Page 68 of Top Shelf

Dylan shifts closer, placing her coffee on the nightstand. Her voice is softer now, but more serious. “I’m worried about you. Just...talk to me.”

My throat closes over. I stare down at the half-eaten pastry in my hand like it holds all the answers. When I finally speak, my voice is quiet. Brittle. A part of me revolts against what I’m about to say. I’ve gotten so used to keeping everything locked up inside me that it’s a physical effort to have to draw it out. But I can’t keep it to myself any longer. Not when it’s slowly suffocating me.

It’s time.

“You know how BSU throws those street parties on Athletes Row every year?”

She nods slowly, eyes locked on me, although I still don’t dare to look at her. I’m feeling too vulnerable. Too exposed.

“I went to one my freshman year, after the Steelhawks versus Kings game.” My lips quirk in a ghost of a smile, recalling the start of that night. It had been one hell of a game—fast-paced, brutal. The Kings were relentless on offense, but the Steelhawks’ goalie stood on his head, dragging the team into overtime before they finally clinched the win in a shootout.

I’d gone with a couple of girls from my statistics class, and there hadn’t even been a question about attending the street party afterward. “The party was wild. Not like anything I’d been to before—so different from the uppity private school parties I’d attended. I remember laughing. Dancing. Drinking…”

I pause, any further words catching in my throat. Dylan doesn’t speak. Doesn’t push. She waits patiently for me to be ready.

“That’s when everything started to get fuzzy. I’d only had a couple of drinks, so I wasn’t drunk. Tipsy at best, but even then, it was half alcohol, half adrenaline. I shouldn’t have been feelingthe way I felt.” I swallow roughly, the confusion and fear from that night creeping to the surface and threatening to pull me beneath the waves. “I couldn’t find the girls I’d come with. Couldn’t make out any faces I recognized as familiar to ask for help.”

Gaze fixed on the duvet cover, I force myself to take a steadying breath.I’m safe.

“I remember thinking I just needed to get back to my dorm room. Lie down, sleep it off.” Tears burn the backs of my eyes, my next words coming out strangled. “But I never made it.”

Dylan’s hand wraps around mine, warm and strong. She shifts on the bed, coming to sit beside me and wrapping an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into her. Her lips press against my temple, the motion soothing. Reassuring. A silentI’ve got you.

She still doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t fire questions at me or ask for information. She just waits. She comforts. She tells me without saying a single word that she’s here for me.

Eventually, I get out, “The next morning, I woke up in a room I didn’t recognize. I felt...wrong. My body hurt, and my clothes were messed up, but I was alone. I took one glance around that room and…I ran.”

“Wren…”

The broken way she says my name has me finally lifting my gaze so I can see her face. Tears slip quietly down her cheeks, and yet, anger burns in her eyes, providing me with the strength to finish, “I never went to the police. Never told a living soul, but that night I was raped. I was bruised, sore, and bleeding. M-my panties were missing?—”

The tears run in an endless stream now, my throat so tight that it’s impossible to get any more words out.

“Shh,” Dylan says, pulling me further into her warmembrace as she rocks us both back and forth. “You don’t have to explain any of it to me.”

“That night broke something in me,” I admit, my voice watery. “I’d spent years just waiting to get out from under my parents’ thumb. To start my own life.” I sniffle, wiping at my cheeks. “Then I go to my first college party and I?—”

Pulling my face to hers, tears shine in Dylan’s eyes, but her voice is firm, steady, as she states, “You did nothing wrong. You weren’t wrong for wanting your own life. For wanting to stretch your wings and find your own way. A horrible thing happened to you.Someonedid a horrendously despicable thing to you, and that is onthem. Not you.Neveryou.”

“I buried it. For years,” I continue, choked. “Convinced myself I was fine, even though I was a shell of my former self. I’d locked myself in my own self-made cage, and I hadn’t even noticed until you came along.”

Squeezing me to her chest, I hear Dylan sigh.

“Last year, I really started to regain pieces of my old self,” I admit to her.

“And then your asshole parents shipped you off to here.” Dylan logically, although incorrectly, pieces together.

I huff a laugh. “That certainly didn’t help.” My tone must tell her there’s more, as she pushes me back just enough to look into my face, her brow furrowed. “Remember that night at The Stanley?” I don’t need to say more. Her eyes instantly widen.

“You freaked out when those Kings’ players came over—I tried to find you after, but you’d just disappeared.” Her eyes cloud over as she recalls, “One of them—the big guy with dark hair—he recognized you. Did he…did they…were they the ones who hurt you?” Her tone is both confused and enraged as she searches my face for answers I can’t yet give her. Although I am beginning to suspect…

“I remembered Ronan’s voice from that night.”

Dylan goes deathly still beside me, her lips pursed tight and face slightly drained of color. “So he was there.”

I nod slowly. “All three of them were. Coarse, masculine voice. Blue eyes. Tattoo. The three distinct recollections from that night that I was never sure were actually real or figments of my imagination. The voice is Ronan’s. The eyes belong to Silas. And the tattoo is Lucian’s.”

“I don’t…understand,” she says, hesitantly. “Were they the ones who attacked you?”