Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 129207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 646(@200wpm)___ 517(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129207 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 646(@200wpm)___ 517(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
I drop my head back to his shoulder, needing a moment to find myself as he holds me.
“I’m so sorry, Rae. If I’d known—”
“Don’t do that to yourself,” I whisper, holding his hand even tighter. “There’s no way you could have known, and that’s on me. I should have spoken up when I had the chance, but I didn’t because I knew you would either stay or kill him, and everything you’d worked for would be gone. I couldn’t do that to you.”
“You were mine to protect,” he pushes.
“The road goes both ways,” I tell him. “You were mine to protect too, and I did what I had to do to make sure you got everything you deserved.”
He holds my stare, a hollowness creeping in. “I don’t like that.”
“You don’t have to.”
Ezra lets out a heavy breath. “How long did it go on for?”
“Two years. Right until I left for college,” I tell him. “And by that point, I was an empty shell. All the furniture had been taken from my room so I couldn’t barricade myself in. The bathroom door was gone, as was the toilet door. I wasn’t allowed privacy. The lock was broken off my bedroom door handle, and after I attempted to throw myself out the window, that was boarded up too. He made sure there was no escape for me. Every night. Over and over again. He destroyed me.”
I let out a shaky breath unable to meet his eye. “My first abortion was at seventeen. My second six months after that.”
“Fuck.”
I pause for a moment, needing a second. “There were times it got so bad that I considered running away, but I was never brave enough. I didn’t want to live on the street. I didn’t have a job or money. I didn’t know how I was going to feed myself. So I stayed, and night after night, I thought about taking a blade and slicing it across my wrists. I wanted to die. I needed to die, and it made me feel weak.”
Tears stream down my face at the admission. It’s not something I’ve ever spoken of, not something I’m proud of, but I want to be honest with him. I want us to start fresh on a clean slate with no secrets between us.
“Some nights I stayed at the lake and slept in the bushes, and some nights I slipped through your old bedroom window and slept in your bed, but I was always punished worse when I refused to come home. Your parents never said anything about it, but I think they knew I was there because there were always clean sheets on your bed.”
Ezra nods. “Mom told me that once, but I always assumed it was because you missed me. Not because . . .”
“It’s okay,” I tell him, squeezing his hand, knowing just how hard this is to hear about the hell I suffered through. “Going to school every day was my only reprieve,” I continue. “It gave me something to work toward, something to keep my mind off it, but I struggled more than you’ll ever know. I worked my ass off to get into college, and I applied everywhere I could that was far enough away that he couldn’t find me. I made it my life’s mission to get away, and the day my first acceptance letter came, I finally found that first ray of hope. I was accepted into thirty-two colleges, that’s how many I applied for, and I hid every single one from him. He didn’t know I was leaving until I was already gone, and I never looked back.”
“What happened after college?” he asks, struggling to maintain control when I know every fiber in his body is daring him to get up, fly to Michigan, and end my father’s pathetic life.
“After Ax died, I was in a really bad place,” I tell him. “Axel was paying my rent, and I was already failing my classes. The dean gave me the option to pull out and try again later, but I couldn’t fathom the idea. I was so broken that I just dropped out instead. I had nowhere to go, and I was drowning in grief, not thinking properly, and despite vowing to myself that I would never return there, I went back to Michigan and practically lived on the street. I needed a job, needed to save up some cash, and then I’d be able to leave and start a new life, but being there . . . It didn’t feel like home, and I was petrified every time I walked into a store or turned the corner that I’d see him, and so I left, and since then—”
“Since then what?” he prompts.
Humiliation rocks through me, and I pull off his lap, curling up on the couch beside him. “I’ve lived out of the back of my car, moving from town to town, working shit jobs just to keep myself clothed, bathed, and fed. Right up until I received the call from Lenny offering me this job.”