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She bit the inside of her cheek, and the most gutting kind of vulnerability seeped into her tone. “But history has a way of repeating itself, doesn’t it? And I was the fool who thought that things might change. Believed that there were some people who might stand for you because I didn’t want to believe this entire world was truly void of devotion and love.”
I braced myself for the impact of what she said next, already anticipating the atrocity.
“I opened myself up, Ezra…I opened myself up after I promised myself I never would again, and I loved. I loved a man who promised to protect me and keep me. Give it all for me. He’d encouraged me to get my GED and then helped me chase my dream of becoming a photographer. He was there with me as I took classes, then he helped me get my website designed when I was ready to start my own business.”
She inhaled a shaky breath. “I remember the night he struck me so vividly because that single blow hurt worse than any wound I’d ever sustained in my entire life. Because it was proof that no one could be trusted. It was the night I lost the last thread of hope.”
A vat of fury dumped into my bloodstream, and I realized I was holding her so tight that it was probably to the point of pain.
But I realized that’s what this was. This was pain and savagery and a brutality that made me sick.
My stomach rolled over with nausea and aggression knit me in a fist.
“Fuck, Savannah…” I choked around the anguish. “I can’t imagine all that you’ve gone through. I’m so sorry. If I could, I would race out into this world and undo every wrong that anyone has ever committed against you.”
“But you can’t, Ezra. There is no erasing this. And Jessica…Jessica was supposed to be the only exception.”
Savannah choked over that, and her nails sank into my shoulders as she was pummeled by a deluge of grief.
It crashed over me, too. Saturating my cells and sinking all the way to the core. I pressed my lips to her forehead in an attempt to staunch her misery that was pouring out.
Stagnant and decayed.
“Where is she?” I almost couldn’t bear to voice it.
A sob hitched from her throat. “She left me, too, Ezra. She left me, too.”
It shouldn’t have been possible to get her closer, but I somehow managed it, tucking her into every crevice of my body, covering her like a shield, praying to God I could give her sanctuary from the torment that wracked her as she wept.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured, “I’m so sorry.”
I held her like that for a long time before I pushed deeper into the place that called between us. That tether that right then somehow soothed. “And you came here to leave it all behind.”
Pulling back, Savannah looked up at me, her face mottled and red from her tears. “No, Ezra, I came here hoping to find my heart.”
My own heart thudded an extra beat, like maybe it was hoping to be found, too.
Dangerous.
Because I finally understood. Understood the shields and the walls. The steel barricade she tried to keep around her tender, beautiful heart. A heart that had been battered and torn.
“And you…you keep trying to make me feel things that I know better than feeling,” she whispered. I could almost see her begging me to push her away. To prove that I would let her down, too.
“I would never hurt you.” It slashed from my tongue. I hadn’t needed to give it thought.
“You can’t promise me that.”
I pressed her hand against the thunder in my chest, and I murmured, “I already did.”
JOURNAL ENTRY
She’d texted me. It was only an address and a time, but I somehow knew it was her the second it came through. I was familiar with the park on the far side of town. There were a couple ballfields and playgrounds on each side, but what made it so peaceful was the big pond in the middle that was surrounded by soaring trees, their branches wide and casting a large canopy of shade.
I’d found her sitting on the sloped hill that was covered in grass, watching the ducks that floated in the placid waters and the children that played on the swing set on the opposite side.
Her arms were curled around her knees that were tucked to her chest, and her dark-blonde hair billowed in the soft breeze that rustled through.
She should have been the epitome of peace.
A picture of it.
Only I’d felt the turmoil roiling from her spirit.
Radiating.
It was haunted and fresh, as if she was trying to escape her pain but kept running straight back into it.
Carefully, I’d eased up before I came to sit beside her, leaving a couple feet between us.
