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She was exactly where I’d left her, slumped against the back of the chair, cradling the coffee like it was a shield. The second she heard me coming, her body language changed, tension tightening her form and straightening her spine. Despite the shitty reaction to my presence, I was relieved. Relieved she was still there.
I was gonna have to toss together a big-ass apology salad, and fuck that compliment dressing. This salad needed grovel croutons and prayer.
The relief I felt must have been evident on my face because she sighed. “Where would I go, Ben? Why even bother? Might as well just get this over with.”
“It will never be over with us,” I said, stalking over to toss the socks on the table.
“There is no us.”
Her words made me pause halfway to the kitchen, the urge to swivel back and fight the declaration epically strong. Instead, I breathed deep through my nose and searched a few cupboards for a mug to fill with coffee. My fingers were so cold it was fucking painful. After reaching into the fridge for a bottle of creamer, I carried it over with the coffee and flipped the chair around to face her.
The sound of the mug hitting the table echoed through the charged silence. The popping lid of the creamer ricocheted around us like a gunshot, and the sound of me swallowing some of the unstirred mixture was deafening between my ears.
She avoided looking at me, but our awareness of each other was undeniable. Everything about her commanded my attention, and it didn’t matter she was pissed and hurt because I loved those parts of her too. I just wished it wasn’t me who’d made her feel those things.
It was kinda fucked up, but in that moment, I was sort of glad for the amnesia. For the glimpse it showed of her unguarded. How it sort of swiped away all the shit between us, shit I was too stupid to see. No. Not stupid. Just so conditioned that I didn’t know it was there.
But now I knew. I also knew how fucking sweet it was when she was all in. I wanted it back. I’d do anything to get it.
I sprawled in the chair so my body language was open, stretching my legs so my feet were mere inches from hers. She shifted hers away. I stayed where I was. I’d been waiting years for this girl. I’d wait longer if I had to.
My forearm draped over the table, one palm wrapping around the warm mug. The other fell into my lap. My heart beat erratically. My stomach roiled.
“We found you at the bottom of a set of stairs. There was blood everywhere, your leg was at an odd angle, and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t get you to wake up,” I told her, the horrible memory replaying behind my eyelids like something you would see on TV. “You called me.” I continued, voice strained. “You called me for help, and I didn’t get there in time.” It was something I might honestly never forgive myself for.
“What did I say?” she asked, curiosity filling her voice.
I tilted my head. “I thought you remembered?”
Her face screwed up in concentration, and the way her nose wrinkled was hella cute. “No. I remembered everything but what happened that night. It’s still blank. I know I was there for orchestra practice and I think a piano lesson…” Her words trailed away as she continued to comb through her mind. “But when I try and think past that, my head aches.” She lifted a hand to her head as if it pained her.
Leaning forward, I caught her fingers. “Don’t,” I said gently. “Don’t think about it if it hurts.”
“But I need to know. It’s pretty clear after what happened yesterday that it was no accident. Someone wants to hurt me, Ben. And I genuinely have no idea why.”
Leaning forward, I palmed the back of her neck and tugged. Surprisingly, her body followed my instruction, and she fell forward into my embrace. I kept it light, our bodies meeting halfway in the space between our chairs. She felt so right. Even when everything around us was a disaster, she was perfection.
“You must have seen something,” I concluded, thinking out loud. “Something someone didn’t want you to see.”
She pulled her head up, looking at me with Bambi eyes. “What makes you think that?”
“What other explanation could there be, baby girl? Everyone likes you. You’ve never given anyone a reason to want to harm you. I might have believed that night had just been some random attack, but then yesterday…”
She nodded. “I’m scared.”
“I know,” I murmured, pulling my hand from her neck to brush the backs of my fingers over her cheek. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. They’re gonna have to go through me to get to you.”
Apprehension found its way back into her eyes as though she remembered she didn’t trust me. “I’m not your responsibility.”
“No. You’re my everything.”
A moment of stillness followed the declaration, and it was swiftly followed by a look of panic in her eyes. She sat back, reclaiming the distance I thought I’d gained.
“I promised you,” I explained. “In the ambulance, I promised I would stay with you. I’d be by your side and you wouldn’t be alone. And then they kept me away from you at the ER. They took you for brain scans. They did your IV, your stitches, even prepped you for surgery. And they wouldn’t let me back. You had to do all of that alone,” I said, reliving the torment of knowing she was traumatized and hurt and I could do nothing.
“I was unconscious.”
“I don’t care,” I said, fierce, feeling my eyes flash. “I wanted to be there. And those assholes kept me away! I didn’t know how you were, if you were awake. What was going on. No one would tell me anything.”
