Page 48 of Saving the Halfback

I went back to the parking lot, playing out the scene in my head. “He was angry… I just needed to make myself small because he was so angry. I thought if I made myself small, he wouldn’t—” I stopped, shaking my head.

“Hurt you,” Lachlan supplied. “Didhehurt you?” I looked in the rearview mirror, almost expecting Ed to be sitting back there, waiting for me to lie, wanting me to lie. I should lie. I couldn’t find it in me to lie to Lachlan, though, so I ignored the question.

I put the truck into drive and merged back into traffic, heading to town.

Lachlan went eerily still. Before, he was fidgety, bouncing his leg or playing with his lip ring, but now, it was like he turned predator, on a hunt. I could feel his eyes on me, his body calm. “Does he still hurt you?”

“No.” He would never hurt me again. Eventually, he would be taken off life support. Eventually, he would be dead. That was heavy on my shoulders. Eventually, he would be dead. “After you left, Chase and Ethan had their little spat and refused to talk to anyone. I was kind of on my own. This guy, he was nice to me.”

“Do I know him?” Lachlan sat back in his seat, appearing to be relaxed, but I knew he wasn’t, not completely.

I thought about it. “Maybe in passing, but I don’t think you ever talked to him.”

“Where is he now?”

I bit my lip, focusing on the road.

Lachlan waited for a moment of silence before continuing. “Tell me about you. Some days, you come to school shaking. Some days, you look like a zombie.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Lachlan’s fingers brushed the back of my hand, feather light. I glanced at him, relaxing when I saw his eyes were soft. “I’m sorry if I’m scaring you. I don’t want any of us to suffer in silence anymore. I don’t want to lose you again, especially not to some sort of miscommunication. We are different people, and we have different boundaries. I don’t want you to suffer because of something I say or do. I just want to know if there is something that sets you off?”

Lachlan was right. How long had he remained in silence? How often had he been hurt? We had to start looking out for one another. “I don’t know why I reacted the way I did,” I admitted. “I don’t have boundaries. I’ve never needed them before.” I shook my head. “Maybe talking about it in general is a boundary.” Because, right now, I was feeling queasy.

“It’s scary as fuck to talk. Sometimes it’s scary to the point it hurts physically—I get that. It helps to start with little truths. Ones that don’t hurt, ones that feel good.”

My fingers tapped on the steering wheel for a while. “He’s older. Much older, but we waited until I was sixteen, and it was consensual. I looked it up, it was legal. He’s not an authority figure.” That was a little truth I felt had to be told right away. I wasn’t raped; I’d been okay with it, so it meant I wasn’t raped. Why did I keep telling myself that?

When Lachlan said nothing, I sighed, keeping my eyes trained on the road. It was easier to talk when I wasn’t looking at him.

Okay. A little truth. “He made me happy. I was really isolated, and he made me belong,” I said. I had looked forward to seeing Ed every day.

“How long were you guys together for?”

“Three years.”

“Do you miss him?”

My hands tightened on the steering wheel. Little truths. Start with little truths. “No,” I whispered. My throat tightened. “He…changed over the last couple years.”

Lachlan was tapping his finger on his leg. “Tell me.” He whispered it in such a way that I found myself in a trance, wanting to say everything.

“I didn’t see it when we were together, but the more time I spend away from him, the more I feel hurt. It feels like a delayed reaction. He had a short temper, and I just thought it was him being him. I knew who he is, he wouldn’t hurt me. But when Chase raised his voice, I was scrambling to try and lower myself, almost as if I were afraid of being hurt. And I realized I did that a lot with my ex. I was afraid without knowing I was afraid. Is that even a thing, or am I making this up?”

“Why would you make it up?” Lachlan asked.

So I wouldn’t have to hold on to the guilt of what I did to him.The answer was on the tip of my tongue, but I kept it to myself.

“Did he hit you?” Lachlan’s voice was changing. He went from passive to assertive, wanting on an answer now.

“No.” I bit my lip.

“You’re lying.” The tapping intensified.

“And I don’t know why I keep lying.” Tears sprang to my eyes. I didn’t mean to say that. I wasn’t lying, it was the truth. I wasn’t a liar. I believed it, it was the truth.

Ed never really hit me like he was attacking me. Sometimes I would be in the way, and he would shove me, or he grabbed my arm a lot to hold me still so he could see me. He had an obsession with needing to look directly into my eyes when he demanded something of me. Oftentimes, though, he was just upset, and I had to find a way to calm him down.

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