Page 54 of One More Time

We stood there for a long moment before I forced myself to walk away. “Have a good night.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

McKenna

My oldest brother Rhys sat across from me at his desk. Rhys was kind of intense, and he looked serious at the moment. He steepled his fingers under his chin before dipping his head in acknowledgment. “Wyatt told me.”

“Huh?”

He leaned back in his chair, letting his hands fall. “He said he told you he was going to tell me.” My brother looked concerned, worried even.

“He did. Sorry, I’m just catching up.”

“I’m sorry about what happened.”

“Not your fault,” I said quickly, wanting to smooth it over and make everything okay.

The urge to smooth problems away, to make tension disappear was something that came with the territory of experiencing any kind of abuse.

“I know it’s not my fault,” Rhys replied. “Maybe I never saw Jake hit you, but I knew he had a temper. He never laid a hand on me. I hope it’s okay that I asked Adam, Blake, and Kenan if he ever hit them.”

“Not Griffin?” I asked.

“Wyatt said Griffin already told him Jake never hit him.”

“Oh.”

“I wish you had told me sooner.”

I blinked, my eyes stinging. “Maybe I should’ve said something sooner, but I didn’t know how to tell anyone.”

“Does it bother you that Haven and I named little Jake after him?”

I shook my head quickly. “No!” Even though I had bad memories of Jake, they weren’t attached to his name. It was more the secret of it. “I guess I just got tired of keeping it hidden from everybody.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rhys pressed.

I could tell he was concerned and wanted to fix this somehow. It was really sweet for him to try to help, to be there.

“I appreciate that. I still see my therapist sometimes.”

“I just want you to know if you want to talk about it, I’m here for you,” Rhys insisted.

“I love that that’s important to you. But really—” I swallowed. “I just didn’t want to keep it a secret anymore. There’s a lot of good in our family too.”

Rhys held my gaze. “Maybe we should do family therapy.”

I burst out laughing. “That would be a shit show. There are seven of us and Mom. Honestly, I don’t think we need that. We all love each other. Maybe all we need to do is cut it out with keeping secrets.”

Rhys pressed his lips together as he nodded slowly. “Maybe.”

There was a knock on Rhys’s office door. “Yes?” Rhys called.

Kenan came in, glancing at us. “Group hug?” he asked, reading the room quickly.

We laughed together. I didn’t need to process this with my siblings, but having the truth out there was a relief. As much as I wanted to undo what happened, to erase the fact that Jake had bullied me and been physically abusive at times, I couldn’t. At least I didn’t have to keep it secret anymore.

After we did, in fact, have a group hug, Kenan kept his arm around my shoulders. He ruffled my hair with one hand, the way he did when I was a little girl. “You good?”

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