Page 134 of Indigo Sky

I held Kate's unwavering stare as I said, "I'm not really sure the timing's right at the moment."

How could it be? We were healing; our lives were both in an odd, dreamlike state of limbo. I would've gladly had her move in and share my bed, where we could protect each other from the nightmares that haunted us both. But I wouldn't push her into anything—not a single fucking thing—until she was sure and ready.

But Howard held fast to my arm.

"There will never be a right time, Revan," he replied, his tone firm. "Don't make the same mistakes I made. Don't wait. Don't drive her away by dragging your feet."

***

We drove back to my parents' place in silence until Kate sighed and pulled my attention from the thoughts swarming my mind.

"He's right," she whispered.

"What?"

"Dad. He's right. This whole thing is …" She shook her head, as if unsure of what word to use. "I want to be with you, Rev. I'm sick of just, like, dancing around this. We keep each other at arm's length. We're—"

"We're figuring this out," I told her gently. "I mean, it was just two months ago that … you, um … you were—"

"Abducted. Assaulted. Raped."

I flinched at the horrible, vile, disgusting words coming from her mouth, and my hands clenched tightly around the wheel until I thought my fingers might snap.

"I know what happened to me, and I accept it.Ican say those words, Rev, but I understand why you can't. I understand you struggle with feeling like you failed—even though you didn't, and that's okay. Like you said, we're healing. But I want to healwithyou. Not like this, where … I don't know … we're together, but we're dealing with everything alone. I hate it."

I relaxed my grip and sighed. "I didn't want to push you or—"

"You can't make me do anything I don't want to do," she assured me gently. "But I'm not afraid of you, Rev. I never was. Donny did all those things. Not you."

I took what she had said to heart, and after I dropped her off at Saul's house, I went home to talk to my parents.

***

A week later, Kate moved her stuff into my childhood bedroom.

We spent four months in that house as a couple, working through an ordeal neither of us had planned on coping with. We attended our therapy sessions—both separate and together—and after I started full-time at Mom's gym, we took a leap and moved into the same little apartment Nate and I had once called home.

By some miracle, it had remained vacant in the months since Nate had moved out and into his house with Crystal—Cassie—and her son, Jagger.

We made a life in that apartment. We filled the walls with Kate-and-me moments to join the ones I'd shared with Nate. We made dinners, and she taught me how to dance—no, not that kind of dance, but there was plenty of that too. We each had a birthday in that apartment and a handful of inconsequentialholidays that meant nothing to us, but everything to my mom, if only for the reason to invite their friends and family over and brag about my mundane life and perfect girlfriend.

But things were far from perfect.

Kate had quit her job at the club immediately after the attack. Nobody fought her decision. In fact, Sam and Saul encouraged it. But in the year since that day, she hadn't yet decided on a career she was content with. She had been happy, dancing. She had come alive on the pole.

And after the edges of her trauma began to fade, I could tell she felt like something was missing. I could sense it in the sparkle that had dimmed in her eyes and the way her smile didn't stretch quite as far across her face. I thought for a while that maybe it was me, like she was no longer happy in our relationship and she was just looking for a way out.

But then, one day, we went down to Midnight Lotus to visit “the old gang,” as Kate had put it. We watched Wendy kill it on the pole, even though she complained of worsening arthritis pains, and we cheered Ivy on.

I looked across the table at my girlfriend to find that glimmer back in her eye, the passion and a touch of desperation, like she'd give anything to be back up there, holding the reins and commanding the crowd. An ache so dull and horrible flooded my chest as I realized she needed to come back to work—and I wanted her to. I wanted it for her, for her happiness and contentedness, and when we left the club early—because I had work at the ass-crack of dawn—I blurted out over Bruce Springsteen on the radio, "You should dance again."

Kate was silent for a moment, startled. She didn't look at me right away, just stared ahead at the dashboard as we drove back to our apartment.

I thought maybe I had said the wrong thing, that I had upset her in some way, so I quickly added, "I mean, only if you want—"

"I'm pregnant."

It was my turn to stare, unblinking, barely seeing the road before us as the words she'd spoken rolled around in my head. Had I heard her correctly? She was on birth control … right? Had she stopped taking it and … what, forgotten to tell me? Was she trying to pull a quick one on me, strap me to her for life without my consent—

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