“What are you not telling me?” I asked. When she didn’t say anything, a muscle jumped along my jaw. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing!” she shouted. “There’s nothing to talk about, dammit. Just fucking drop it.”
“You’re lying.” I took a breath. It was time. No more secrets. “You’re lying to me. Something happened, because that?” I gestured at the bed behind me. “That wasn’t about not being ready. That was about something else, because you know—you know—I would wait for you, Avery. I swear, but you have to tell me what’s going on in your head.”
She still said nothing, and my chest began to ache as a terrible realization occurred. Didn’t she trust me? Didn’t she realize how I felt? But did that matter if she didn’t trust me? The answer was an icy wind down my spine.
“I’m begging you, Avery.” I leaned forward, clenching the sheet. “You’ve got to be up-front and honest with me. You said that you trusted me. You’ve got to prove it, because I know there is more to this. I’m not stupid and I’m not blind. I remember how you acted when we first met and I sure as hell remember what you said that night you were drunk. And that text message you got? Are you telling me that has nothing to do with this? If you trust me, you will finally tell me what the hell is going on.”
“I do trust you,” she whispered.
I waited for her to say more, to say anything that would prove her words, but she said nothing and there was this horrible cracking feeling in my chest. I threw off the sheets and stood. Grabbing my jeans, I pulled them on as my heart pounded in a way that made me feel sick.
Facing her, I smoothed my hands through my hair. “I don’t know what else to do with you, Avery. I’ve told you shit that I’m not proud of. Stuff that hardly anyone in this world knows and yet you keep shit from me. You keep everything from me. You don’t trust me.”
“No—I do.” She started toward me but stopped “I trust you with my life.”
Anger whipped through me like a barb-tipped chain. “But not with the truth? That’s such bullshit, Avery.” I stalked out of the bedroom. “You don’t trust me.”
She followed me, trailing the thick comforter behind her. “Cam—”
“Stop it.” I grabbed my sweater off the floor and turned to her. “I don’t know what else to do and I know I don’t know everything in the world, but I do know that relationships don’t work this way.”
“What are you saying?” Her voice shook, and I steeled myself against it.
“What do you think I’m saying, Avery? There are some obvious issues with you, and no, don’t fucking look at me like I kicked your puppy. Do you think I’d break up with you because of whatever the hell went on with you? Just like you thought I’d think differently of you when I saw the scar on your wrist? I know you think that and that’s bullshit.” I sucked in a breath as raw pain hit me in the chest. The next words hurt. “How can there be any future for us if you can’t be honest with me? If you can’t really trust that how I feel about you is strong enough, then we have nothing. This is the shit that ends relationships. Not the past, Avery, but the present.”
“Cam, please—”
“No more, Avery. I told you before. All I asked from you was to trust me and not shut me out.” I forced myself to walk to the door. “And you don’t trust me and you shut me out again.”
I closed the door behind me, ignoring the burn building up my throat. The one thing I’d asked from Avery was the one thing she couldn’t give me. Nothing, not even love, would work without trust.
It was over.
Twenty-Six
“Ah, it’s good to see that you’ve showered finally and have left your bedroom.”
I stopped halfway between the living room and the bathroom. Spying Jase on the couch, I ignored the statement as I pulled a shirt on over my head. “Did I get a new roommate or are you in the habit of just letting yourself into my house now?”
His lips curved up in a smirk. “Actually, while you were scrubbing two days’ worth of funk off your crusty ass, Ollie let me in.”
I dropped onto the other end of the couch, picked up my cap and pulled it down low. “And where is my esteemed roommate?”
“He’s over at the house.” Jase rested his legs on the coffee table, crossing his ankles. “There’s a mean game of Call of Duty going on.”
“And why aren’t you there?”
He pinned me with a look as dry as my throat. “Really? Ollie hasn’t seen you in two days. You finally just stepped out of your bedroom. He’s concerned.”
I rolled my eyes. “I doubt that.”
Jase watched me, and I knew that look. I groaned, and he grinned shamelessly. “What the hell is going on, Cam?”
How could I answer that question? And where could I even start? I leaned my head against the back of the couch and sighed. The familiar burning sensation was building in my chest. Thinking about her, knowing that she was so close and completely out of my reach just killed me.
“Cam?”
I shook my head, laughing dryly. “She doesn’t trust me.”
There was a pause. “Care to explain that further?”
“Not really.” I raised my hands, scrubbing my palms down my cheeks. “She’s not telling me the truth about . . . well, about something I know that’s really important.”
“Does it have to do with what you thought that night of the party?” he asked.
I nodded without saying anything.
“I see.” Jase sighed. “That’s got to be some hard shit to talk about, man.”
“I know. Fuck. I know, but you don’t understand . . .” I trailed off, swallowing hard. “There is shit I’m not going to talk about, Jase. I wouldn’t do that to her.”
“I get that. I understand.” Jase dropped his feet onto the floor and hunched forward. He let out another heavy breath. “But what happened? I’m assuming you guys had a fight.”
“A fight?” I laughed again, but it sounded so wrong. “I left her.”
