Page 141 of Restore Me

“Okay, so what happened?”

“Mal, you don’t want to hear me cry about Dom.”

“Yes, I do.” She sticks her tongue out at me when I glare at her. “Come on, Sloane. You know you’ve been dying to hash this out with someone besides your therapist.”

With another long-suffering sigh, I decide to give in because I know she won’t leave me alone until I tell her everything. In some ways, I feel like I owe her this truth after weeks of lying. And once I start talking, it all just flows out. The surprising beginning of us, the perfection of the middle, and the devastation of the end. I don’t realize I’m crying until Mal presses a tissue into my hand.

“Fuck, Sloane. I’m sorry.” She wraps her arms around my shoulders. “Do you want me to kill him? Because I’ve spent some time researching how to dismember a body, and I think I can do it.”

Somehow I manage to laugh through the sobs, and it reminds me of the day I found her on my doorstep crying over Chris and threatened to murder him for her. I wrap my arms around her and hug her back; my heart swells with gratitude, overflowing with relief that my confession hasn’t shattered our relationship the way I always thought it would.

“I don’t want you to kill him any more than you want me to kill Chris.”

We pull back and look at each other. Her eyes shine with the kind of understanding that can only come from a woman who’s living with a broken heart as well.

“Well,” she sighs. “I guess the bastards get to live another day.”

* * *

The last half of my week is infinitely better with Mal by my side. After our talk on Wednesday, she spent the night and has stayed close since. I was determined to grieve this relationship on my own, but to my surprise, she was just as determined not to let me. And there aren’t enough words in the world to explain how thankful I am for her constant support.

On Friday afternoon, I’m heading out of the house to meet her and Mama for dinner when I see a familiar midnight black Range Rover parked in my driveway. I stop in my tracks and watch in slow motion as Dom steps out of the car. Excitement and apprehension spring in my chest at the same time. He’s here. He came to see me. But I also can’t forget the last time we were face to face. When he managed to rip my heart out with three little words.

A shiver rolls down my spine as I take him in, studying every line of his handsome face as he closes the car door and stares at me. His expression is unreadable, and his eyes rake over me slowly, making me feel the weight of his gaze as surely as if he’s touched me. I close my eyes, relishing in the moment, in the feeling of being seen by him after going so many days without it.

When I open them back up, he’s standing in front of me. A heady swirl of emotion moves across his features as we breathe each other in. I want to throw my arms around his waist, to bury my face in his chest and make him swear to never, ever leave me again, but I don’t. I just look up at him, letting him see it all. The hurt, the fury, the rage, the love.

“Sloane.”

He reaches for me, but I step back. I don’t want him to touch me yet. Uncertainty and fear flash in his eyes, and I can’t help but feel triumphant. Good. Let him doubt himself. Let him be afraid of me rejecting him like he rejected me.

“Why are you here?”

“I needed to see you.”

I frown. “Why?”

Dom reaches for me again, this time managing to capture my wrist in his long fingers. And, oh, God. His touch alone threatens to unravel me. “Let’s go inside and talk.”

A bitter laugh breaks free from the hollow space inside my chest. Of course, he would just come here and act like everything was back to normal. Like we’re still the same Sloane and Dom we were before he let a lifetime’s worth of bullshit break us. I snatch my hand away from him. “You can say whatever you need to say to me right here.”

He clenches his jaw and nods. “Okay. Then let me start with I’m sorry. I fucked this all up, Sloane. I told you when we started this that I wasn’t worthy of you, but I promised I would try my best to be, and I broke that promise a million different ways on Saturday.”

Just the mention of Saturday makes my heart twist painfully in my chest, but I can’t let him take all the responsibility for the mess we made together. “You didn’t get there on your own.”

“But I drove us over the edge, and you deserve to know why.” Both of his hands ball into fists. “I already told you I went to see my dad the night you asked about the tattoo.” His eyes flash with anger like he’s still upset with himself for doing that. “Our visits always go left pretty quickly, but this one dissolved in a matter of moments. It ended with him telling me I was a selfish bastard who hurt people just like him. Then he pressed a bottle of vodka in my hand and sent me on my way.”

I bite my lip, willing my anger to stay. To not be drowned out by the sadness and compassion for the little boy in Dom constantly being victimized by his father. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, but I still don’t understand why you would let him get in your head.”

“Because when he said it all I could think about was how not knowing the truth about us was hurting you, and then Friday happened…”

Hearing how I helped his dad niggle his way into his head, allowing the poisonous seeds he’d planted to grow, breaks my heart, and I have to cross my arms over my chest to keep myself from reaching for him.

“And I freaked out about California and made you leave when you told me the truth about everything.” Heat creeps up my neck when he settles his gaze on my face. “I’m sorry for reacting that way. It was just a lot of information to process, and I was overwhelmed.”

“And I took your reaction as confirmation of my deepest fears and spun out.” He grimaces, still angry with himself. “My therapist says it was classic self-sabotage.”

“You’re in therapy?” This is news to me. I haven’t heard him mention he was seeing someone before, but I know how private mental health care can be, especially for Black men. He shrugs like it’s no big deal.

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