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“What else?” she asked in a voice that I knew all too well.
“I…I think that he might suspect that something happened to me,” I finally admitted.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because he kept talking to me during sex, and it wasn’t dirty talk,” I told her. “Well, not regular dirty talk.”
“First of all, there is no such thing as regular dirty talk,” she replied. “If it’s being done right, there’s nothing regular about it.”
I chuckled. “Point taken.”
“Second, what was he saying?”
“He kept making me say his name,” I told her.
“A lot of guys do that,” she stated easily. “I think it’s an ego thing. It’s like they’re terrified that your mind might start thinking about the latest model to pop up on your social media feed or something.”
“I get that, but I think Killian was doing it for other reasons,” I said, trying to explain. “I think that he suspects something bad happened to me, so he was trying to make sure that my mind didn’t drift back into my past.”
“So, I get that you guys were busy doing the deed and all last night, but he still didn’t bring it up today or in his office?”
“No, but…”
“What?”
“In his office, when he told me to get on the desk, he made sure to let me know that he’d be on his knees before me, with me looking over him and not the other way around.”
I could hear Lennon’s deep sigh over the phone. “Posie, he knows. You have to know that, right? The fact that he’s not asking questions is also a dead giveaway.”
“I mean…I’ve thought about it, but...I just…what if talking about it out loud ruins things?”
“Posie, c’mon,” she chided softly. “That’s not how a healthy relationship works.”
“Because your marriage is so healthy?” I retorted and immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry, Lennon. I didn’t mean that.”
Lennon just chuckled in my ear. “I’m saying that because I know exactly what an unhealthy relationship is like.” Even though I knew that she wasn’t mad at me, my chest hurt with what I’d said. “I know that I’m hard to love, Posie. I know that I’m hard to like. I know that I’m unforgiving, and that I lack a lot of what makes up a good person. I also know that Camden deserves better than me. As long as his first instinct is to care about a situation, rather than analyze it, he’ll always deserve better than me. Still, I never hid my demons from him. I don’t hide them from anyone. Camden knew exactly what he was getting into with me, and he chose to brave it anyway. Killian might know that you have demons, but does he know how powerful they are? If he doesn’t, then he needs to know.”
“But he said that he didn’t want to know,” I reminded her.
“Because he really doesn’t care, or because he’s afraid that he might not be strong enough to handle them?” she asked, and that had me feeling even worse. “I mean, how well do you know him, Posie? I mean, it’s only been a few days.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But, honestly, right now, I don’t care about that. I’m sorry for what I said, Lennon. I-”
“Stop it,” she scolded softly. “Honesty has never hurt my feelings, and Camden and I are what we are. I don’t have a perfect marriage because we’re both far from perfect. At this point, I’m just happy to be able to say that my marriage isn’t as co-dependent as Uncle Ramsey’s.”
She had a point there.
“Look, Posie, all I’m saying is that you need to find out why he doesn’t want to know the details,” she went on. “Before you get in any deeper, you need to find out if it’s cowardice or strength that’s keeping him from asking.”
“Well, if he already suspects and still chooses to be with me, then it has to be strength, right?” I asked, hoping that I was right.
“Posie, honey-” I knew that tone, so I steeled myself for her next words. “-whatever that man thinks you’ve been through, he’s wrong. You hadn’t been attacked by a random stranger on your way home from school. You hadn’t been roofied at a frat party with no memory of the attack. You hadn’t been on a date with a guy that couldn’t take no for an answer. You were torn apart by three guys because some sick sonofabitch wanted revenge on your best friend. Not to mention that your attack kicked off a chain of events that I still dream of repeating over and over again.”
“Lennon-”
“Look, we can talk guilt, or we can discuss how Killian needs to know the details of your attack because your life is not some Hollywood drama that has the heroine going to a couple of counseling sessions, then she’s magically cured, her life perfect now,” she continued. “It took you years to come back to us, and he needs to know that he might be waiting years for you to be able to give him what he wants. Do you even know what he wants?”
“He said that he just wanted me,” I answered.