“Whoa.” Jase pursed his lips. “Shit.”
I raised my hands helplessly. “I asked her—I begged her to tell me the truth and she didn’t.”
“And you left her?”
“I know how it sounds.” I shot him a look. “I feel like a big enough fucking ass without you thinking it.”
His brows rose. “Didn’t say a thing.”
“You’re thinking it.” My eyes narrowed. “But you don’t get it. There’s nothing if we don’t trust one another—there’s nothing if she doesn’t trust me.”
Jase nodded. “I agree. It’s just that it’s obvious you really care for her . . .”
“I do, but . . .”
But I wanted what my parents have. I wanted something that could last with Avery, and how could we build a relationship when she didn’t trust me with the truth of her past? When I trusted her? We couldn’t. And I couldn’t go through what happened with her Wednesday night again. I never wanted to see that horror in her face. I never wanted to think that I had been the cause of it. Thinking about it now still made me sick. Not because of what might have happened to her, but because what I was doing had, in one way or another, terrified her.
And that would never change until she was honest with me.
Jase left shortly after that, but not before trying to get me to go with him. I wasn’t in the mood to be around other people, especially a bunch of drunk people. When a knock came about an hour later, I figured it was him again, but when I opened the door, I was caught off guard.
Avery stood there, arms huddled around her waist. Her eyes were red and swollen. Fresh tears tracked down her cheeks. I opened my mouth, but closed it.
“Can we talk?” Her voice cracked in a way that made my chest splinter. “Please, Cam. I won’t take up much of your time. I just—”
“Are you okay, Avery?” Concern for her
overshadowed everything else.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She gave a little shake of her head. “I just need to talk to you.”
Drawing in a deep breath, I stepped aside. “Ollie’s not here.”
A little bit of tension seeped out of her shoulders. I led her into the living room and sat on the couch. I had no idea what was going on, but I doubted she was about to unload a confession. “What’s going on, Avery?”
She sat on the edge of the tattered recliner that had belonged to Ollie’s dad. “Everything.”
Tensing, I scooted forward, twisting my cap backward. “Avery, what’s going on?”
“I haven’t been honest with you and I’m sorry.” Her lip started to tremble and the urge to gather her in my arms was hard to resist. “I’m so sorry, and you probably don’t have time for—”
“I have time for you, Avery. You want to talk to me, I’m here. I’ve been here. And I’m listening.”
I held her gaze until she let out a deep breath and then she began to talk—to really talk. “When I was fourteen, I went to this party on Halloween. I was there with my friends. We were all dressed up and there was this guy there. It was his house and . . . and he was three years older than me and friends with my cousin.”
Avery’s gaze drifted to her hands. They opened and closed every few seconds. “He was really popular. So was I.” She laughed dryly. “That might not seem important, but it was. I never thought someone like him could do—could be like he was. And maybe that was stupid of me, like a fatal flaw or something. I don’t know.” Her lashes lifted, piercing me with watery eyes. “I was talking to him and I was drinking, but I wasn’t drunk. I swear to you, I wasn’t drunk.”
“I believe you, Avery.” God, I knew where this was heading and I already hurt for her. “What happened?”
“We were flirting and it was fun. You know, I didn’t think anything of it. He was a good guy and he was a good-looking guy. At one point, he pulled me into his lap and someone took our picture. We were having fun.” The second laugh was just as harsh. “When he got up and pulled me into one of the empty guest rooms that was on the ground floor, I didn’t think anything of it. We sat on the couch and talked for a little while. Then he put his arms around me.”
Avery stopped, rubbing her hands together, and I prepared myself. I truly tried to. “At first I didn’t mind, but he started doing things I didn’t want him to. I told him to stop and he laughed it off. I started crying and I tried to get away from him, but he was stronger than me, and once he got me on my stomach, I couldn’t do anything really, but to tell him to stop.”
I stopped breathing. “Did he stop?”
Please tell me he stopped. Please. Please. Please.
“He didn’t,” she said quietly. “He never stopped no matter what I did.”
It was like being shot in the spine. I started to stand, because I had to move, but I couldn’t make my legs work. “He raped you?”
She closed her eyes and then . . . then she nodded and opened her eyes, and I wanted nothing more than to change that yes into a no. But I couldn’t. “I am still a virgin. He didn’t touch me there. That’s not how he . . . raped me.”
At first I didn’t get it. Maybe it was brain overload, because I couldn’t figure out how she could’ve been raped and was still a virgin, but then it hit me. Horror gripped me. He . . . the sick motherfucker had sodomized her. My hands closed into fists. “Son of a bitch, you were fourteen and he did that to you?”
“Yeah.”
I dragged my hands through my hair, wanting to pull it out. “Shit. Avery. I suspected something. I thought that something like that might have happened to you.”
“You did?”
I nodded. “It was the way you acted sometimes. How jumpy you could be, but I’d just hoped it didn’t go that far. And when you told me you were still a virgin, I thought that was the case. Avery, I’m so, so sorry. You should have never had to go through something like that, especially at that age . . .” Anger for her clogged my throat. “Please tell me that motherfucker is in jail for this.”
