Page 84 of Play Pretend

“Youdon’tknow what he’s like,” I countered. “You haven’t met him yet.”

“I’m sure he’s worse in person,” he muttered under his breath.

No one had ever spoken about him like that, and conflicting emotions fought inside me. On one hand, I appreciated that someone cared aboutmefor a change. That someone saw my dad for who he was, that he wasn’t this amazing father, this amazing person he pretended to be. They saw beneath the carefully constructed mask to the secret monster beneath.

On the other…he was still my dad. And while it was sweet that Ronan felt so strongly, it was hard to listen to.

I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling again. This time, Ronan’s presence beside me helped some of the fear from earlier wash away.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” I blurted, needing to change the subject. “Every time I close my eyes, I see him standing by the dresser.”

Ronan stiffened on the other side of the bed. “It’ll take time before you can sleep comfortably again, but it’ll haunt you forever. You can get through it. You can work on it, but it will always be there. It’ll always be a part of you.”

I choked on a laugh. “Thanks for the pep talk,” I teased, but he didn’t laugh. He didn’t say anything.

I turned my head to look at him, finding his shadowed expression serious as he stared straight ahead. “I know what you’re going through,” he rasped.

“Someone broke into your house, too?”

His lips tightened into a tense smile. “No,” he whispered.

I stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate. Minutes slowly ticked by, and I turned my attention to the ceiling again. Maybe he didn’t want to talk about it.

But then he cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion.

“Five years ago, right before you moved in next door, Trinity died.”

I stiffened. I didn’t dare say a word, didn’t move an inch, didn’t breathe too deeply.

How did she die when she was still alive?

“She was nineteen at the time. She’d gone off to college a year later than her friends because our dad was sick. She stuck around to help my mom take him to appointments and take care of him. And then our dad died, and I think a part of her was relieved. I know I was. Not because he was dead, I loved my dad, but because he was finally out of pain.”

My throat was too tight to swallow. All I could do was listen as he spoke.

“She went to Portland for school,” he continued. “I’d been a cop there just a year before, so I still had friends there. I knew they’d keep an eye on her, and I told my mom she’d besafe.” He choked on the word, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the sound of the pain in that single word.

“One night, she went to a party, and some frat guy drugged her. He raped her.”

I inhaled sharply, hot tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.

“She was so broken after that. She dropped out of school and came home. She was a shell of herself. My mom and I took care of her constantly. There were weeks where she couldn’t get out of bed to eat, let alone bathe or brush her hair. My mom would give her baths every night, and I’d brush her hair while we watchedLove Island.”

That’s why it’s his favorite show.

“Six months later, we got a call that my little brother, Adam, had been injured. He was a Marine overseas, and there had been an explosion and he’d—he lost his leg.”

I was going to be sick. This poor man. This poor family.

“So much had happened in such a short time. And when Adam came back, he stayed with my mom. He was as depressed as Trinity had been but was a lot fucking grumpier. My mom and I were juggling them both, and my mom was still grieving my dad, and I was working hard at the station. It was a lot.

“One day, my mom took Adam to a prosthetics doctor in Portland. Trinity was left all alone—it wasn’t unusual for her to be alone. She always seemed to prefer it. But on this day, she called me seven times. She called me over and over, and I’d been too fucking busy at work to answer. I thought she was just being annoying.”

Shit.

Slowly, my hand slid across the bed, and I wrapped my hand around his. He intertwined our fingers together, squeezing until it hurt, but I didn’t tell him to stop. I wouldn’t. He needed this.

“When I called back, she didn’t answer, so I went to the house on my break. I knew something was wrong the second I stepped inside. I could feel it in the air, you know? I rushed to her room and found her covered in—there was blood everywhere. She stared at me, and I wasn’t sure if she was dead or alive. I don’t remember calling it in on my radio, but apparently, I did.

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