Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95008 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95008 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
“Did you have fun going through my shit?” I asked nastily. “It would make a good drinking game. Take a shot every time my boobs or vagina were mentioned?”
“Jesus,” he replied in disgust. “The fuck is wrong with you?”
“Am I just supposed to be okay with you rifling through my stuff?” I asked in disbelief. “Okay.” I stood up and walked to my dresser, jerking open the top drawer. “These are my underwear,” I said, dropping a pile of them on the floor between us. “Did you get a good look?”
Draco stared at me.
“Oh, these ones,” I said, pulling out a ratty stained pair that I’d had for years. They were stretched out and huge, comfortable when I felt like garbage, and no one ever saw them, so I’d kept them. “These are my period underwear,” I said, holding them up in all their glory. “Nice, huh?”
“Baby, stop,” he said tiredly. “Just stop.”
“Why?” I asked, turning back toward the drawer. “I mean, my life’s an open book, right? I’m sure I have an even better pair in here somewhere.”
“I don’t care about your underwear,” he said.
“No, those aren’t nearly as interesting, huh?” I replied, closing the drawer with my hip so I could lean against the dresser.
“I shouldn’t have looked,” he said, making me scoff. “But I’m glad I did.”
“Great. Good for you.”
“There were hundreds of them, Kara,” he said softly.
“Really?” I asked easily. “I never counted.”
“Can you just—” he paused, growling as he ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Can you just fucking talk to me?”
“Oh, now you want to talk?” I said with a derisive laugh. “Funny.”
“I thought you were going to tell me all this shit,” he replied. “Isn’t that why you came to the clubhouse?”
“You lost that chance,” I replied.
“I’m here now.”
“There’s nothing else to say,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Nothing?”
“You read them all,” I replied, shaking my head in disbelief. “So, there’s not much left. They cornered me—not just the time Charlie saw—all the time. They’d find me when I was alone, which was pretty often because Charlie was basically my only friend. Make comments. Brush up against me in a way they could play off as an accident if I said anything to anyone.”
“I shoulda been there,” he said softly.
“Yeah,” I replied just as quietly. “You should’ve. But that’s not how it all played out, is it?”
“I’m sorry—”
I laughed, the sound grating. “I don’t want you to be sorry,” I said honestly. “Do you know how guilty that makes me feel? That you feel guilty because you went to prison for me? That you feel like it was your job to protect me after you’d already given up so much? Jesus Christ.”
“It’s always gonna be my job to protect you,” Draco said, pointing to himself with his thumb. “That’s never gonna stop.”
“You pulled away from me today,” I replied, my anger morphing into pain. “Today it was you who hurt me.”
“I was trying to do the right thing,” he said, his voice rough. “I was just tryin’ to step off this fuckin’ merry-go-round we’ve been on for so long.”
“Don’t you think I want that, too?” I asked, my voice wobbling.
“You pulled away from me over and over,” he shot back. “You went to fuckin’ Montana.”
“I was scared!”
“I’d never do anything to scare you,” he said in disbelief.
“I didn’t want you to know,” I said through my teeth. “I knew you were going to find out and I never wanted you to know any of this.”
“Why?” he said in confusion.
“Because I wasn’t sure what you would do,” I confessed, the truth falling heavy between us.
“Kara,” he said with a sigh, his eyes steady on mine. “We’re not kids anymore. Baby, I’m not ever leavin’ you again.”
“I didn’t want you to know the things they said to me,” I confessed, the truth so embarrassing that my voice wobbled. “It makes me feel dirty. Like, maybe you’d see it and—”
I couldn’t even finish the sentence before Draco was across the room, his fingers tangled in my hair and his mouth on mine.
“Fuck them,” he said against my mouth, his fingers tightening in my hair. “They’re nothin’.”
I cried as he kissed me. For all the times I ran until I could sleep at night and all the times I laid in bed wishing that he was with me and all the times I wanted to tell someone, anyone, what was happening. For the fear and the anxiety and the pressure of keeping so many things bottled up inside me. For the relief I felt every day when I’d close my front door behind me, knowing that within a few hours, I’d be watching the clock, dreading the next day when I’d have to do it all over again. I cried for every Sunday that I’d sat at home, knowing it was visiting day and I wasn’t seeing Draco. I cried for the time we’d missed. For hurting him every time I’d pulled away, when all I wanted to do was the opposite. I cried in relief, knowing finally that the truth hadn’t changed anything.