Page 71 of Show Me How to Heal
A smartphone display lit up, illuminating Adam’s face, making me gasp. His cheek was a deep red, his lip split, and there was no doubt that by tomorrow, he’d be sporting a black eye. His eye was already swollen shut.
“What happened?” I asked, taking a step towards him but stopping in my tracks when I saw him flinching.
“I…” He swallowed audibly, lowering his phone. “Marc, he… I told him I was going to your grand opening seeing as I already missed the last one due to him. Initially, he said it was okay, but he invited his friends for today and expected me to cook for them since it was my day off and I had nothing better to do. I… I refused, telling him I already had plans for the evening. He got mad. We fought, and I… I kept thinking about Avery and Mason and you and Luke. Seeing you together… well… it showed that there were a lot of things seriously wrong with my own relationship. I… I finally stood up to Marc and broke up with him. He didn’t like it.”
My stomach dropped.
“He hit you?” I asked incredulously, though a part of me had already expected something like this. Hearing it, seeing the extend of it, was shocking nevertheless. “Have you iced your eye?”
Adam shook his head, so I swiftly left my storage room and got a cool pack from the fridge in the break area before returning to the storage room, closing the door firmly behind me.
“Here,” I said, handing him the ice pack. “Did you spend the whole evening in here?”
Addy nodded. “I came in through the front door, but people kept throwing me weird looks. I didn’t realize how bad I looked until I looked into your bathroom mirror. Afterward, I didn’t want to go back out there.”
Shit.
It’d been hours.
“Fuck, Addy,” I mumbled.
“Yeah… So… I know why I’m here, but why areyou? It’s your party, after all.”
I snorted. It didn’t feel like my party in the slightest. It felt like a dream, and while it should be a dream come true, to me, it didn’t feel like a particularly nice one. Quite the contrary.
“Did you hear about Luke?” I asked.
“Yeah. Where is he, by the way?”
I swallowed audibly. “We… had a fight? Kind of? I kicked him out of here yesterday.”
“Damn, that’s rough. Why did you fight?”
“Because he kept his whole past career, his whole identity hidden from me,” I said, already feeling tears burning in my eyes again. It was still hard to believe that he, the guy I’d had so many deep, meaningful conversations with, had kept his whole past from me. I was being pulled in every direction. I felt so fucking betrayed while at the same time my heart went out to him. Those pictures and videos from yesterday… I swallowed audibly.
Not going to think about that gigantic screw up on my part now.
“Actually, it wasn’t even a real fight,” I added. “No one was shouting or anything…. He was apologizing, begging me to let him explain, and I was… too disappointed and stressed to hear what he had to say. The wounds were too fresh, you know?”
Addy nodded. “Yeah, I do.” I sensed it even before he started speaking again. “But I think you should hear him out.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, more firmly this time. “I’ve seen the two of you together. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. And last week, he ordered takeout to get it to you. He called ahead and made the waitress get me on the phone, asking me to verify the options the waitress had noted as your favorites really were, and that I should add anything I thought you might like.” Adam gave a half-shrug. “It was very sweet. He seemed nervous, said it was important to get it right.”
I bit my lip. “He said that was the day he wanted to tell me about his past,” I whispered, feeling all kinds of awful for not believing him.
“That makes sense… he brought comfort food because he knew you’d get upset. But he didn’t tell you?”
Nope… because I’d been the one to share my news first.
Fuck!
He’d told me the truth. He hadn’t been blaming me; he’d just been telling me things as they were.
And in turn, I’d… sent him out there.
“I think I need to talk to him,” I said. “And apologize.”
