this, won't change anything between us.”
I'm not sure what to do. I've never voluntarily told anyone this story. When I had finally started to talk, six months after, I had provided an interview to the police, which had been taped and then later used during the trial. I had detailed every horrible second, every beating, every rape; I hadn't left a moment of it out.
Then I had never spoken of it again.
“What do you want now, Delaney?”
His voice is soft, and I'm reminded briefly of the first time I heard it and how I felt like it had seeped into every part of me.
“I want you.” I whisper. “I want us.”
I watch as his hands uncurl in his lap, first one then the other. He lifts one toward me and I see the hesitancy in his eyes. It makes me want to cry, because this is what I was afraid of, his knowledge changing everything between us.
“I understand,” I finally say when his fingers never quite make contact with me. The words nearly choke me as I shove them out. It's harder to say them than anything else I've said tonight.
“I'll go.”
It takes me a moment to unwrap myself from the blanket. I can't look at him, won’t look at him, or I will lose the little control over my tears that I have left.
I hold the waist of the pants up as I struggle to my feet. I've turned towards the door before he says anything else.
“Don’t go, Delaney. I just.” He sighs, “You have to give me a second.”
His fingers circle my wrist, pulling me around to face him. They reach up, tilting my chin until there is nothing left for me to do but look at him.
“You look tired,” He murmurs, his hands stroking down my neck, stopping at the base so his thumb rests against my pulse that beats there. “Are you tired?”
I nod, unable to form the words.
“Let’s go get some sleep.”
Chapter Twenty One
My head is throbbing when I wake up. I’m tangled up in the sheets of Cole’s bed, but Cole is gone.
He had held me. He had let me curl up against him with his arms wrapped tight around my waist, and held me while I slept.
It was the best sleep I'd had since before Thanksgiving.
I let myself lay there for a long time, breathing in the scent of him that surrounds me. I'm almost afraid to get up and leave the room to find him, afraid that in the light of day everything will look different
I shift, stretching across the bed. I had lost the oversized sweatpants sometime during the night and am left only in his t-shirt and my underwear. I sit up in the bed when I hear footsteps coming down the hall. Moments later Cole moves into the room and crosses over to sit on the bed, twisting open a bottle of water before handing it to me. He brushes a hand over my hair and down to rest on my hip. Instantly I feel the heat spread throughout my body.
“Are you okay?” he asks while his other hand reaches up, the fingers rolling across my head. “You look like you have a headache. You want anything for it?”
I shake my head. “No drugs.”
“Okay.”
We're both quiet as I drink quietly from the bottle of water. I'm not sure what moves I'm supposed to make now. I had always worried about how he would react with the knowledge but apparently I should have been worried about how I would react with him having the knowledge.
“So you must have one serious bottled water bill.” he finally says, just as I take another drink of water. Half of it ends up rolling down my chin as I choke on it.
“Sorry.” He smiles. “I was trying to lighten the mood. I'm an asshole.”
“No.” I laugh. “I just wasn't expecting it, it's fine.”
We lapse into silence again. I start picking at a string on his bedspread while I wait for him to say something, anything. Finally unable to sit in silence any longer I say, “I've never told anyone except the police. Never said the words but the one time I had to. I'm sorry, more sorry than I can say, that I didn't tell you. That I was afraid to.”
“I shouldn't have pushed you.” Our fingers have linked together and rest on his thigh. “I knew whatever it was it was big, but seeing you that day, having you push me away like that, it tore me apart and I snapped. I regretted it almost the second the words came out. But it was a long drive home, Del, and gave me plenty of time to work up anger that you hadn't fought for us.”
“Oh.”
I feel my forehead wrinkle as I try to find the words to explain to him the demons that I wrestle every day. I've never had anyone who wanted to understand. Someone who held me while I slept.
His eyes are dark navy as I meet them.
“It was like being broken into a thousand different pieces. But worse is the knowledge that those pieces are never going to fit the same way they did before. That they aren’t just broken, they're....dirty. And it doesn't matter how many people tell you it isn't your fault, that you have nothing to be ashamed of, you can't help but feel that you'll never be all the way clean again.”
His hand tightens around mine. I know he doesn't agree with my assessment of myself. His displeasure over my words is clear in his eyes, which haven't left mine.
“I still wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and I swear I can feel him touching me. There are still days I scrub my skin raw in the shower because I think I can smell him on me. I’ll never get rid of that, Cole. It isn't fair of me to ask someone to take that on, especially a twenty-one year old guy who has a reputation for bouncing between girls like a ping pong ball.”
“Delaney,”
“No, wait.” I interrupt before he can say anything else. “I came here, because getting away was the only thing that kept me going for years. Getting away became an obsession. For me there was literally nothing else but the fantasy that my life would suddenly be better when I was no longer in the place where that monster shattered me. I promised myself that I would be different here, maybe not normal, but as close as I was ever going to get. I wasn't concerned about making friends or falling in love, Cole, I just wanted to be able to walk down the street without thinking that everyone was able to see the shame I felt, where people didn't know how screwed up I was.”
I pause shaking my head softly. “You really fucked that up for me.�
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He is only silent for a moment. “Which part?”
“What?”
Cole cups his free hand around my neck, holding me gently in place so I can't squirm away.
“You said you weren't concerned about making friends or falling in love.” he says softly. “So which part did I fuck up? The friendship or the falling?”
I blink slowly. He is staring at me so intently, those eyes focused in on mine as he waits for me to answer. He looks so vulnerable. Like he’s afraid I'm not going to provide him the answer he wants to hear. Seeing him like this is like feeling my heart shatter all over again before starting to pull itself together once more.
