Page 51 of Our Secrets and Scars

“I hate it when you call me that,” she rasps, surprising me.

“Violet?” I ask as I unbuckle her shoes and toss them across the room. “What would you rather I call you?”

She’s silent as I sit her up, undoing her dress and tugging it over her head. She’s not wearing a bra, but I don’t allow myself to look. Not now, not like this, when she’s vulnerable and helpless. I’d be just as big a monster as Owen if I took advantage of her in this state. It might just be a glance, but it’d still be a violation of her trust, dignity, and choice.

I lay her back down with the softest of movements, pulling the bed linen up and around her shoulders. Her eyes are closed now, lashes resting heavily on her flushed cheeks. She looks so peaceful that it’d be easy to forget that she could have been a victim of date rape tonight. And for a while, I just watch her, so entranced by the sight of her sleeping that I forget the conversation we were having only minutes ago. I forget the question I asked her just moments before she fell asleep.

So, when her lips part and a single word slips out, the immense importance of it doesn’t occur to me until long after she’s returned to snoring softly.

“Kinz.”

Thirteen

Kinsley

I’minsidethemirroragain. But for the first time since these dreams began, I’m not trapped in here alone.

Owen stands behind me.

I can feel the sticky heat of his breath on my neck, causing shivers to crawl up my body. My lungs clog at the smell of him, sweet and minty, but it makes me wretch. It’s feverishly hot in here, yet I am cold to my bones.

His hands come around me, selfish and searching. He paws at my breasts, pulls at the material of the blue dress I’m wearing, and laughs when tears start slipping down my cheeks.

I can’t move.

It’s as if my body’s shutting down, like I’m paralyzed, locked in place inside the mirror as he violates me. My mouth opens in a silent scream, terror taking over me at every unwanted touch.

Because I know what’s coming.

But something on the other side of the glass has relief pouring through my veins.

Holden.

He’s here.

He’s come to save me.

The ice holding me rigid begins to thaw, enough so that I can reach out and smack my fist against the glass. It doesn’t crack. Doesn’t even make a noise. The silence echoes around me as I try again and again, fighting to get Holden’s attention before Owen’s hands move farther down my shaking body.

His eyes finally meet mine, but he doesn’t see me. His gaze is empty, almost dead, as he stares through me. The ice starts to freeze again. Little by little, my body turns back to stone, and I watch in sheer horror as Holden turns and walks away.

He leaves me there with Owen as if I mean nothing at all.

And I scream after him, though there’s no sound to it. I scream and scream and scream, muted and meaningless, as I plead for him to come back, until the real world finally starts to seep into my consciousness and my eyes blink open to a room I’ve only been in once before.

Empty crumpled sheets on the opposite side of the bed are the first thing I see as I wake. I stroke my hand over them, finding them cold.I slept alone. It doesn’t come as a surprise, given how things were left the last time we saw each other, but my stomach falls all the same.

I have no right to feel disappointed after demanding that Holden stay away from me, I know. But breaking things off between us was simply an act of self-preservation. It killed me to do it. To stand there and pretend that I was just jealous and not breaking apart from the inside out at the realization that the man who had given himself to me the day before was the very same one who ghosted me after four years of exchanging secrets in our letters.

Fletcher’s rejection destroyed what little self-esteem I had. I thought things would be different with him because he’d never seen my scars. He only saw the parts of me I shared with him in my words. He didn’t see my face, but I showed him my heart.

And still, I wasn’t enough for him.

So, how could I keep things going? There’s no way I can now I know who he is, especially as I know he wouldn’t want anything to do with me if he knew who I really am.

It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us. And despite the small voice in the back of my mind trying to remind me that Holden said on numerous occasions that he had feelings for another woman, a woman who turned out to be Kinsley, from his letters, the only facts I see are the ones I tell myself.

I am unworthy of him.

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