“That’s Italian,” I tell her, smiling and ripping the piece of paper from her fingers.
“Shut up,” she laughs. “That’s the hotel she’s staying at. Go get your girl.”
I lean in and give her a loud kiss on the cheek before running down the hallway and making my way off the yacht. I carefully walk down the dock and make my way up onto the stone streets. The island is quiet, and I realize getting a taxi is going to be impossible. Opening my phone, I type the name of the hotel into the search bar and cringe at how much this is going to cost me in data.
Making my way through the quiet town, my heart feels like it’s going to pound its way out of my chest. The thought of losing her again is sending me into an absolute spiral of anxiety. I’ve had a taste of her, and I’ve known since the first time I met her as a kid that we were always going to be together. Something in me recognized something in her, even at eight years old.
“Why are you running again?” I ask out loud to the empty streets. I thought we had gotten all the secrets out and she had realized I didn’t care, that I wouldn’t hold what happened against her. How could I? Not a single part of it was her fault.
I want to fucking kill my uncle for doing this to me, to us. He was the only person in my life that I could count on. I looked up to him like he was my damn father, and he goes and pulls a stunt like that?
Although, it really shouldn’t surprise me. If someone can kick you out of your life for no other reason other than not wanting the same things, they’re clearly a piece of shit. If I had known, I think to myself, beating myself up for not realizing there was something wrong. I should’ve done more, tried harder. I should’ve beat down her fucking door or chased her around the world.
Instead, I just let her walk out of my life like she was nothing. But that wasn’t true. I was just a teenage boy, putting all the blame on her for leaving me. I let her be the bad person in my mind for leaving me behind. I should’ve known there was more to it.
“I should’ve fucking known,” I say under my breath. My uncle truly was a worthless human.
It takes me a while to make my way to her hotel. It’s a little too easy to get lost among all the white walls lining the island’s streets. I turn a corner and come up on it, the sign illuminating the road in front of it. I’ve never had to hunt anyone in a different country; I’ve always stayed in my own state.
I’m not really sure how to hunt her down when all I know is her first and last name. I don’t know how to work the system here, especially considering it’s four in the morning and I’m just some white dude asking for the room number of a random girl.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I hear her groan. I look around trying to see where the hell she’s hiding. I find her sitting on a stone ledge in the shadow of the hotel. “Can’t you take a fucking hint?” she exclaims, sniffling and wiping viciously at her eyes. Anger rushes through my body. She ran from me…again.
I storm over to her and take her by the throat, looking in her wet and puffy eyes. I’m close enough that I can see the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks even in the darkness of the alley. Her eyes go wide for a moment before her face crumples again into tears that rack her body.
“We really need to stop meeting like this, Little Doe,” I say, squeezing her throat until her cries stop.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sitting on the stone wall, her hips are at the same level as my own. I use my free hand to push her dress up and out of the way, running my fingers across her bare pussy.
“Forgot your panties?” I ask her, lessening my grip around her neck so that she can answer.
“Couldn’t find them,” she gasps out.
“Why did you run from me again?” I ask her, teasing her well-abused clit with the pad of my finger. Tears stream down her face as she tries to calm her breathing. She leans into my hand and grips my forearm. Wetness pools around my finger as I continue to tease her.
“I can’t tell you,” she whispers.
“Fucking tell me,” I growl at her, sliding a finger inside of her and curling to hit that spot that makes her whimper.
“You’ll hate me!” she says through her tears. “And I couldn’t stand knowing that you’ll hate me, that you’ll look at me differently, Wes. Just let me go!”
She shoves me, and I let her, giving her room to breathe.
“Fuck,” she swears, pushing her dress back down and wiping at her face again. “How do you manage to do that every time you touch me? You get the wires in my brain all crossed to where I can’t tell if I want to kiss you or fucking slap you.”
“Don’t change the subject. I’ve been chasing after you, trying to hunt down these fucking secrets you’re keeping from me, and you just keep dodging me. There is nothing you could say to me that would make me hate you or look at you any differently. I’ve known you since we were eight. I’ve seen you pick your nose, and I’ve bought you tampons. I beat up that asshole that tried to put his hands up your cheer skirt in high school. I held your hair back senior year when you drank too much vodka, and I also remember helping you change pants after you peed yourself from vomiting so hard.”
She groans at the memory.
“Trust me, Little Doe,” I murmur, taking her face in my hands and rubbing my thumbs across her cheeks. “There is absolutely nothing that could keep me away from you.”
She looks up at me and pushes her hands under my shirt to rest on my hips. Her fingers make little circles on my skin while she looks at me, trying to work up the courage to say whatever it is she needs to say. The pain that is clearly written all over her face is like a knife to the gut. I want to take it away. I’d feel every single molecule of it if it would make her stop looking at me like that.
“He raped me,” she finally whispers.
My body goes cold.