Page 170 of Pretty Little Lies

“She forced me to fuck my sister to see things different. She had menwatchus and make sure I finished so that it would magically make me straight. Rosie would cry…she’d beg me to stop…” A warm tear hits the top of my hand, and I instantly want to hug him, but I don’t think he wants that. I’m almost positive that Reeve requires his own sounding board right now. “I didn’tstop. Even through her sobs and the way she began to cringe every time she saw me, I didn’t stop. I was beaten unconscious one time because I didn’t want to cause my sister any more mental pain, but my mother told me that she would start cutting my sister and having the men rape her instead, and I…I didn’t fuckin’ know what to do.”

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen. I should’ve known better, right? Maybe I should’ve called her bluff?—”

“No,” I retort softly, trying to will that into his head. “How could you risk it?”

“I should’ve fought harder. I should’ve gotten Rosie out of the house, but my mother had such a stranglehold on her. She was going to marry rich, but she was broken. Ibrokeher.”

“Your mother broke you both. She’s sick, Reevie, not you.Notyou. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I killed her, McQueen,” he leers through flooded eyes. “Rosie couldn’t take any more, even when it stopped and began bringing girls around so my mother would get the hint that it worked. Nothing brought her back from those nights. I moved on…but she still lived in the darkness and the memories of what I did?—”

“She had to have known,” I counter because how could she not know her brother? That he would never do something like that without being forced. Obviously, it’s fucked up to the extreme, but there’s not a sinister bone in Reeve’s body.

“She abandoned me, and I screwed her,” Reeve replies with a stronger edge to his voice. “That’s when I had to do all that shit to you…I just?—”

“You protected me. Just like you did her. It’s not ideal, Reeve. But I get it.”

“Yeah,” he says, but it’s clearly mocking in his tone. “Rosie got it when she put a bullet in her head.”

“Stop,” I plead through tears of my own. “You were her brother. I can’t imagine you being different back then than you are now.”

“I am.”

“How?”

He pauses a minute before admitting, “I dunno, but I’m fully cognitive to the fact that if I lose you, I’m done.”

I don’t know what that fully means, but I dare not ask.

“You’re not going to lose me,” I promise.

“I already did.”

“You didn’t,” I assure him. “Nothing changes between us. Not this story, not what you’ve had to do, nothing.”

Reeve begins to step away from me. “You don’t mean that. You can’t possibly?—”

“Don’t start comparing me to a basic bitch, Reeve Stanton,” I argue as I put more pressure on his face to stay with me. To not run away and hide. “I’m serious, look at me.”

His hazels continue to stare deep into the depths of my blues, and I feel mainly protective over him right now.

“Nothing changes.” I force back my fear of my next words and extract them out. “You’re mine.”

Reeve’s eyes widen a bit before his features suddenly soften. “You mean it?”

“I mean it.”

His forehead falls to mine, and we remain in silence together.

Levi tiptoed around the fact that I’d choose them over him. That I am getting too deep within their clutches to where I’m blind to everything.

And maybe he’s right on the latter.

But if they make me choose between them, I’ll die before they reprise an answer.

“I promise you that I’m going to put you first,” Reeve mutters around me. “That you’re going to be so happy that you’re not going to know what to do with yourself.”

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