Page 123 of Deliverance

My mother checked out completely and didn’t really pay any attention to what was going on in my life. A few months later, she was diagnosed with clinical depression and started seeing a therapist, but it was already too late. I’d already been seeing Rhys.

“He was a couple years older. Star athlete. Football scholarship. A bunch of girls always trailed after him. I still don’t know why he chose to be with me. Part of me wants to believe that back then, there was still something good in him and he truly loved me for who I was and not because I was so easily manipulated. He proposed after eight months and we decided to wait another year because of my dad. It just seemed wrong to throw in a celebration so soon.

“Shortly after our engagement, he injured his knee and the doctors told him he either needed to quit football or risk losing his leg. So he quit playing and got a coaching job. We got married. We got a house. It was fine for a while. Or at least, I thought it was. I always credited his outbursts to trauma. It never really occurred to me that there was more to his violence.

“After he hit me the first time, he cried. He begged for forgiveness and I gave it to him. Now that I look back at everything, I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d had the guts to leave right there and then, but I stayed because I couldn’t bear to lose another person. And then it happened again. And again. And again. And eventually, he stopped asking for forgiveness. He just didn’t hit me where I couldn’t hide it anymore. As long as sleeves and pants could cover it up, it was a fair game.

“Honestly…I still don’t know why I waited so long. I suppose a fraction of me hoped he’d get better. Especially when he started talking about a baby. I thought maybe a child would change him. Would make him stop. It took us a long time. I was twenty-six when I finally got pregnant. The pregnancy was difficult. I kept losing weight. My labs were really bad. One night I woke up in a pool of blood. Rhys freaked out. He called an ambulance, but by the time they got me to the hospital, it was too late. I lost the baby. They kept me there overnight and then released me.

“I remember one of the nurses saw the marks on my body—from the old bruises—and she offered to help, but I was so scared, in pain, and high on the meds that I declined the offer. After Rhys brought me home…”

She stops talking. It’s so abrupt, it’s as if her oxygen access has been cut off.

My stomach churns. I want to wrap my arms around her. I want to kiss every spot that piece of shit ever touched. I want to tell her I’d never let anyone lay a hand on her ever again. But a strange feeling of dread presses against my chest. It’s so heavy that I can’t breathe.

There’s more, and I know I’m not going to like what she’s about to say.

The animal in me screams and pounds with rage.

“He didn’t touch me the first couple of days after the miscarriage,” Drew continues, but her voice trembles. “And then one evening, we had a fight. It was bad. He blamed the miscarriage on me, said it was my fault, that I wasn’t even good enough to do what I was made for—carrying a child. Things got physical and when he pushed me, I yelled and pushed back. I’d never tried to stop him or retaliate before that night, and it pissed him off even more. So he kicked me. He kicked me in the stomach, and he kept on kicking and kicking until I couldn’t feel anything anymore. Half of it is a black hole. I must have passed out at some point, because when I came to, I was bleeding again and I couldn’t stand up, so I just crawled. Outside. Into the yard and into the street. It was February. I remember the feel of the snow beneath my cheeks and the tips of my fingers so numb… And I just lie there, in the middle of the road. I didn’t care if I might be run over by a car. It hurt too much. I was convinced my guts were falling out of me.”

She quiets and a wave of nausea rises at the back of my throat. I wait for more, but there’s nothing. Only sharp, ragged breaths fanning over my cheeks and the soft tremor of the mattress.

Fuck it.

I scoot over the sheets and pull her into me, the blanket between us rumpling. “I’m sorry, baby.” My fingers sink in her hair and my lips touch her forehead. “I promise I’ll protect you. No matter what we are.” No matter whether we’re together or not.

“I don’t need you to protect me,” she murmurs, it’s hardly even a whisper. “I don’t need you to fight my battles or be angry at him.”

Oh, she has no idea about the extent of my true feelings right now. The only reason I’m not trashing this room is because I don’t want her to be back to the same hell she got out of. Besides, I’ve had years of practicing self-control, and spouting empty threats right now seems futile.

“I just want to be done with that part of my life,” Drew goes on. “For good.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

“Thank you for not interrupting.” She presses a kiss to the hollow of my neck and my blood stirs like an eddy.

We lie there in silence, with nothing but the barely distinguishable sounds of our breathing. Limbs tangled. Layers of fabric between our bodies heated. It’s only some time later that I realize she’s wearing very little.

I shift and grab the corner of my blanket to cover her back and shoulders. Her hands come around my neck, her breasts press to my chest. She doesn’t say anything else. She simply falls asleep in my arms.

My ribs are sore and there’s a warm body draped over mine when I wake the next morning. It takes me a second to realize who this body—lean, taut, and deceivingly slender—belongs to.

Drew.

Then a sick feeling washes through me like a river through a broken dam when the memories of our conversation last night return tenfold. My fingers curl into a tight fist and my pulse plummets.

I know there’s another world out there, a world that’s not always fair, a world that not everyone deserves, but they have to endure it anyway, and Drew has lived in that world and has seen the worst of it, and for that, I’m drawn to her even more.

I’m drawn like a slice of metal to a giant magnet and that frightens me just as much as not being able to play drums.

She stirs in my arms and with only the blanket and her thin nightgown separating us, the heat of her skin singes me like a thousand suns.

“Hey,” I say quietly into her hair, attempting to keep my breathing under control.

Oblivious to the effect she’s having on me right now, Drew stretches. Lazily, like a cat. “Good morning.”

“How did you sleep?” I tuck a stray lock behind her ear and run my index finger over the curve of her cheek.

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