“It was hell.” She laughs, but it’s jaded in disbelief as her eyes fill with tears. “We were only listening to music. That’s all. I swear.” Breaking as if she’s reliving it again, pain morphs her into a scared little girl with rivulets of tears running down her face and into the tub.
I wrap my hands around her calves to pull her close until I can lift her into my arms and tuck her against my chest. She’s curled into the smallest ball possible, her sobs wracking her body as her head rests against my shoulder. “It’s okay, Story. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“He once told me he wanted to make sure that I didn’t end up like my mom and date someone like him. Sometimes, I can still hear his voice in my head. He’s the nightmare I can’t escape.”
“Fucking nightmare you survived,” I say, reminding her. “But I’d kill him.” I kiss her on the head. “I’d have spent the rest of my life in jail if I’d been there.”
“You’re too good, Cooper Haywood, to ever know anyone as bad as Hank.”
I feel . . . conflicted.
She sees me now as a better man, but I’m not sure she’d feel the same if she’d known me back then. A better man in a week? Who am I kidding? Is it possible for me to transform into someone other than who I am just because I met Story?
I could tell her how I’ve been to jail a couple of times, just the overnight stuff for the fighting, a little weed back in high school, and stealing my mom’s Bentley to go joyriding with friends when I was fifteen. But that’s petty stuff. Not the same as how Hank was living his life. If she sees me as the opposite of him, I’ll take that.
I hold her tight to get her past the pain of having to relive that night alone.
When she calms again, she says, “The night she . . .” She sniffles, but her voice steadies. She may have been waiting for enough time to pass, or . . . the right person to show up, but now she’s finally opening up. “Sounds like such a cliché.” She takes a deep breath, wiping her face with the back of her hands and dipping them in the water to wash the makeup away.
Leaning back, she shifts just enough to put a little distance between our faces. “My mom was working at a bar, but Hank was drunk in the kitchen, grumbling about rich kids hot-rodding in town, and mad about a ticket he’d gotten. I showed up in those short shorts at the wrong time.” Her swallow is harsh, but she continues, “He got even madder and called me a whore . . . like my mom, and then he decided that he didn’t give a shit that I wasn’t his daughter.” She’s shaking her head. “He didn’t care. That night, he just needed to take his anger out on someone. And I was the chosen one.”
“He’s a fucker. You know that, right?”
“I know.” Her emotions waver with her voice—an ebb and flow to it. She’s had years to start processing, but I’m beginning to think that surviving meant blocking it out entirely. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but not dealing with shit eventually comes out one way or the other.
The water’s cooled from hot to warm, but my temper remains heated.
She exhales and starts fidgeting with petals, ripping them apart and letting the pieces float away. I say, “He did that to you? Ripped you apart.”
“That’s not as bad as what he did to my insides.” Through the dissipated bubbles, I notice the tips of her fingers running along the scar on her leg. Shit. My stomach drops when the pieces connect. The scar. That fucker gave her that scar.
I cover her hand as she continues to touch the jagged line. “He slapped me so hard that I fell into a lamp that had seen better days. It fell and broke . . . and then I fell and broke right on top of it.” Her eyes are set on her leg when she says, “The broken glass ripped my leg wide open, cut through the muscle, exposing the bone.”
“Fucking hell.” My thoughts blur, and when I close my eyes, all I see is red. Anger holds me hostage as a million images of her getting hurt flash through my mind. How could he do that to her?
The feel of my fingers being wedged open causes me to also open my eyes. Even when pain clouds her hazel eyes, her soul shines through.
She kisses the palm of my hand and then rests her cheek on it. Closing her eyes, she says, “The report states that my mom came home.”
“The report?”
She lifts her head and nods. “I’d lost so much blood.”
“And passed out?”
“I was dying, Cooper, and all I could think about was the smell of the carpet. Lavender. She used to sprinkle it on the carpet and then vacuum.” She holds her head. “Sorry. Sometimes the memories come when I least expect them. Anyway, the doctors said I was lucky to have survived because my femoral artery was spared from damage. I don’t consider myself lucky when I think back on that night.”
She’s breaking my heart, but I feel selfish for even having that thought. It’s not fair to her, the real victim in all this. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Her hand flattens over the physical wound, but she’s right. The internal pain is still fresh. “I survived, but my mom didn’t. She fought, though,” Story says, adamantly, looking up at me. “She fought for me. I was losing so much blood. There was so much blood . . . I remember watching him throw her like a rag doll, and I was helpless to save her. He threw her like she wasn’t a person, like she wasn’t a woman, like she wasn’t my mom. He threw her like she didn’t matter.” A stifling breath is taken and then she adds, “She mattered to me.”
“I know, babe. I know,” I whisper. She’s been eerily calm for the most part, but that last part had her voice shaken. She wraps her arms around herself and then leans against me as quiet sobs rock her body.
Holding her so tight, I whisper, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Story.”
“The neighbors called the police, but I passed out before they arrived.” Her tone trembles, but she slowly pushes off me to stand. With the water lowering and her body dripping, the scar is on display in front of me—not for effect, but for her to breathe easier as she pulls herself together again.
“I survived.” Her words come back as a haunted memory. She’s doing more than surviving. She’s changed the course of her life. She’s fucking amazing.
Taking a towel, she wraps it around her frame. “I’m cold,” she says, shivering.
I nod, taking her hand so she can get out without slipping. When I stand and cover myself with the other towel, I step out and start drying off. I need to pace, to think, to do anything but sit here doing nothing.
“I never saw my mom again. I woke up in a hospital bed with my leg wrapped after surgery. They pieced my leg back together again, but I’m told she was found with shards of glass from the front door in her back. Though somehow, she was on the couch when they arrived.” Exhaling loudly, she tempers her expressions, trying so hard to hold herself together.
“What happened?”
The stiffness of her spine loosens, and she rocks back but catches herself against the counter. Her arms cover her stomach as she bends over. “I . . . I never saw her again—not alive or dead. She just vanished from the earth and my life that night.” Sinking to her knees, she curls over, crying. “I never got to hug her again or tell her that I was sorry for borrowing her favorite pair of shorts or that . . .”
I cover her with my body, hugging her. “Story . . . God, Story, it’s not your fault. You have to believe me.”
She looks up at me. “I never got to tell her I love her again. She was messed up, but she was my mess of a mother, Cooper.”
“I know. I know, babe.” It could have been a minute or ten, for all I know. We’ve lost track of time in here.
When her tears subside again, she says, “He was found dead in his truck from a self-inflicted wound. The coward.” Her strength strikes like lightning and then settles into the dust of the memory.
I’ve never felt more like an asshole than after hearing her story. I have trust fund issues at worst when she’s lucky to be alive.