Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
“You slept with a baseball bat under your bed,” he rasps, his eyes strangely alert.
“What?”
“Who were you trying to protect yourself from?”
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit. Did I just tell him that? Did I really, really just spill the baseball bat secret? Not that I was actively trying to hide it. I just… didn’t want it ever to be brought into any conversations with him or his family. Not to mention, I never told him when he asked me about whether or not his father had ever hurt me. Point blank.
So yeah, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I can’t believe I let it out just like that. I not only let it out, but he caught it. Not only has he caught it but he’s coming to a completely different conclusion. I can see it in his face. I can see the darkening of his expression and a shadow that has fallen over his eyes. I can feel it in the way he’s holding me now. All tight and harsh. His thumb mashing the pulse of my wrist. His fingers on my face flexing and vibrating.
“Shepard—”
“Did you…” His chest goes up and down, really slowly and in a way that I can only describe as menacing. “Did you lie to me when I—”
I shake my head and tell him quickly. “No. No, I d-didn’t.”
“So then,” he says, his voice rough and low, dark, much like every other inch of his face, his body even, “explain to me, very clearly, why you’d need a baseball bat with a locked door to sleep at night, when you said my waste of space father never hurt you.”
Oh God, oh God, oh my God.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this afraid. Not even when I came to his house to tell the truth. Not even when it was all happening in real time, and I was scared his father would break into my room and do bad things to me.
I can’t tell him the truth, can I? But I also can’t lie. I don’t think I can ever lie to him again. But if I tell him the truth, I know he’ll lose it. I know that. He already is losing it and—”
He squeezes his grip on me. “Jupiter.”
Fuck. He won’t let this go. There’s no way. So I tighten my thigh around his waist as much as I can, my heel digging into his thigh. I also twist and twist my grip in his jacket. I do everything I can to hold him to me, to keep him close before I give him what he wants.
“Please don’t freak out,” I begin and immediately regret it when his jaw pulses so hard, I hear the clack of his teeth. “I-I didn’t lie to you when you asked about… He never hurt me. He always hurt my mom, and whenever I knew he was going to… I hid. Maybe it was a shitty thing to do. To leave my mother to it, I don’t know. But I had Snow to protect, so I’d just take her with me and we’d get out of the house or just lock ourselves in the room. S-so no, I-I didn’t lie. He never laid a hand on me. Remember that when I tell you the next part.”
I blow out a breath and close my eyes for a second. “But there were times when he…looked at me. Strangely. Like, a little too l-long and… Especially when I g-grew up. And then when I turned twelve, he’d… stop at my door. My b-bedroom door. I don’t know when I noticed it for the first time, but I’d hear the floor creak. As he walked down the hallway and then, suddenly everything would go quiet, like he’d stopped. In front of my room. I’d hear his breaths and God, the rustling of his clothes, and I…”
I shake my head. “I didn’t know what it was. I could guess, but… So I stole a baseball bat from the school, and I started sleeping with it. Every night when he came home drunk and I’d hear him putter around the kitchen, I’d hold it close, thinking tonight could be the night, and… He tried a few times, I think. He’d turn the knob, try to open my door, but maybe he’d be too drunk or whatever, he never tried to break in.
“So when I… I left for St. Mary’s, I told Snow to start locking her door. Before that I’d sleep with her, in her room, but never told her why. But when I left, I had to. I told her to protect herself. I gave her my bat. But I want you to know he never did anything to her. Never looked at her differently or in a strange way, thank God. It was only ever me. It was also another one of the reasons I never came to you guys before. Because I thought… what if. What if he did the same to Callie? She’s my age and I could never let that happen to her. I could—”