Page 72 of Tough Love

“So whatisit?” I reach out and rest my hand on his knee. “Tell me.”

He nods, as though affirming to himself it’s the right thing to do. “When you told Jess about what happened when we were kids,” he says, that frown making him seem so intensely sexy I can’t stand it. “It hurt. Not because I never knew you were pregnant, and not becausehemade you like that, but….” He huffs, dropping his chin as he shakes his head. “Jesus, Amelia.” My heart aches as he rubs both hands over his face. “I can’t even say it after all this fucking time.”

“Say what?” I push up onto my elbows and slowly swivel to face him, my legs either side of his.

I need to know. Hehasto tell me. Secrets, they kill me. I hate feeling as though people are disappointed in me; as though I should know what the problem is when I don’t. He said it himself; everything’s on the table this time.

The hurt is as clear as black and white as he searches my face. “I saw you that day, you know.”

“What day? When you came back here from up north?”

“Not that day.” He shakes his head, facing away from me.

The fact he can’t even stomach looking in my eyes as he confesses this makes me ill. What the hell has he got to say?

“The day he first took you back to his house.”

My focus narrows, any sense of the things around me fading as I zero in on the distressed man before me. “How?”

“We lived a block away, back then. I had to walk past his place to get to mine after the bus dropped me off.”

My heart, my head.“I never knew that.”

“Why would you?” Hefinallylooks my way again, reaching out and placing a hand on my knee. “Babe, I’m so sorry.”

“Evan, you’re worrying me.” I don’t get why he’s so upset about it? Okay, so he saw me. But so what? How was he to know I wasn’t there by choice?

“I saw him hit you, and I watched as he carried you inside. I knew something was wrong and I didn’t do a fucking thing about it.”

Oh.

“Say something,” he begs.

But I can’t. I need to ask, “How many more times did you see me there?” How involved is this secret he’s kept from me, not only now, but the entire time we saw each other as kids? He lived a lie, choosing to pretend he’d never taken notice of me before we started dating. He flat-out looked me in the eye andlied.

His eyes glass over, the rock around my heart reforming. “Almost daily.”

“You knew I wasn’t there by choice?” I whisper, daring him to be wrong.

God, he has to be wrong.

“I saw the way he’d drag you around.” He leans away, scrubbing a hand over his face. “But I convinced myself I couldn’t do anything. I was such a fucking weed back then, babe. I wanted to run over there, jump the fence, and smack him upside the head with some of that scrap metal that lay around the yard, but I knew I wouldn’t win.” He laughs bitterly. “Shit, I didn’t win even when Ididtake the bastard on.”

“And so you did nothing,” I utter, my words barely a whisper.

“I did nothing,” he affirms, the waver to his voice clear as day.

He’s barely holding on. I’ve already let go.

“Fuck, Amelia. Talk to me, please.”

I stare past him, my chin quivering as my chest turns to rock with the weight of the truth. He was one of them; he was one of the people who could have done something to help.

He was one of the people who chose to pity me instead of stepping in to help a girl too young and naïve to save herself.

But that’s just it—we were both young, weren’t we? He was just as naïve, just as hopeful, with just as much misplaced trust in the system we grew up to respect. The legal system that meant zero when they knew nothing of your struggle.

How did I expect anyone to help me, when I didn’t say a thing myself?

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