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His large hand captures my foot lying against his thigh. “I wasn’t wearing it last night. When you’re sleeping, I take it off.”
Hot tears burn my throat, sting my eyes. “God, I’m fucked up. Why are you doing this?”
His bowl and mine are placed on the coffee table and I’m dragged into his lap. He holds me close. The embrace is firm, but gentle with his warm hands splayed across my back.
“Because this makes you feel safe. I want you to be comfortable and yourself. I want you to be happy.”
I swallow the golf ball lodged in my throat. “It’s not fair.”
He bumps my chin with a hooked knuckle. “I have you. I get you. That’s all I want.”
How did he always know exactly what to say? How did he have the power to wrap all my worries up and take them away?
I take his face between my hands and rest my brow to his. “I’m scared.”
His arms tighten around me automatically as if prepared to protect me. “Tell me. I’ll fix it.”
I shake my head. “I’m scared you’ll realize just how fucked up I am and leave me.”
“That will never fucking happen.”
I’m breathing hard and I don’t mean to be, but I’m terrified. My entire body is shaking, and my heart is racing. I want to cry but I know if I start, I’ll never stop and I’ll be a mess when trying to tell him about Rhys, about that night in the parlor, about how long I wanted it to happen, how I tricked him into doing things with me that destroyed any chances we ever had of going back to what we had.
Because Rhys was my best friend. Immediately, without question from the moment our parents introduced us, we bonded. The two years between us meant nothing, not even when he became the star quarterback in high school, and everyone loved him.
He was still my Rhys.
He gave up time with his friends to walk me home after school. He skipped parties to spend time with me or he’d watch over me if we went together. No one ever messed with me because they loved him. I was protected by the whole school because Rhys said so.
When my first attempt at a boyfriend ended with the guy telling the whole school he took my virginity in the backseat of his car, Rhys broke his jaw, fractured his ribs and shattered his kneecap. I had never seen Rhys so enraged. He came home tofind me on the sofa with Mom holding me while I sobbed into my raised knees.
His only question,“Who?”
I begged him to let it go, but he was gone with the slam of the door.
The next morning, I learned the guy was in the hospital. He’d told the police he was in a car accident. When they asked where the car was, he told them he couldn’t remember while both of Rhys’s hands were busted. So badly he couldn’t play for two months.
Everyone knew. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened. Even when Cory returned to classes, he never said a word about it again. He dropped out of every class we had together and transferred out the following year.
But things changed for me after that. Only me. Rhys still only saw me as a friend. He never once gave me any indication that maybe, just maybe he saw me the way he saw the girls he dated.
Until I forced that to change and ruined everything.
“Baby?” Atticus touches my face, drawing me back from the hole I can feel myself falling into.
“God, I can’t,” I choke out.
I can’t tell him.
“Okay,” he says gently. “I don’t care. Whatever you think will change my mind about you, it’s not possible.”
My voice wavers even as I shake my head. “I did something terrible, and I can never take it back.”
“Tell me.”
I shake my head harder. “I can’t. Not yet. Please.”
His long fingers run along the curve of my back, tracing the ridges. They comb through my hair, brushing back the strands off my neck.
