Page 57 of Salvaged Heart
“It’s not like that between us.” I gestured between me and him. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I fought these feelings growing between us for months. I tried to deny what washappening, but it was hopeless. We care about each other, Laurel. We care about each other deeply.”
I had believed that statement to be true with every fiber of my being less than thirty minutes ago, and I believed he cared about me as deeply as I cared about him. Heck, the wordsI love youhad been on the tip of my tongue, and there hadn’t been a single part of me that doubted if I let them slip, he would say them back. I’d been such a fool. If he cared, he would say something. If he cared, he would come to my damn defense instead of standing there looking ready to bolt.
“Anders, you've never cared about another person a day in your damn life.” The words sounded rehearsed, and in a way, they were. I’m sure my mother told Laurel this about me at every available opportunity since I left.
“That’s not true,” I protested.
She just stared back blankly at me as if awaiting evidence.
So I pushed on, but the heat coursing through my blood was cracking the calm demeanor I was desperately trying to maintain. “For one, I care about you. Well, I used to care about you, until you started ripping me a new one like I am worth less than the gum beneath your shoe.”
Fuck her, fuck every indoctrinated opinion of me that our parents had pumped into her head. She leveled me with a look so sharp it could have broken glass.
“Then why didn’t you come, Anders?”
What the fuck?
“Come? Come where?”
“I was fifteen, Anders.Fifteen.You promised to pick me up from cheer camp, but you never fucking showed.”
I rolled my eyes, trying to play it off as if we weren’t on the precipice of uncovering the absolute truth of the matter. I knew why Laurel hated me. Knew why she didn’t trust me. She didn’t have to say it. But she didn’t know the truth of that night, and Isure as shit wasn’t going to share it with her now. So I shrugged it off, dismissing her like she'd dismissed me.
“Really, Laurel? I didn’t pick you up from cheer practice seven years ago. That’s my big transgression.”
“Don’t play dumb, Anders. We both know it’s not. Have you even told him what happened that night? Ever bothered to bring that up while you were busy sucking each other’s dicks?”
She glanced over at him, likely looking for any sign that he had a single clue of what she was talking about.
He did.
I'd told him about where I was that night and what happened, but it was unlikely he’d connected the dots yet.
Beckham made the slightest of moves, and for a hopeful second, I thought he was finally coming to my aid, to position himself between me and my fire-breathing sister.
But he just shifted his weight.
“No? Well, that’s not a surprise. Didn’t want to tell him you were busy getting high with your lousy, good-for-nothing stoner friends.”
Fury raged inside me. She didn’t know I’d been with Jonah that night, didn’t know what happened to him. He went to college the year earlier and never came home for all she knew. That was the lie my parents had spun for everyone who'd known what we meant to one another.
“Didn’t want to tell him that because you didn’t show up, I had to get a ride home with one of the seniors on the football team? Didn’t want to tell him how that asshole stuck his hands down my pants, then kicked me out on the side of the road in a bad neighborhood and called me a fucking prude when I told him to stop? I called you twelve times, but you didn’t answer a single one of them. You were so high out of your goddamn mind you probably didn’t even hear your phone, did you?”
I’d heard every single ring. Three of those calls rang through as I shook a convulsing Jonah while he choked on his own tongue. Another two while I begged the 911 operator to send help. Four more while I pumped furiously at his chest, following their instructions on how to perform CPR. One while an officer cuffed me. One while they loaded Jonah’s lifeless body onto a stretcher. And the final call became the soundtrack to the last time I would ever see Jonah’s face. Thering, ring, ringas they closed the ambulance doors, blocking the love of my life from my sight forever. The memory was so fresh I could still taste the vomit on his lips as I frantically tried to breathe life back into him.
“I bet you didn’t tell him that whatever trouble you were busy raising had Dad and Linda so wound up they didn’t answer my calls either. I walked almost ten miles, getting catcalled, and crept on to get back home. I'd already been assaulted once that night. I could have easily been raped or, worse, killed by some junkie trying to get cash for a fix.” She spat the word junkie at me because that’s what I was in her eyes. In the world’s eyes.
“You didn’t even say sorry, Anders. You didn’t even look me in the eye. You shut yourself in your room for four weeks until you turned eighteen, then took off, and I didn’t hear from you again for seven fucking years.
“Did you even think what it would be like for me once you were gone? You know how my dad is. You know how he treated your mom. It became so much worse after you walked out. Neither of us could breathe without him lashing out verbally, sometimes physically.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, and the sight of them split me in two. I’d known. My mother told me of the violence at home. Laurel had also texted me almost continually the first year I'd been gone. They’d begged me to come back. They both knew when I was in the house he didn’t dare treat them that waybecause I was bigger, quicker, stronger than him. I hadn’t once put him on his ass, but if he'd raised a hand to either of them in my presence, I wouldn’t have thought twice. But instead, I just stopped taking my mother’s calls, and I left Laurel on read.
“He kept me trapped in that house, under his thumb, my entire last three years of high school. I had to quit cheer and wasn’t allowed to see any friends other than those he hand-picked. Every second of every day was micromanaged and scheduled. It was suffocating, Anders.
“He almost didn’t let me go off to college, did you know that? He was so scared I would turn out like you that he almost took away my chance to prove him differently. In the end, he only let me go because, for some strange reason, he approved of Beck.”
Of course, he approved of Beck. He was the all-American guy-next-door type, destined to be an MLB star fresh out of college. He’d never stepped outside the lines of what was expected of him a day in his life. He had a good head on his shoulders and came from a good, hard-working family. He was safe and dependable, perfect for daddy’s little girl.
