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I let my head fall into my knees again and wait for her to get rid of him like I asked. Muffled whispering goes on for a couple of minutes before I hear two sets of footsteps on the staircase. My heart stops, and I hold my breath.
Ty is the first one through the door, Lisa trailing behind him. He sits beside me on the bed and cups my face in his hands.
“He did this to you?” he asks. “Is it true?”
I look to Lisa. “I had to tell him,” she says. “This isn’t okay, Mel. This is a crime. You…you had a gun in your mouth. I was scared.”
“Mel…” Ty says.
“I wasn’t going to do it,” I tell him. “Do you still love me?”
“Of course I still love you,” he says. “How could you even ask me that?”
“I don’t think I do.”
“Come here.” He pulls me into his lap and holds me while I cry into his shoulder.
“My mom was here. She just let him go. She told me not to tell anyone.”
“My poor baby,” he says, stroking my hair. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I wish she’d killed him.”
“I know. I’m going to kill him for you, Princess. It’s all going to be okay. We’re going to take care of you.”
“What?” I ask, pulling back enough to see his face.
“I love you, Amelia Jane Walker,” he says, leaning in so that his forehead is touching mine. “Don’t ever question that. Every moment of every day, with every breath that you take, you are loved—wholly and unconditionally—by me. And there is nothing—absolutely nothing—on this fucking planet that is ever going to change that. Do you understand me?”
I nod.
“Say it.”
“I love you,” I tell him. “I understand.”
“And I would do anything for you. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Get her some pants,” he says over his shoulder.
Lisa, knowing exactly where to look, opens the bottom drawer and pulls out an old pair of cheer sweats. She hands them to Ty, and he helps me step into them. Then, she grabs a pair of flip-flops from the closet, and I slide them onto my feet.
“Let’s go, baby,” he says.
He puts his arm around my waist and leads me from the bedroom, but I freeze in the hallway, eyes fixated again on that spot at the top of the staircase. He looks back at me, then that spot, then at me again, and it’s as if he knows. And maybe he does—he always seems to know what I’m thinking.
Wordlessly, he lifts me into his arms and carries me down the staircase and through the house. Lisa opens the passenger side door of her car once we step outside, and Ty sets me down in the front seat.
“Lisa is going to take you to the hospital now,” he says.
“No,” I start to protest, “I don’t want to—”
“Don’t argue with me,” he says.
“But I want to be with you,” I tell him.
He wipes away the tears rolling down my face. “I want to be with you, too. I’ll see you soon, baby. I promise.”
