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Winona looked up at the ceiling, her breathing unsteady.
My stomach twisted. “I said something wrong,” I said, too hard.
She looked back at me. “All of that’s just leverage, Mitchell. That doesn’t tell me I can trust you.”
I dropped my hand, confused. “What can I say?”
She blinked. Then she sat up. “You can tell me who you are. You can tell me what happened to that playful boy I saw to make him so hard and closed off.”
My heart thudded, hurt and pain twining inside of me. How had she known I’d been like that, before it all? How could she tell I was once the goofy youngest child who danced around and made silly voices to make my mother laugh? “You haven’t told me anything either, Winona,” I said. Too hard. “You may not know much, but I’ve told you more than my own goddamned brother.”
The thought of Blake knowing I was here but unable to reach me made the guilt pinch hard.
Winona looked over at me. I was sure she was going to get up, but instead she said, quietly, “What do you want to know?”
God damn her for being so good. For not running away when I gave her every reason to.
I opened my mouth, but didn’t know what to say.
Everything.
What you like for breakfast. What the words were to that sea shanty you were singing. How hot you like your baths.
Why you care, even the tiniest bit about who I am?
Instead I asked, “Why were you so scared when I came into the bathroom the other day?”
She stiffened. “You startled me. And…” she gestured at my face. “You look like you’ve never met a razor.”
My lip quirked, but it wasn’t a smile. I was hiding, that’s why I had the beard and the hair. But I’d cut it all off for her. In a heartbeat. It wasn’t like anyone would recognize me anyway. But that wasn’t all of it, I knew.
And she knew I knew.
I brought my hand to her jaw, running my thumb along her cheek. Praying she couldn’t feel the trembling of my anger. “Who hurt you, Winona?” I asked. The fury I felt for the person who made her fear for her life when she saw a strange man. Who made her think people like me lied before they told truths.
A beat passed, then she said, “His name was Adam.”
I brought my hand down, curling it into a fist, forcing myself not to demand Adam who? A last name and date of birth would be all I needed to track him down. Beat him to a pulp.
Winona was watching me warily, and I forced myself to calm down.
Just shut up and listen, Harrington.
After a moment, apparently assured I wasn’t going to explode, she looked down. “My mom, she had me young. Really young. I never knew my father. We were on our own for a long time—until I was eleven. We were poor, but happy. At least, I was. But then… Adam found her. She was a housekeeper at one of his properties. He was older. Rich. The richest man we’d ever met.”
She glanced at me warily, and I knew she was thinking until now.
I was quiet, willing her to continue, wanting to know even as I didn’t.
“He was nice at first. More than nice. He spoiled her. Me too. Bought us gifts. Set me loose in the bookstore and told me I could buy as many books as I wanted. He started paying our rent, and then within a couple of months… we moved into his house.”
She took a deep breath and I saw the pain in the clench of her fists on the duvet.
“You don’t have to...” I started, but she shook her head. She needed to tell me, I realized. It was a part of the fabric of who she was.
Fuck this fucker and how he’d wormed his way into her identity. I reached for her hand and she squeezed it. Clung to it.
“But soon they started fighting. He’d get mad at her when she did nothing wrong. I only ever heard him yelling after first few times.” She swallowed. “Then Mama started wearing make-up.”
