by Riley Ashby
“They seem really happy,” I said, referring to Sophie and Ellery. It was a useless comment, meant to fill the space. I should be glad for his silence. Instead, I found myself craving his voice.
He didn’t respond, and I thought he must be lost in his own thoughts or mad at me from earlier. But he sucked in a deep breath, and the words poured out of him like water.
“I miss you so much I can’t breathe,” he said. Not looking at me, he squinted into the sun as if trying to blind himself. “I thought that once we got you back and I came home, things would go back to normal, but you’re pushing me away harder than ever before. This isn’t some silly dorm room fight over missing macaroni and cheese. I don’t know how to cope with it.”
I couldn’t say anything. What was there to say? The only solution was to tell him the truth, and that was out of the question. I was barely holding it together as it was; I couldn’t handle it if he walked away from me. Which he would surely do once he knew what I was hiding.
What if he walks away now because you won’t talk to him?
He won’t. He wouldn’t.
Would he?
He should.
“Did you miss me?” He finally turned to look at me, his pupils widening as he turned away from the sun. I could have stared at him for hours.
Something blurred my vision. “I missed you for a long time before they took me.” I reached to wipe away the stray tear that spilled over the moment I started speaking. “I missed you when you went to class. When you went to parties, and I had to stay in the room. When you went on that internship in New York for a semester. I missed you when you packed up and left for Virginia without a second thought about what I would do without you.”
I stood straight, no longer supporting myself against the car, and stepped toward him without being aware of my movement. He was frozen, watching me.
Why did he ask me that? Was he hoping I could cop to some deep-seated love, apologize for being so distant, and forgive him for everything he had done to me?
“And then I hated you. You would send us updates on your training or tell us about the girls you were dating, and the whole time, I was sitting here with no one to help me study or go on coffee runs with. I asked you to come back, and your response was that you could only visit for a few days if you got the time approved. We never even got a full weekend together. I always had to go to class or study for a test even in those few hours you were here. And then the thing that makes you finally come back is me getting kidnapped and sold into slavery. If I had known that was all it took, I would have let him take me years ago.”
He caught my wrists, pushing me back as I finally came right up against him. His face was red from holding back his anger at my words. “Don’t say that. You don’t mean that.”
“You’re right. I don’t. But why did it take that to bring you back, Cas? Am I nothing to you but a damsel in distress? Someone to rescue? You said you’d always have space for me, but then you packed up and left me here alone.”
He looked angry. “You always knew what I wanted to do. I didn’t hide that from you. You could have come with me.”
“So you could push me away out there too? No thanks. You’ve never thought of me as someone you could love. I’ve never been anything more than your best friend’s little sister until I was ruined. Then suddenly that made it okay.”
He grabbed me then and flipped me around, pushing me against the car by my shoulders. I looked over at Tori, but she was staring down the road with one hand shading her eyes.
I could call out and ask her for help, but I didn’t want her interfering here. This was something I had to hash out with him, something I’d been holding on to for a long time. Much longer than even I realized.
My secret wasn’t the only reason I had been keeping him away. It was also because of this. Because he left me a long time ago instead of claiming me as he should have.
“How dare you,” he growled, his face close to mine. His fingertips dug into me, but I wasn’t afraid of him. It was out in the open now. “I used to lie in bed at night and pray that you would come lie next to me. Anytime I fell asleep next to someone else, I would close my eyes and imagine you instead. I couldn’t stop myself from it even when I tried. What happened to you had no effect on that.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Well, maybe it did. It made me even crazier. I lost my damn mind every night. I couldn’t sleep for weeks.”
He brought his face to mine and kissed me harshly, and a small sound escaped my throat. It wasn’t loving or sweet or any of the things our first kiss had been. It was harsh and possessive, indicative of ownership, and it should have scared me. It should have set me off and sent me screaming. At the very least, I should have been concerned that my brother would return and catch us. But I pushed back, pressing my lips against his until he pulled away. All the fear I had harbored for years of letting him get too close to me when I knew he’d be leaving soon anyway had dissipated and was replaced by the horrors I had experienced at the hands of much more selfish men.
“You want me now? You want me now that I don’t know what will set me off and what might send me spiraling? When I don’t know what days I’ll be able to cope and what days I won’t be able to even get out of bed? You want me now when you could have had me before all this?”
“I always wanted you,” he hissed. “I always wanted you, but I was too fucking afraid to do anything. And having you gone made me more afraid than ever. The prospect of never seeing you again sent incomprehensible fear through my bones. Every movement hurt. Every decision killed me. Until you came back.”
He leaned down to kiss me again, but I shoved him off. “You don’t get to make decisions about me like that.”
“We can make the decision together. I’m not ready to give you up after wanting you for so many years.”
“You should have tried sooner!” My voice echoed off the houses. I was aware of Tori turning to look at us, but I didn’t care. He was the one who wanted to have this out in a public place, who pushed me up against the car and kissed me like I’d always dreamed he would regardless of the fact that my brother could walk outside at any second. “Who cares what I’ve done now that everything is ruined? You shouldn’t have left me, again and again!”
