Page 90 of None Of Your Business

I grab her chin. “Look at me.”

It takes a long moment, but her bloodshot eyes finally meet mine.

“I don’t know what was said to you tonight, but whatever made you call me and ask if you were the problem was wrong.”

She pulls her face away from my grip. “You don’t know them. You don’t know my history.”

So, that’s how we’re going to play it?

She wants to build her walls sky high.

Too fucking bad.

“I know the history of a girl who hid a fractured ankle for a week rather than ask her family to carry any of her pain.” I lean in closer, cup the side of her face, and wipe away a tear with my thumb. “I know you learned very young that hurting at the wrong time could make people question why you were hurting at all.”

She closes her eyes and leans into my palm.

“You don’t have to prove anything to me. You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to convince me that something hurts before I believe you, and you don’t have to pretend you’re fine because you think the truth might be inconvenient.”

A tear slips beneath my thumb.

“You don’t have to be strong either. Not around me.”

That severs the final thread holding her together.

A sob bursts out of her so suddenly that she barely gets the glass onto the coffee table before folding forward.

She buries her face against my neck, both hands twisting into the back of my shirt as the next sob shakes through her.

I slide onto the couch beside her, wrap both arms around her shoulders, and pull her flush against my chest. I hold her tight enough to keep the pieces together, making no move to pull away, content to stay right here in the dark for as long as she needs.

Twenty-Six

Rowan

The clinking of a spoon against a mug pulls me out of sleep.

Sunlight filters through the blinds, and for a few blissful seconds I have no idea why my mouth tastes like death or why my head feels like it's trying to split in two.

Then last night comes back all at once.

The alcohol. The crying. The phone call. The complete breakdown.

I close my eyes.

God, Dad was right.

I called Hudson in the middle of the night and dumped twenty-six years of family bullshit into his lap, then made him come looking for me because apparently humiliating myself over the phone wasn’t enough.

I forced him to play hero while I played the victim.

And judging by the sound coming from my kitchen, he’s still here.

Fantastic.

After brushing my teeth, I pull on my paint-stained jeans and a black tank top because if I dress for work, my body has to believe I’m going to work. And if I’m working, I don’t have to think about any of this.

Hudson is in the kitchen when I walk out, one hand wrapped around a mug of coffee. He’s still wearing his black button-down from last night.