Page 77 of Best Kept Secret

At least that's what my therapist had told me. Beau's defection had been thelaststraw but there had been plenty of straws, starting all the way from when I was eight. I felt a sob rise through me. It was getting harder and harder to pretend that the ugly thing during my childhood had not happened. Asha had beenreallygood at negating those terrible years. She just rejected my parentsandour history. She didn't fight with them—she just didn't see them.

I'd spent some time trying to make Mommy acknowledge what Daddy had done to me and Asha—but had finally given up when I realized that it made my father angrier and my mother meaner.

According to Dr. Ryan, my mother was doing what she thought she had to do to keep her husband with her—and if that meant sacrificing her daughters, so be it. I couldn't understand that; I'd die for Pari.

I closed my eyes as the pain surfaced. My beautiful baby girl. I was missing her more and more. I wanted to hear her voice and feel her arms around me. It had been nearly six weeks since I started working at Savannah Lace, and feelings that I thought were submerged way-way deep-deep down inside me were rising up. It was that damn therapy, I thought.

There was now a persistent knock on the door. "Mira, darlin', don't make me break this door down, yeah?"

I took a deep breath. I had gotten to know Beau well when I lived with him, but I'd gotten to know him even better through Aurora, Stella, Luna, and Nova. Even Katya had come and seen me, apologized profusely. She'd asked if Donna could talk to me, and I'd told her I wasn't ready. For me, Donna had helped bring my parents back into my life—had made that ugliness almost touch Pari, and I wasn't ready to forgive her for that—no matter her reasons.

It was amazing how everyone was pushing so hard for me to rejoin society. In the past, when I struggled with bouts of depression, nobody seemed to care. But ever since Asha got pregnant, I hadn't even had time to feel depressed.

But this time, everyone was on my case. No matter how much I complained about it, my therapist was right: a part of me liked the attention, maybe because I'd had so little of it all my life.

I opened the bathroom door to find Beau standing guard.

"I thought you found a way out," he murmured.

"There isn't even a window in there," I complained.

He put a hand at the small of my back and I wanted to turn around, smack him, and scream, "Don't touch me, because when you do, I feel things I don't want to feel!" But if I revealed that to him—he'd use it as a tactic to…to what?

He walked me out of the bar and into the Savannah evening.

"It's Pari's bathtime," I scolded him. "You need to be at home."

"Roxy is taking care of her and Iwasgoing home, but then I saw I had a chance with you, so I took it."

"You can't ignore Pari."

"I'd never do that, darlin'." He caught my arm and steered me away, walking me back toward Jones Street. "I told Nova that you were with me."

I shrugged my arm away from him. "What do you want?"

I was angry, more with myself than him. I hated that I'd lost my calm and cool, the one I'd worn so well but was now thawing under the onslaught of kindness I was receiving at work.

"You," he said pithily.

"Go fuck yourself, Beau."

He chuckled. "Since you're not in bed with me, darlin', that's the story of my life right now."

He'd always had a good sense of humor. He was sweet and kind and fun. He was strong and obnoxious and gentle.

"How's Pari?" I asked softly.

"She's good but she misses you."

I didn't know what to say. When he walked me home from work, I pretended I couldn't hear him, but it was getting harder. He was there every day, just talking about things he was doing, Pari was doing, how much they missed me, how much they missed my food. I listened to everything—hungry for all the morsels he threw my way about his life with Pari—but I sealed my mouth shut.

"I…I don't know how I feel," I blurted out. It was the truth. I missed Pari but I also felt it was better to stay away so she could forget me.

"I wish I had that problem," he muttered. "I knowexactlyhow I feel."

I stopped on the sidewalk and waited for him to tell me.

He turned to face me. "I feel like an asshole because Iamone. See, I don't have a problem with that, but I didn't want you to seethat side of me, experience it. I know that I lost the woman I love because of that asshole."

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