“I’m not going to leave you now. I’m not going anywhere ever again.”
Couldn’t he see that some essential part of me was gone? Whatever could have existed between us wouldn’t work now. If he had been brave enough to try sooner, maybe things would be different, but he wasn’t, so they weren’t. And he wasn’t going to keep jerking me around for another ten years.
I had to land the final blow. He would never forgive me for it, but it had to be said.
“If you had been here, they wouldn’t have taken me.”
A stone settled in my stomach before I even finished the sentence, and I was biting back the urge to throw up. His facial expressions morphed so quickly I could barely keep track; rage to sorrow to guilt that seemed to hang over his entire body. It was the words he settled on that completely undid me.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t have left you all those years ago. I should have told you how I felt, and you could have come with me. You would never have met that man and never have gone through what you did.” His thumbs rubbed circles on the tops of my shoulders. “We deserved to be together from the beginning, and I let you down in more ways than I could count. Vail, I’m so sorry.”
I was stunned into complete silence. He still held my shoulders, and his eyes searched my face for some reaction. My mouth opened, but no sound came out. I licked my lips, but my tongue was dry.
I thought that would be the thing to push him away. But somehow, he was still looking at me the way he did the time we almost kissed in the pool when I had my hand on his chest and his cheek pressed against mine in the closest we had ever come outside of his bed.
“Can I help you?”
We snapped our heads in unison to look at Tori, who wa
s staring at a boy with tawny skin and hair cut close to his head. As Tori gestured at him, he walked toward us hesitantly. When he got closer, I saw he had a split lip and a black eye, but I swallowed down my fear. “This guy looks rough,” I whispered to Castel, but he was already walking over to the intruder.
“Jamie, right?” he asked, raising his hand in greeting.
Jamie nodded. Up close, I saw he was much older than I thought, at least my age. “Is Sophie in there?” He gestured at the house Sophie and Ellery had walked into.
“Why do you want to know?” Tori folded her arms over her chest, looking belligerent. Castel rolled his eyes.
“Please stop. He’s her friend.”
“Well, he’s creeping me out.”
As if on cue, Sophie burst from her home with Ellery on her heels, slamming the door shut behind her. Whatever had happened in there hadn’t gone well. She almost didn’t even see Jamie before he stepped into her field of vision.
Her face transformed, and the distressed expression fled. “Oh my God, J, I’m so glad to see you.” Ellery frowned as she pulled him into a hug, relaxing slightly when she shoved him away only to grab his face. “What the hell happened to you? You’re bleeding!”
He winced as his grin caused the split lip to ooze. I touched my own lip in response, reflexively checking for injuries. The skin was whole. “I got into that gym. I’m training!”
She embraced him again, and Ellery looked fit to burst.
I was hugging my elbows as I watched them, mimicking the feel of someone else’s arms around me. I caught Castel’s eye and dropped my hands quickly, wiping my sweaty palms along the skirt of my dress.
“I’m so excited for you! That’s such an accomplishment! You have to come to lunch with us and tell us all about it.”
Ellery was clearly less than thrilled by this development, and Tori was still glaring at Jamie with blatant suspicion.
“Well, let’s move. I didn’t have breakfast.” Castel snapped to attention and ushered everyone into the car.
Sophie and Jamie chattered the entire way to the restaurant. Apparently, he’d been training to get into this fighting gym for a few years and recently got accepted. He was trained in Muay Thai, but he was breaking into the MMA scene. Knowing very little about the sports world and caring even less, I wasn’t particularly interested in their conversation. Sophie was over the moon for him, it was clear, and I think that the only reason Ellery tolerated the way she fawned over Jamie was because her excitement had chased away the distress of whatever happened with her father. Jamie, for his part, recognized Ellery’s possessiveness and sagely steered the conversation away from him and back toward Ellery, leading him into conversations about his work. As he got Ellery rambling over the current problems presented by the exchange rate with China, I sneaked a look at Castel out of habit more than a conscious decision. He was already looking at me out of the side of his eye, trying to hide his smile. I bit my lip.
How could I possibly distance myself from him when every inside joke between us still rang true?
As we walked down the sidewalk afterward—Sophie had never been to the Walk of Fame—I found myself hanging back from the group. Castel strolled beside me, holding his hands behind his back. I swayed whimsically, gazing around as if entranced by everything going on around me, but it was an act. My eyes settled on shadowy corners for a little too long; I was wary of people with their faces covered by masks or makeup. I drifted closer to Castel so as not to be separated from him by the groups charging at us from the opposite direction. Ellery glanced back and waved at us as they rounded a corner; Cas signaled back to him that we would catch up. The minute they were out of sight, I stopped in my tracks and fell against the wall of a building. The crowds were too oppressive, the wide open space of the city one big trap for someone to ensnare me again. I needed space and time to breathe.
