Page 74 of Beautiful When He Breaks

I shut my eyes briefly because if I keep them open through that answer, I might actually cry from how much I hate it. I get up and sit beside him again. “Does anyone else know?”

“Luca does.” He rubs one hand over his face. “I told him about a month and a half ago because I couldn’t deal with it anymore. Unfortunately for me, Killian heard everything through the door.”

I blink at him. “Killian knows?”

“Everything.”

That explains so much that I nearly laugh, except nothing about this is funny. “And no one told me?” I ask, then immediately hate how selfish that sounds.

Julian hears it too. “It wasn’t because they didn’t trust you. Luca said he wanted me to decide who knew. And I…” He swallows. “I didn’t want you looking at me differently.”

That knocks something out of me.

I turn toward him fully. “Jules.”

He laughs once, ugly and quiet. “I know. Stupid.”

“It’s not stupid.” I shake my head hard. “It’s not stupid, and I wouldn’t have looked at you differently.”

He doesn’t answer that, which means he doesn’t fully believe it.

So, I say the next part slowly, making damn sure he hears every word. “You tell me you’ve been hurt by someone who had power over you, and all that changes is the fact that I want to kill him faster.”

That gets the smallest, weakest huff of laughter out of him. Good. I’ll take that. I look at him for another second, then ask the question I really don’t want the answer to. “Is he still trying to contact you? That why you’re looking at your phone like it’ll bite you?”

He nods. “He’s been texting. Calling. Getting more aggressive when I don’t answer. Killian’s doing something. I don’t know what. Nobody’s telling me much except to keep everything and not meet him alone.”

“Good,” I say, and I don’t even try to hide the glee in my voice. “If Killian’s involved, Blakely should be fucking terrified.”

He smiles faintly, bitterly. “You sound like Killian.”

“I sound like someone who thinks murder should require a waiting period.”

That makes him look at me properly for the first time since he came in, and there’s something soft and awful in his face that gets right under my ribs.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” he says.

My fucking heart twists at the shame in his voice. “No. Absolutely not. You do not get to apologize to me for how long it took you to say this. I know what it feels like to sit on something because you don’t have the language yet or because saying it out loud makes it too real. You do not owe me speed on this.”

He goes quiet again, and I can feel how close to fraying he is. He’s holding himself together with nothing but skill now, not because he’s actually okay. I know that look, too. I’ve worn it often enough lately. “How are you so calm right now?”

He shrugs and smiles sadly. “I’ve already had the panic; I’ve had it for months. I’ve had it after every text and every time I walked into his place and every time I walked out and sat in my truck trying not to throw up. I’ve had it in the shower. I’ve had it in the locker room. I’ve had it in the middle of the night while everyone in this house was asleep and I was trying not to feel disgusting in my own skin.” He looks up at me then, and there’s anger there too now, but none of it’s aimed at me. “I’m calm because I’m tired, Eli.”

I feel sick with sadness all at once, and that hurts worse than the anger because sadness leaves no action to grab. There is no one to hit in this room. Just Julian, sitting on the edge of my bed, looking emptied out.

I put my hand on the back of his neck without thinking, and he goes still under it. Then he leans into it, just slightly, and my chest splits wide open with tenderness and grief and rage all tangled together.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” I whisper.

“For what?”

“For all of it,” I say, and now I’m the one who sounds close to breaking. “For what he did. For the fact that you were carrying this while I was wrapped up in my own bullshit. For the months I wasn’t really there because of Celeste and everything else. For not seeing it.”

Julian’s eyes close for one beat. “You couldn’t have seen it.”

“I should’ve.”

“No.” He opens his eyes and looks at me with that exhausted, clear steadiness he has when he means something too much to soften it. “You were drowning too.”