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I flush at the accusation in his tone, and the small voice inside of me that’s whispering that he’s right. That I do sound like this is temporary. Even worse, that I believe it is. “I didn’t say that, Ethan.”
“You didn’t have to say it, Chloe. Don’t worry about the past, don’t worry about the future. Just concentrate on the present. Isn’t that what you’re saying? I mean, who thinks like that? Not people who want to build a future together, that’s for sure.”
“Because that’s the only way we can have a future together!” I shout at him as I lose my tenuous hold on control. “Can’t you see that?”
“What I see is that the woman I love is working herself into a frenzy and I don’t know why. I’m trying to tell you that I love you, that I want to be with you. That we’ll find a way to get through the past together. I don’t want to hurt you, baby—”
“But you’re going to!” The words are out before I even realize I’m going to say them.
Ethan freezes, his blue eyes darkening to nearly black as the accusation slams through him. And then he’s crossing to me, trying to take me in his arms. But I don’t want him to touch me now, don’t want anything from him as all the pain and damage of the past comes flooding back.
I shove at him, push him away, stumble backward in my urgency to get away. Except my heel catches in the sheets and I go down hard, on the hard maplewood floor.
“Shit.” He’s beside me in an instant, picking me up and gathering me into his arms. Then we’re sitting on the bed, with me on his lap and my head tucked underneath his chin as he rocks me back and forth soothingly.
“I’m sorry,” he says after long minutes have passed. “I’m sorry that I hurt you and I’m sorry that you think I’m going to hurt you again—”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“I think it is. And you have every right to feel that way. To be afraid of me and what’s between us.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Ethan.”
“Chloe—”
“I’m not.” I lean back so he can see my eyes, judge my sincerity. “I swear. It’s not you I’m afraid of. It’s the past.”
His face clouds over and he starts to speak, but I put two fingers on his lips to silence him. “I know they say that the past isn’t supposed to be able to hurt you unless you let it, but that’s bullshit. I mean, think about it. Even people with normal pasts are affected by them, people who have parents or spouses or children die. That hurts them years later, whether they want it to or not.”
Ethan closes his eyes, at that, bows his head, and for a second I’m confused at his reaction—until I remember his father, the special ops military man who died in combat when Ethan was just a child.
“Shit,” I tell him, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him close. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.” It seems like we’re destined to always pick at each other’s weak spots.
“It’s fine. You just caught me off guard. But I guess that proves your point, doesn’t it?”
It kind of does, but I’m not callous enough to say that. So instead, I concentrate on my own past. On the two-ton elephant in the room that just won’t go away. “My past—the rape—” I force myself to say it. “It was bad. It was really bad, Ethan, for a really long time.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“That’s the thing, you don’t.” I slide off of his lap, kneel next to him on the carpet. “You can’t. You weren’t there when it happened. You weren’t there afterward when my parents made me feel like a bargaining chip. Like a—” My voice breaks, but I swallow the emotion down.
Ethan wanted to talk about this, so we’re going to talk about it. Right here, right now. And when this discussion is over, I’m going to lock this shit down deep and I am never, never, going to talk about the rape, or what came after, ever again.
I make myself the promise, hold it tight inside myself as I struggle for the control I need to get through this one last time. “You weren’t there when Brandon spent the next year making my life a living hell. When he called me a whore and talked all his friends into groping me and touching me and trying to fuck me. You weren’t there for any of that.”
Ethan looks sick. “Jesus Christ, Chloe. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry that you had to go through that.”
“But that’s the thing. Your apology doesn’t mean shit to me, Ethan. It doesn’t make what Brandon did any less awful. It doesn’t make my parents any better people. It doesn’t change a goddamned thing.
“And that’s why I don’t want to talk about it. Because when I do, I get angry.” Tears press against the backs of my eyes, but I blink them away. I’ve cried enough over this, cried enough over a monster who doesn’t deserve it. I’m done with tears and I’m done with him.
“I get so goddamned angry. And sad. And confused. And hurt. I get totally and completely fucked up. And I don’t like being like that.
“I spent years of my life like that, just going through the motions. Barely living because I was so caught up in the past that I couldn’t see the present. I don’t want to live like that anymore, Ethan. I don’t want to be that girl for one more day. For one more second.
“Because when I’m her, I’m ruined.”
“You’re not—”