Castel put one hand on the wall above my head to hold me in place but left my right side open. I could escape if I needed to. But instead of feeling nervous, I settled against the wall and looked up at him.
Ellery had been with me when I was taken and still hadn’t been able to protect me. But I didn’t have that concern with Cas asserting his presence over me. He wouldn’t even go so far as to let me leave his line of sight. I really wouldn’t have been taken if he had been here because he never would have allowed me to wander off alone when we didn’t know everyone there. He probably would have found out what Chase was doing long before we even made it to that party. But that didn’t mean it was his fault I was taken.
“I’m sorry I blamed you for them taking me. That wasn’t fair.”
He brought up one hand to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “You don’t need to apologize. You were right. I should have been here to protect you.”
I shook my head and stared at my shoes. “I shouldn’t punish you for following your dreams.”
His hand lingered on my cheek, and he tightened his fingers in a reassuring squeeze. “You were the dream I should have been following.”
How could anyone stand firm in the face of comments like that?
“I was a virgin when they took me, Cas.”
The statement was so out of nowhere, and I hadn’t planned on saying it. No one knew that, and I had never intended to tell anyone. But it was suddenly critically important that I tell him, right now, despite the strangers around us and the tension that simmered in the air like smoke. His breath caught so roughly my own lungs tightened in response. He tried to lift my chin, but I pulled him toward me and pressed my head against his chest. I couldn’t look at him, not after saying that. “And they knew it. It was part of my price. So they beat me and starved me until I stopped fighting back and they could hand me off to … him. And when he did it the first time, he tied me so tight I couldn’t even fight against the restraints.”
His hand dropped from my face and snaked behind my back, pulling me tighter, pressing my chest against his.
“It hurt every time.”
He pressed his cheek against the top of my head, and tears fell into my hair. I had seen this man slammed into brick walls and call it horseplay afterward even as blood dripped from his head, but now he was crying. He was crying for me.
He swallowed; his throat moved against my forehead. “Why didn’t you move on from me, Vail? I mean, you always had boys coming after you. And you have so much love to give. Did you not find someone in all this time who was worthy of you?”
I put my arms around his waist and pulled myself closer. To hold him like this, to feel his arms around me after weeks of only harsh blows followed by more weeks of tentative grazes, was a relief I hadn’t known I was craving. Everyone worried about getting too close to me or infringing on my space.
Not Castel.
At that instant, the walls I had built up around myself to protect me from him were destroyed to their very foundations.
This man was everything to me. He had been for years. To pretend otherwise was heresy; a death sentence if I tried to force myself to live without him.
I couldn’t fight him anymore. I couldn’t fight myself. Maybe trusting him was a bad idea, but I knew there would be no coming back from this if I didn’t let him help me.
His arm fell from the wall to capture my waist. He held me loosely as if worried about triggering me, but I held him as if I was dying and he was the life raft keeping me afloat.
“I did find someone, Cas. It was you.”
One hand rose to stroke my cheek.
“I don’t want you to think I’m this pathetic kid who has been pining for you for ten years. It’s not like I sat around hoping you’d change your mind. But you ruined everyone for me. I would date other guys, but I never wanted anything more from them. It never felt right.”
My arms had tightened around him, but he responded in kind. We were pressed tight against each other in a sea of people on one of the busiest streets in the country, but he was the only person I could see. The only person whose vo
ice I could hear.
“I’m sorry I left, Vail. Not only after you got back but before that. After college. I should have stayed. Or taken you with me. Anything to keep us together.”
The weight on my heart dissolved.
When he leaned down to kiss me this time, we were both expecting it. It was different now that everything was out in the open. It was softer, but all the more emotional for it. It was an admission from me, a concession to stop fighting him and me, and it was a promise from him to try to help me recover. We were going to have to work together if we wanted to make this work. We had spent years fighting each other and ourselves, and there was no room for that now. The kiss was sweet, and I almost hated myself for it, but it was also safe. There was no chance of him hurting me, not right now.
At that instant, the moat between us was bridged. I had extended my hand to him, and he didn’t even have to reach out to take it. He had been waiting for it the entire time.
When we broke apart, he brought his hands to my face. “Does this mean we can try?”
I took his hands away and held them between mine. There was no more fight in me. He could have asked me to marry him, and I would have said yes.
“Yeah, Cas. It means we can try.”
“You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“Strange, then I wonder who left my bathing suit in my room after Ellery hid it from me.” Vail dropped her towel, and I looked back down into the water quickly. She had turned sixteen earlier this week and had celebrated by stealing some of my father’s alcohol. Ellery was angrier about it than my father; he told her she couldn’t go in the pool for the rest of the summer as punishment. There were only a couple of weeks before the fall semester began, and for the next few months, we only had two years’ difference in age.
She sat down on the edge of the pool, dangling her feet in the water as I swam lazy laps from one end to the other. I could see her toes when I ducked my head under; they were painted the same blue as the water. I tugged on her foot when I got close, and she squealed.