Page 130 of Stay with Me

Mortified, I shook my head. I hadn’t felt this way since I was six years old and had thrown bubble gum in the hair of a girl who was about to go onstage before me. I hadn’t meant to toss it in the mass of brown curls, but Mom had been standing by the front of the stage and when she’d realized I still had gum in my mouth, she had gotten a crazy stage mom look on her face and I’d panicked.

“I’d been at Shepherd since I was eighteen, and to be honest, it does feel like my only home,” I said, glancing at Teresa. She was watching me closely. “I know that doesn’t justify lying, but I just ... I never thought of here as home, at least for a long time.”

Teresa nodded slowly. “But what about when you said you went to visit family for break? From what I gathered earlier, you haven’t been back here in years.”

“I didn’t go home.” My cheeks heated. “I’d checked into a hotel that time.”

Her brows pinched.

Avery’s eyes widened with sympathy. “Oh, Calla ...”

“I know it sounds stupid. I honestly only did it because I wanted to get away for a little bit, and it was really the only option. It was kind of cool, really. And I know what I said about my mom being dead is freaking terrible and you guys probably think I’m a horrible person.”

“Actually, no, we don’t.” Teresa twisted toward me as she straightened out the leg that had been injured first by dancing and then again when her roommate’s boyfriend had pushed her, effectively ending Teresa’s dreams of dancing professionally for an elite ballet school. “Calla, I don’t know all your reasons for not telling us about your mom and your life here, but from what we’ve learned the last couple of hours, I get why you didn’t want to.”

“We totally get it,” Avery agreed, and I felt a tiny bit of hope flare in my chest.

Teresa nudged my knee with hers. “But I hope you know that whatever your background is orwhatever,we aren’t going to judge you. You can be up front with us.”

“Trust us on that,” Avery added. “We are the last people to judge you.”

My gaze bounced between the two, and they were giving each other a look I didn’t fully understand. Then Avery moved to sit on the other side of me. Nervously, she tucked a strand of red hair back behind her ear.

Then she took a deep breath I could hear, looked at Teresa one more time, and then her gaze settled on me. Muscles in my stomach clenched, and I knew she was about to tell me something major. It was written all over her somewhat pale face. “When I was younger, I’d gone to a party that an older guy at school was throwing at his house. He was cute and I flirted with him, but things got out of hand. It really was bad.”

Oh God no. Part of me already knew where this was heading, and I reached over, wrapping my hand around hers, and squeezed.

She pressed her lips together, and I could tell what she was about to say was hard—harder than anything I’d ever had to admit to. “He raped me,” Avery said quietly, so softly I could barely hear it, but I did, and in response, my chest squeezed. “I did the right thing. At first. I told my parents and I told the police, but his parents and mine were country club buddies, and they offered my parents a whole lot of money if I kept quiet. Plus there had been a picture of me earlier that night sitting in his lap and I had drank. My parents had been more worried about what people would say about me instead of what was done to me, so I agreed. I took the money and it ate at me, Calla. I felt like shit for it.”

Tears pricked at my eyes as she pulled her hand free and slowly took off her bracelet. She turned her wrist up, and I sucked in a breath I immediately wished I hadn’t. I saw the scar. I knew what it meant.

Avery smiled faintly. “That’s not the worst part. Because I didn’t press charges, the guy continued doing what he did to me.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed, wanting to hug her. “Honey, it’s not your fault. You didn’t make him do those things to you or to anyone else.”

“I know.” The smile became a little firmer. “I know, but I did carry some responsibility in that. And the reason why I’m telling you this is because I went years without telling anyone what happened to me and when I met Cam, it took a lot for me to open up and tell him the truth. I almost lost him because I didn’t.” She drew in another breath. “The point? I’m ashamed that I tried to take my own life and that I caved to my parents, but I’ve gotten to a point—with therapy—that I get why I did those things and they don’t make me a bad person or less of a friend to people if I don’t open up or whatever.”

“No,” I whispered, blinking back tears. “You’re not a bad person.”

Teresa cleared her throat and when she spoke, her voice was thick, and when I looked at her, I tensed up all over again. “When I was in high school, my boyfriend hit me. More than once. A lot of times, actually.”

Oh God.

I couldn’t believe it. Teresa never came across as someone who would stay in an abusive relationship, but as soon as that thought finished I realized how judgie that was.

“I was young, but that really isn’t the greatest excuse for being with a guy who hit me,” she said, following my thoughts. “I kept it to myself and I hid it. I made up stories whenever the bruises were visible, but one year, right before Thanksgiving, my mom saw me and there was no hiding what was happening any longer. The thing was, the worst part wasn’t that I was in the abusive relationship, but what it did to my brother. He lost it, Calla. He drove over to my boyfriend’s house. Cam confronted him and ... and they got into it. Cam beat him so badly that the guy ended up in the hospital and my brother got arrested.”

“Holy crap,” I gasped, wide-eyed.

Teresa nodded. “Cam got into a lot of trouble, and I lived with the what-ifs for a long time. What if I didn’t stay with him? What if I told someone? Would Cam have ended up almost losing everything? And he did lose a lot. A semester of school. He was off the soccer team, and he also had to deal with the shit he’d done. I carried a lot of guilt because of that. Even to this day, I have regret.”

“I’m sure Cam doesn’t blame you,” I said.

“He doesn’t.” It was Avery who answered. “He never did.”

Teresa’s smile was wobbly. “That’s because my brother is pretty damn awesome.”

I reached over and squeezed her hand, feeling the tears really start to well up in my eyes.

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