Page 54 of Meet Me in Ivy Falls

‘Torran. Stop.’

His voice shook with an ache I knew too well. For the days and weeks after Mom was gone, none of it felt real. I went through the motions. Thanked people for coming to the funeral. Wrapped up the dozens of casseroles delivered. Helped read stories to the girls and make cocoa late into the night when I’d find Tessa crying at the kitchen table. In our own way we had to figure out a way to deal with the solitary journey ahead of us. Face the incredible loss in our lives. I’d thought I was getting through it fine until I had to deal with my dad over and over, stirring up my grief every single time.

‘If I tell you about my mom and dad, Piper… the accident… it makes it all real again.’

The pain in his whisper made me step closer. He needed to know that he was safe here. That the grief he carried like a heavy coat didn’t have to hurt him so much if he just shared a little bit of it with me.

‘Please, Beck. Tell me what happened the day your parents died.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

BECK

A Genie You Can’t Shove Back Into The Bottle.

Why I bothered to hide anything from Torran was beyond me. She was like an emotional psychic – able to instantly sense when something was off. I’d purposefully picked a fight with her knowing she’d kick me out, and then I wouldn’t have to talk about my encounter with Maisey and all the bad shit it stirred up inside me.

I turned around and the hurt etched into her face, the raw ache in her stare, almost brought me to my knees.

‘That last night before I left with my parents, we drove to our favorite spot at the lake. You knew right away something was wrong,’ I said over the knot growing slowly in my throat. ‘In amongst the chirping crickets and low bellows of the bullfrogs, you begged me to tell the truth. It is eerily reminiscent of this moment.’

The same ripple of pain that swept over her cheeks that night now drew down the corners of her beautiful mouth.

‘Over the years, I’ve become an expert at keeping my feelings bottled up inside to protect Piper. Make her think our lives are under control. She’s needed that steadiness.’

‘I’m sure you’ve been a rock for her,’ she said.

‘No, I haven’t. I’ve never been enough for her.’ The words were knives stabbing at my chest. ‘She’s a recovering alcoholic and drug addict who tears through jobs and men like she goes through tequila and opiates. I jump every time the damn phone rings, worried it’s the police calling to tell me she’s in jail, or even worse’ – I sucked in an unsteady breath – ‘in the morgue.’

‘Oh, Beck,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry for you both.’

Even now, I couldn’t help but think about Piper. Was she in her small apartment eating dinner, or in some club letting yet another douchebag take advantage of her so she could score one more drink or pill? Was that the special thing she wanted to buy? The thought shot ice through my veins.

‘We’ve been through rehab so many times I can recite the entire intake procedure. One suitcase. Few personal belongings. No phone. No shoelaces. Limited contact with the outside world.’

Even though every instinct in me said to get up and run, not relive those horrible days again, I owed her the truth about what happened ten years ago at a campsite near the Truckee River in northern California the day my parents died.

I closed my eyes and took another shaky breath. If I wanted her to believe in me, trust me again, this was the only way.

Slowly, one button at a time, I undid my shirt. With each movement, every breath, the memories of that night spilled over me: the ear-splitting boom and the roar of a heat so intense that it yanked all the air from my lungs.

My trembling hands moved to my cuffs. Once they were undone, I hesitated. This wasn’t some kind of genie you could shove back in a bottle. When she saw what I looked like, what I’d become, there was no going back.

After one more full breath, I shrugged off my shirt and dropped it onto the floor.

A few agonizingly long beats passed while I waited for her to gasp in shock again.

Race out the door and never look back.

Instead, with the softest touch, she tracked her fingers over the crisscross pattern of burned and mottled skin that hugged my shoulders, covered both arms, and snaked down a large portion of my chest before ending in a huge swath across my back.

Plenty of women had seen my ravaged arms and chest. As I’d lain naked in bed with them I’d made up stories about car crashes or motorcycle accidents, never able to tell anyone that the mottled skin that tattooed my upper body came from a failed attempt to save my parents’ lives.

Her caress moved over the planes of my chest and every inch of me ached for her. I waited for reality to set in. For her to flinch. Curl away in horror.

Because I couldn’t bear for that to happen, I stepped back from her touch.

‘Don’t.’ The soft sweep of her voice nearly did me in.