Page 50 of Collision

His whole body tenses and I open my eyes to him, knowing where his mind has gone. I bring my hand up to his cheek and brush my fingers over the dark stubble along his jaw, watching as he tries to breathe deeply, slowing his racing heart.

“I can stop,” I whisper.

He shakes his head and his voice rasps. “I need to know, Mik.”

I take another deep breath.

Why?

“I told him what I’d already told him. That we’re just too different. And that I would walk from there. I just - I didn’t want to stay in that car. But the door was locked and he -” My voice cracks as Ben’s jaw tenses and he closes his eyes. “His hands were… he waseverywhere. And my dress.” I shake my head, bile rising in my throat. “I kicked him and tried to get out, but he pulled me back and I think I screamed. Some kids were nearby, well, not kids but a group of boys, and they came running and he let me go. I think I lost a shoe.”

His blue eyes open to mine and for a moment it’s just this; it’s just us, laying together in the darkness and I don’t want it to disappear.

“I should take you to the hospital, Mik.”

I shake my head. “I’m not hurt, Ben. Not really. I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

“Then I’ll call Jamie? See if he can come back to town now?”

The air is too thick and my head throbs.

I won’t do this again. Not after everything I’ve put Jamie through already. And what about the deal? Surely by now a contract has been signed? And now I’ll have to see Josh at work. I’ll have to face him when all I want to do is forget he exists. And Jamie will kill him. He would have killed Matthew if I hadn’t needed him.

“Please, don’t.”

“He’s gonna find out, Mik.”

My eyes are screaming as I look to him. “I’ll tell him Ben, but…”

He raises his eyebrows at me - a challenge for me to continue my lie - and I close my eyes.

“I just don’t want to talk about it anymore. I just - I just want to be held and I don’t want to have to think about any of it.”

Ben

Mikaela’s eyes are closed, but I can still see the dimming of the green as if she is staring right at me.

I pull her to my chest again. That last part was true at least, even if I know she’ll avoid telling Jamie, and I need to feel her safe in my arms. A small voice in the back of my head tells me I shouldn’t hold her like this - it’s only going to make everything else harder - but I push it down and focus on the woman curling in to me and nestling in against my chest.

“Okay.” I stroke her hair repeatedly.

“And Ben?”

“Yeah, Mik?”

“I’m sorry if you saw anything earlier.”

I can feel the embarrassment flood through her, warming her skin and staining her cheeks, and I feel the first hint of a smile since I saw her stumbling towards me this evening.

When I don’t say anything, she clarifies. “You know - in the bathroom.”

I chuckle, a rumbling kind of chuckle that vibrates in my chest. “Trust me Mik, I didn’t look.”

“You didn’t?” She smiles against my skin and I roll my eyes.

And then I say something stupid.

Mikaela

“When I see you naked for the first time it’s not going to be because some lowlife has done this shit to you.” His voice is almost too quiet to hear and yet the timbre sends shivers down my spine.

My heart jitters and my core tightens.

When.

We say nothing else as we lay there, waiting for sleep to come, but my mind plays his words over and over again.

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