Page 2 of Bruise Me Tenderly

“No,” I interrupt. “I just came here to see someone. I don’t need anything.”

“He’s okay,” River says, to my surprise. “I’ll make sure he gets some water.”

Reluctance shines in the other guy’s eye, but he backs off when someone in white shoves open a door and catches his attention.

As soon as he’s gone, I shove up from the floor. My head spins, and I reach back for the wall to steady myself, but what I grab instead is River’s hand. It’s stronger than it was when we were teenagers, and it’s a lot steadier than it was the last time I held it.

“You’re still having panic attacks?” River asks, his voice low.

“No, I just got too hot.”

His eyes narrow as disbelief fills them. Of course he would know I’m lying. The very first one I’d had was in front of River, at my dad’s funeral. He’d led me away before anyone could see me, to the hidden place we had between our houses. A small alleyway on the back of our fences that was so overgrownwith trees and brush that you couldn’t tell it had a pathway unless you knew it was there.

He hadn’t said anything back then, just tucked me against his chest and held me tight.

“Come on,” River says when I don’t say anything more. “I’ll take you to see McKenzie.”

Relief floods through me at the topic change. “How’s she doing? She said everything was okay with the baby. Is that true?”

“I don’t work on the L&D level, but I see her pretty frequently, and she seems healthy.”

His voice sounds so clinical when he talks. Like he doesn’t want to say anything that might be too personal. It hurts more than I have the right to let it. Once upon a time, I knew River better than anyone. We were best friends. Then we were captives together. Then we were lovers. Each other’s first time.

Now what are we?

“This is her room,” River says, stopping outside a plain blue door. “I’ll see you around.”

“Wait.” I reach out and grab his hand before he can turn.

His gaze drifts to where my hand is gripping his before lifting his eyes back to my face. “What?”

I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. There are so many things I want to say to him. So many things I need to say to him. “I need to get to work. Say hi to your sister for me.”

Then he slides his hand from mine and heads down the hall without a backward glance.

Two

River

I can’t get away from Judson fast enough. I always thought I’d be okay when I saw him again. It’s been years. I thought I’d let everything about him go. But seeing him just now…it was like looking right at a ghost. And all of my old feelings came rushing back so quickly that I thought they would crush me.

Judson used to be my everything. We grew up together, annoyed his sister together, played on the same sports teams together. When I came out in high school, he defended me to anyone who said anything about it.

My crush on him wasn’t some slow, gradual thing. It hit me one day like a freight train, as I watched him tilt his face to the spring sun, telling me we only had one more month of high school left before we graduated.

It was three weeks before we were abducted by Ian. Three weeks before the worst four days of my life.

We didn’t end up accepting our diplomas together. I was in a medically induced coma, and Judson was recovering from surgery. My diploma came in the mail in the summer, when I was trying to make sense of everything that had happened to us. Because Judson wasn’t there to help talk me through it like he had always been.

My eyes burn, and I abandon my route to the nurses’ station to duck into a bathroom. I lock myself in the first stall and lean back against the door, dragging deep breaths into my body.

I focus on the way my lungs expand, how my heart helps pump blood to every one of my limbs.

When I first woke up in the hospital after I came out of the coma, all I wanted to do was forget I even had a body. It was the thing Ian loved most about me. He liked to make me take my clothes off so he could take pictures of me before he fucked me.

I grit my teeth and force my mind back to the present. I will not go there. I won’t let myself think of those horrible days. They’re over. Ian is dead, and he can’t ever touch me or Judson again.

Just thinking about my old friend has my muscles relaxing. As much as it hurt when I woke up in the hospital and he wasn’t there, I don’t hate him. I never have.

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