Page 92 of The One I Need
Oliver
I don’t knowhow I made it back to the bed and breakfast without ripping the steering wheel off the car. To say my knuckles were white the entire drive back is the understatement of the year. Now, even being back in the room, I am pushing down the urge to punch a wall.
Then there’s Izzy, who’s wrapped herself in a ball on the bed. She hasn’t said a word since we got in the car.
Fuck, I need to be strong for her. Yes, I want to turn around, go back and punch that asshole in the fucking face. Maybe that can be on the list for tomorrow. Tonight, I need to be there for Izzy. In whatever way she needs me to be.
“Hey,” I say, laying on the bed behind her, wrapping her in my arms. “It’s just me. Just you and me here.”
Izzy doesn’t say a word, but she does take my hand to wrap it tighter around her body.
“I’m sorry I flew off the handle,” I say. “I saw him touch you, and I lost it.”
“Don’t apologize,” she says. “That's what he wants you to do. He wants you to think it’s your fault when it’s not. He gets off on it.”
“I don’t want to force you to say anything you’re not ready to talk about, but—”
“No,” Izzy says. “It’s time. It’s finally time. No more dodging. No more deflecting. It’s time I finally come clean to you. And to myself.”
Izzy turns to look at me, but stays lying down. I gently brush a piece of hair behind her ear, which she leans into. I can see herself mentally preparing for whatever it is she’s about to say. I can’t imagine what’s about to come out of her mouth. Just hearing the little bit I did tonight from her mother and the fuckhead made me want to fight someone.
“I don’t even know where to start.”
“Wherever you want.”
Izzy inhales slowly and holds it for a few seconds before breathing out. I do the only thing I think I can do right now, which is to take her hands in mine so she knows I’m there for her.
“Matt was my high school sweetheart,” she begins. “I started dating him at freshman homecoming, and that was that.”
“Really? Never dated anyone else?”
“Nope.” Izzy shakes her head. “He was my first everything. I was told after we started dating that our parents actually betrothed us when we were babies. I thought it was a joke. Apparently it was true. Yes, we helped it along by actually having a crush on each other, but thinking back, I think I only did because we were together so much growing up. Which was our parents’ doing. Birthday parties, outings to the fair, anything they could think of to put us together, they did.”
“Why did they care so much?”
“At first it was because they were family friends. My dad went to school with Matt’s dad, and they grew up together. Our moms were in the church choir together. So from the outside looking in, it was just two families who had children the same age and going on playdates together. The McCalls and the Karrs. We were like a package deal. Seems harmless, right?”
“I’m guessing that answer is no…”
Izzy taps her finger to her nose. “Bingo. One day I was working at the furniture store, and I went into the safe to get change. I wasn’t supposed to know the combination, but I figured it out over the years. When I was in there I accidentally saw bank statements. I was sixteen, so of course I looked. I might not have understood everything, but I sure know a zero when I see one.”
“The store was broke?”
“Completely. I remember asking my parents about it, and they screamed at me so loud I think people in the next town heard it. Jessie thought Dad was going to get the belt that night. It was bad.”
“Fuck,” I growl.
“If that makes you mad, then just wait for the rest.”
I breathe in and out, doing my best to calm myself down. “Sorry, go on.”
“So, the store is broke. The only chance of saving it, at least according to my father, was to have Matt’s family invest and hope that led to an eventual expansion. However, Dad was scared that Matt’s family might take it over once they bought in, and they couldn’t bear for that to happen. As you’ve heard, this store iseverythingto my family. So they made a deal. The Karrs would be partial owners, and it would be a joint family store, which meant we had to become an actual family. They told us Matt and I would get married the day we were both eighteen. Once our families were officially joined in marriage, the families would have a fifty-fifty stake in the store, and everyone would be happy.”
“I know there’s a ‘but’ to this story, and I’m almost scared to ask what it is.”
“You’d be right.” Izzy breaks for a second, which I don’t blame her. What she’s told me is a lot in itself, and I know the worst is yet to come. “What my parents didn’t know at the time was that Matt and I were having problems. It was great at first. It always is. By this point we were into our senior year. I didn’t love the fact we had to get married to save the store, but I did love him. Or so I thought. I mean, he was my first boyfriend. My first kiss. He told me he loved me before he took my virginity in his pickup truck. So I didn’t know that it was wrong of him to tell me I shouldn’t talk to a guy in class because people might think I’m a whore. I didn’t know it was out of the ordinary for your boyfriend to tell you how to dress because he didn’t want you looking like a slut. Or that when he told you not to wear heels because it made him look short that it was a him problem and not a me problem. I thought boyfriends told you who you could hang out with and who you could be around. He isolated me. He cut me off from the friends I had—well, everyone except Riley. Every time we fought, I thought it was my fault. And every time I called him out for being in the wrong—the few times I had the courage to do so—somehow it was still my fault. To this day I don't know how he did it. But I know from the ages of fourteen to eighteen, all I knew was that what Matt said went, because I loved him and I was going to marry him.”
The restraint I’m showing right now from going back to her mother’s house and punching this guy in the fucking face is through the roof. I knew she was hurt badly. I knew it was deep. But fuck…no wonder she doesn’t believe in love. Between her family and him, she was trained not to.
