Page 65 of Rainwater
“In the chest under the window in my room,” she said distractedly, wondering when he left whether she would ever be warm again. She walked over to the counter, opened the cupboard and pulled out the coffee. Suddenly she remembered the book. Dear God. The book.
He ran upstairs and pulled the blanket out of the chest. Something heavy fell to the floor with a thud. Confused, he knelt down and picked up the heavy object. It was a book. He turned it over and his heart froze in his chest. The silence shattered with a roaring, tearing sound, shaking his already crumbling foundations. His breathing stuttered and stopped. With a hard gasping sound, he drew in a ragged breath as if it would be his last.
She knew.
Chapter
Fourteen
Like a haunting litany, the words reverberated in his head. He touched the title of the book and a harsh strangled sound escaped his throat.
No one knew. No one. He’d managed to keep his secret from teachers, doctors, social workers and friends at great personal cost.
He went downstairs slowly. He’d kept it from everyone, but not Jennifer. Sweet, beautiful Jennifer knew his shameful, horrible secret. He wasn’t normal.
He’d had no reference point for what it was like to be normal, which frightened him because he was always so afraid he would do something wrong. He’d tried as a child. Tried comparing his family with others, but all he got was confused because other families didn’t seem to be quite so chaotic.
Jennifer was standing at the sink when he finally reached the kitchen. “How did you know?” he asked hoarsely, his voice breaking with disbelief. He hated it. His knees gave way and he collapsed into the nearest chair, his body feeling numb and distant, as if his brain were displaced.
“I noticed hints. The way you wanted to be touched, but were so terrified of it. Your fervent protective instincts. And when yousaid you hated your father, I had to wonder why. I already knew you were running from something painful. At the time, I thought it was the bull, but then I realized later that it was so much more. I wanted so desperately to understand. But I couldn’t find anything in that pathetic excuse for a library, so I called a friend in Houston. She sent me the book and I read every damn sentence, and I ached, Corey. Please don’t be angry.”
He couldn’t speak for a moment. She cared enough to ask someone all the way in Houston to send her a book because she suspected that he had been abused. She had cared enough to go to great lengths to understand him. It was too much. Too much for him to take in. “Angry?” His voice came out broken. “Angry?” he said again. “I’m not angry, Jennifer. I’m stunned, ashamed, so many emotions I can’t even begin to tell you about them all.”
“I’ll sit here all night if you want to tell me about each one in detail.”
“Oh, God, Jennifer.” It was too much for him to take in at one sitting. He got up and bolted across the kitchen, his hand on the doorknob, so close to breaking down in front of her. That would be the ultimate humiliation. The silence that had been so carefully maintained was now gone and he had to face it. But he feared that he could not.
“Don’t go. Please, Corey, don’t go,” she pleaded.
Her voice like a glass fetter to his legs. So easily he could break the fragile bonds, jump onto his bike and escape into the night. Ride until the fierce emotions eating at him like acid were blown away by the wind. Ah, but he could never forget. He would never forget her or her caring love.
Jennifer leaned forward. “I wanted to talk to you about this, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know the right questions to ask… I went into town specifically to get a book so that I could understand. I remember that first day I met you. There was such pain in your eyes. Such loneliness and sorrow.
He leaned back, closing his eyes, trying to sort all this out. He felt naked and exposed and at the same time, unbearably safe. He didn’t know how to react. He’d expected to feel vulnerable and alone when the silence finally broke, not this warm place in his heart that radiated heat to all the dark, lonely parts of his body.
“I’m not the type of woman that trusts easily, since Sonny. But there was something about you that reached out to me. I just couldn’t ignore it. My heart is yours now, and I want to know everything there is to know about you. Your past is part of you. What made you who you are today. I really want to know.”
“I remember lying on my bed as a small child trying to understand why my father hit me,” he told her. “I can remember the stinging pain, the bruises, the swollen faces and blackened eyes I’d suffered. I remember hurting on the outside and dying on the inside. Hundreds of lonely nights that increased the emptiness and the anger inside me.”
“And you thought it was all your fault?” she prompted. She moved forward, pressing her body against his back, gathering him to her.
His eyes opened, his breathing ragged. With an intensity that broke the sudden tense silence, he demanded, “How did you know?”
“You’re not alone, Corey. Ellie and I love you. We love you very much.” She held on to him. “Why don’t you tell me why you were going to slash that painting. Why you slashed all the others.”
He broke away from her, rounding on her with a growl, “I don’t want to be like my father!”
“What does slashing those paintings have to do with that?” she demanded in a tense voice, not flinching or budging an inch.
Corey felt sudden and glad relief. There was no pity in her eyes, just a savage protectiveness and unrelenting need to know.“He painted, Jennifer. I think he hated me for my talent. He used to tell me I was better than him. I haven’t painted for years, but when I came here, I so desperately wanted…”
“What?” she asked softly when he didn’t continue, caressing his jaw with her fingers.
“To be normal. To have you. God, you scared the living daylights out of me.”
“You would have left if it wasn’t for Jay?”
“Yes,” he hissed. “I’ve been running a long time, darlin’. I was running so fast so that I wouldn’t stop long enough to fall in love. How did I know it would only take a split second and hair so red it defined the word? And a precocious child so like her mother.”