“He is now.” She turned her gaze to the TV. “It’s a long story.”
“I have time.” I gave her a moment, not wanting her to shut down on me, not after we came so far, not when I wanted to commit murder. “What else, Avery? Please talk to me, because I’m seconds away from booking a flight to Texas and killing a motherfucker.”
She leaned back, tucking her knees against her chest. “After he stopped, I really don’t think he had a clue that he’d done anything wrong. He just left me there on his couch and when I could get up, I knew I needed to tell someone. I knew I needed to go to the hospital. I was in so much . . .” Pain. She didn’t finish the sentence, but I could see it in her eyes. “I couldn’t find my friends, but I found my purse, and I ended up walking out of the house and I kept walking until I remembered I had my phone with me. I called 911.”
She stood suddenly. “I ended up at the hospital and they did an exam. The police showed up and I told them what happened and it was the truth.”
“Of course it was the truth.” I watched her pace, her steps quick and agitated.
“By the time the police left the hospital, the party was over, but Blaine was at his house,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “They arrested him and took him in. I went home and I stayed out of school for the next two days, but everyone found out that he’d been arrested for what he’d done. And then his parents showed up.”
“What do you mean?”
“His parents and mine were—are—country-club buddies. All they ever cared about was image. My mom and dad have more money than they could ever want, but . . .” Her voice turned thick and hoarse. “The Fitzgeralds offered my parents a deal. That if I dropped the charges and remained quiet about what happened, they would pay me and them an ungodly sum of money.”
I gaped at her. “And your parents told them to go fuck themselves, right?”
She laughed, but it sounded broken. “They showed my parents the picture that was taken of Blaine and me at the party and they said that if this went to court, no one would believe the girl in the ‘slutty costume sitting in his lap.’ And my parents, they didn’t want to deal with the scandal. They’d rather it all go away, so they agreed.”
“Holy shit,” I whispered hoarsely.
“It happened so fast. I couldn’t believe what my parents were telling me to do. They hadn’t really talked to me about it before, but they . . . they had been so worried about what everyone would think if the whole thing went public—the pictures and the fact that I had been drinking. I was just so scared and confused and you know, I’m not even sure they believed me.” She tugged her hair back, squeezing her eyes shut. “So I signed the papers.”
Not only did I want to kill the fucker who did this, I wanted to add her parents to the list.
“I agreed to take the money, half of which went into my account so that when I turned eighteen, I had access to it, and I agreed to pull the charges and to not speak about it again.” She lowered her hands as she looked at me. “That makes me a terrible person, doesn’t it?”
“What?” Oh no . . . “You’re not a terrible person, Avery. Jesus Christ, you were fourteen and your parents should’ve told them to fuck off. If anyone is to blame, besides the fucker who did that to you, it’s them. You don’t have any fault in this.”
Relief flashed in her eyes, but as she dropped into the recliner, I knew there was more. Fuck. There was more. “Within days, everyone at school turned on me. Apparently, there was nothing in the agreement about Blaine keeping his mouth shut. He told people that I had lied. That I had done all those things with him willingly and then falsely accused him. Everyone believed him. Why wouldn’t they? I dropped the charges. I wouldn’t talk about it. School was . . . it was terrible after that. I lost all my friends.”
Th
ings started making sense. “This is why you stopped dancing?”
“Yes. I couldn’t stand people looking at me and whispering about what they’d heard or talking openly about it in front of my face. And I did this . . .” She raised her left arm. “My mom was so pissed.”
I couldn’t believe what she had just said. “She was mad because you . . .” I shook my head. “No wonder you don’t go home to see them.”
“It’s why I picked here, you know. It was far enough to just get away from all of it. I thought that was all I needed to do—to distance myself.”
“That message I saw? It was someone who knew about what happened?
“Whoever came up with the saying you can’t escape your past really knew what they were talking about.”
I could feel the muscle in my jaw thrumming like crazy. “What else has been going on, Avery? You said this Blaine was in jail? But who’s been messaging you?”
She hunched over, pressing her head into her hands. Her face was shielded with a veil of shimmery hair. “I’ve been getting these messages since August. I just thought it was some asshole and ignored it. And my cousin had been trying to reach me, but I ignored him, too, because . . . well, for obvious reasons. I finally talked to my cousin over winter break, the night before I came over to your apartment.”
“The night of the fight?”
“Yeah . . . he was trying to get in touch with me to tell me that Blaine had been arrested for doing the same thing to another girl at the start of summer. He actually apologized. That meant a lot to me, but . . . I didn’t know that this girl had been the one who has been contacting me this entire time.” Taking a deep breath, she lifted her head. “Blaine had done it to another girl. And she apparently had tried contacting me, because she didn’t know about the money. She contacted the police and held her ground. She put him in jail and I . . . All she thought when I didn’t respond was that either I lied about Blaine or whatever. And the longer I didn’t respond to her, the madder she got. If I hadn’t signed those papers, he would’ve never been able to hurt her.”