Page 57 of Word to the Wise

She’s so fucking tiny and fragile. The fact that anyone tried to break her makes me want to rip their heart from their chest and feed it to them.

“I need to.” I squeeze her hand, finding my center when saying this out loud cuts me open. “Gabe let three of his friends rape her while she was sleeping, and I guess when she came to, he told her it was her way of paying him back for all the drugs. Next thing you know, they found her body.”

No closure, no open casket, no answers. Sienna was gone.

“She tried to call me an hour before she did it.” My throat burns with my admission. “I ignored the call and told myself I’d get back to her later because I was too fucking busy with my own shit. I couldn’t answer one fucking phone call, and my sister jumped off a building because of it.”

Reed takes both my hands in hers, craning her neck to look at me, and she’s blinking back tears. “You aren’t why she did that.”

“I wasn’t there for her.”

“Mason.” Reed lifts her hand to my jaw, slowly dragging her fingers over my skin, and I swear I’ve never been touched with the kind of care she offers. “We all make mistakes. You can’t blame yourself when you tried to be there for her over and over again. What he did… it’s unforgivable.”

Dropping her hand, she takes a step back, and I miss her. I want to hold her. I want to let Reed be the strength I’m looking for when she doesn’t deserve that weight on her shoulders.

“So, is that why you went after him?” she asks.

“I was stupid enough to think maybe her friend was wrong. That Gabe was an asshole, but he’d never actually go that far. But when he didn’t deny it…” The laugh that leaves my chest is anything but amusement. “He called her a slut, said she was asking for it. That even if she was awake, it wouldn’t have mattered because she did whatever he asked so long as he kept her happy. He said good on her for finally doing something with her life, even if that was ending it.”

I have to take a step back. To close my eyes and take a breath.

Gabe’s words still rile up the demons that feel like they haven’t yet gotten their pound of flesh.

“I just started hitting him. Over and over. Like it could make sense of the fact that I hadn’t been there for my sister.” I rake my fingers through my hair. “He was alive when I left him in the alley, but honestly, I wished he wasn’t. And when I found out he died in the hospital, I didn’t feel bad about it. My dad and his buddies buried the evidence, but I should be in fucking prison.”

Reed maintains the gap between us, and I can’t tell if she’s building an invisible wall or making sense of my actions. But she watches me from where she stands, twisting her fingers around.

She’s rational, so it’s almost as if I can see her ticking off marks for things she’s sorting into columns.

Weighing my moral sins and deciding if I’m worth her getting past them.

She thinks she has baggage, but mine is so fucking heavy I can’t even pick it up half thetime. It’s why I ran—why I’ve yet to go back. And I selfishly asked her to take on some of the burden of it.

After all Reed has been through, she doesn’t deserve me putting this on her. No matter how much I trust her with my secrets. She’s that girl at the top of the cliff, smiling down at me like the stick figures she drew in the shop.

Too fucking good and too out of reach.

She might think she’s shattered, but her spirit is unbreakable compared to mine.

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I say when I realize how far away she feels right now. “Gabe was… that was different.”

“I know.” Reed crosses her arms over her chest. “You were protecting your sister.”

“She was gone.” I shake my head. “I was protecting myself. At least if he suffered, I didn’t have to focus on all the ways it was my fault.”

Reed thinks for a moment, not moving and not taking her eyes off me. I swear she sees straight to my soul, and I don’t mind being stripped bare for this girl.

“It’s a lot to process. If you’d feel better staying with your brother, I get it.”

“It’s not that.” Reed shakes her head, and it sends her chestnut hair tumbling over her shoulders. “I’ve been around a lot of violence in my life, Mason.”

“I know.” That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to have to place this on her.

“Men who hurt for revenge. Men who hurt for entertainment. Men who hurt for control.” She swallows hardon the last one, and if I had to guess, it’s because of Carter. “You aren’t a violent man.”

“Did you hear what I just told you?”

“Every word.” She takes a step forward. “And honestly, when you came through the door, I wasn’t sure what I was going to think of whatever you were going to say. But I don’t blame you for what you did, and not because you’re my friend and I’m trying to justify your actions. But because I get it. And maybe it makes me as twisted as my brother. Or maybe it’s because I grew up how I did. But Gabe deserved what he got. You don’t scare me.”

---