“Oh, Cole, how could I not love you?”
Before I can say anything else, before I can even think anything his lips are on mine. Just as warm and soft as I remember. I feel the spark of heat flare to life in my belly and the way my heart seems to kick start into overdrive. I'm overwhelmed by the emotions that roll over me.
He shifts, pulling me closer against him, and the heat of his body mixes in with mine, fanning flames of desire that I had been so afraid I would never get to feel with him again.
He pulls back, just slightly, so that his lips are just hovering above mine now. The gorgeous blue of his eyes is just barely visible as he watches me. But I see the slight hesitation in them.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Don't treat me any different, Cole.”
It would break my heart.
“How can I not?” he asks softly.
I feel the shock of the words right to my core, and I know I can't stop the pain from hearing those words from crossing my face. My body stiffens against his, but when I go to pull away he anchors me against him.
“You're so strong, Del, so beautiful.” His lips brush along my temple, down across my cheek. They dance along my jaw, moving, light as air, over my throat. “I don't want you any less.” Those clever lips start to skim back up my throat along the other side. “I don't love you any less.” They brush across my own and as I suck in a startled breath at his words, his tongue slides inside my mouth, and he consumes me.
I feel the warmth of tears as they trickle out of the corner of my eyes at his words.
He loves me.
*******************
I never realized watching someone make breakfast could be so fascinating. I pull one leg up, resting my foot on the edge of the chair at the kitchen table as I watch the muscles of Coles back bunch and shift as he cracks another egg into the bowl. He is only wearing a pair of athletic shorts, his feet bare, and his hair still damp from his shower. He'd dropped his iPod into a docking station on the counter next to the fridge when we first came into the room so there is music playing.
“How many eggs can you eat?”
Cole twists his head around to look at me. It takes me a moment to answer as I watch those muscles move again. He raises his eyebrows, obviously amused that he's rendered me somewhat speechless. I shake my head in an attempt to clear it.
“Ummm, two?”
His eyes narrow. “You're biting your lip. If you're hungry, you should probably stop doing that.”
I immediately stop, flushing as he laughs before turning back to the stove. I had never thought I’d be sitting here like this with him again. Talking with him this morning had made me realize that it wasn't so much that I had been afraid of how he would look at me when he knew. I simply hadn't felt that I was good enough for him because of what had happened to me. I was still deeply ashamed, and I had been afraid that he wouldn't think I was good enough for him either when he found out the truth.
“Are you making eggs?” Holden's voice booms into the room, and I can hear him coming down the stairs. “Ally is taking a shower and Grace should be here....Delaney.”
Holden pulls up short in the living room. His eyes bounce back and forth between Cole and I. Cole, damn him, is standing at the stove shoving eggs around a pan, ignoring his brother.
“Hello, Holden,” I say softly.
“Hello. Um, I wasn't expecting to see you here.”
I draw my other leg up, wrapping my arms around them as I force myself to meet his eyes head on. Bruno Mars is singing in the background about being a treasure, and I want to sink into a hole in the ground. How had I not prepared myself to see his brother? Or Grace for that matter? I hadn't thought past the moment. Something that was very unusual for me.
“Stop staring at her like a jackass, Holden,” Cole finally says. “Did you say Grace was coming? Is Grant with her? I don't think we have enough eggs.”
I feel the nausea pool in my stomach. I'm not ready to see Grace. I'm not sure I can handle her this morning, not when I'm still emotionally drained from talking to Cole. I drop my feet down off the chair.
“I should go.”
“No.” Cole flicks the stove off before coming to stand next to me. “You aren't leaving.”
I tilt my head back so I can look him in the eyes. “It's okay. We can get together later.” I glance at Holden. “I don't think it's a good idea for me to be here, Cole. She was really pissed at me.” I hastily add. “For good reason.”
Holden is still standing there staring at me. It's unnerving.
“You’re not leaving, Delaney, not when I just got you back.”
I flush with happiness at his words. I'm about to open my mouth and tell him that I'll come back later when I hear the front door open. I feel my eyes widen as I hear Grace’s voice. I don't have time to prepare myself to face her before she is stepping into the room.
“Hey Holden, whose car is that...” She stops talking altogether and my head drops forward, my forehead landing on Coles chest as the tension in the room instantly thickens.
“Well, well,” Grace finally says, “Hello, Delaney.”
“Hello.” My voice is muffled against Cole’s chest. He’s wrapped his arms around me, his hands tugging on the end of the braid I'd put my hair in that morning.
“What is she doing here?”
“Jesus, Grace,” Holden mutters, finally moving. He steps into the tiny kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee.
“What?” Grace’s tone is defensive. “When I left last night we still couldn't mention her name and now here she is standing in the fucking kitchen.”
“Watch what you say, Grace.”
“It’s fine,” I whisper. “It's fine.”
“She doesn't have to be a bitch,” Cole growls.
“Hey.” Grant had been standing silently behind Grace until now.
“It's fine, Cole,” I say again. “I'll just go for now.”
“That's right. Because running away is what you're good at.”
I feel Cole tense under my hands. My hands drop down to his lean waist, squeezing his hips softly. “It's not her fault. I didn't tell her, so she doesn't know, and she has every right to be angry, Cole.”
“You’re damn right I do.” Grace snaps behind me. “You dropped him like it was nothing and then you walked away from our friendship like it was the easiest fucking thing you've ever done. Now you waltz back in and make up with Cole and it’s magically supposed to be better between us? Fuck that. And fuck you, Cole, for thinking I would just roll over like it never happened.”