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Looking at her, so small and scared, I want to wrap my body around hers and say fuck it, that I don’t have to relive the worst day of my life. But I can’t. I have to do this. I need to do this. No more secrets.
My pulse is racing, my heart pounding in my chest and my throat tightens. A knot forms in my gut. I swallow, pointedly avoiding her gaze. I’m afraid to tell her. She might see me as a monster and then that would be it. Abby would be gone for good.
Breathe.
Before I can change my mind, I tug my shirt over my head, exposing everything I am to her. Yeah, she’s seen the scars before, but she doesn’t know the story. The real story, not the bullshit printed in magazines.
“It’s okay.” Abby’s hand reaches around my back, her fingers gently following the curve of my spine. I shudder from her touch. My entire torso and most of the skin on my arms is riddled with the faint spiderweb of scars. They’re small and most of them obscured by ink, but if anyone looks close, they would see the dozens and dozens of tiny cuts all over my body.
The tattoos are my shield. A huge compass rose with no needle, no direction, that begins a few inches below my collar and spreads out over my shoulders. A trio of feathered wings creating a circle on one deltoid, and the red dragon I got when I was with Abby on the other. A short Welsh proverb is scrawled across my ribs. Various other artwork completes the sleeves on my arms, a flock of birds, Celtic knots, and skulls.
“Abby, I didn’t want you to know, but I have to tell you. It’s why I was fucked up in here for so long.” I take my fist and knock the side of my head. She grabs my hand, pulling it to her mouth and gently kissing my knuckles. Our eyes meet and hers glisten.
“Tell me, Hawke. You’ll feel better, I promise.”
For a few moments, we simply st
are at each other. Without my glasses in the way, I can see every fleck of color in her blue eyes, a ring of dark indigo around the edges. I put my hands on the back of her head and pull her forward until she’s tucked into the curve of my neck. “I can’t look at you while I tell you.”
“Whatever you need. Let’s lie down.” I nod, so she shuffles off the couch. I follow her wordlessly to the bedroom. My rumpled bed is unmade, as usual. Abby smiles before climbing on the bed and facing the windows. I curl up behind her, fitting my body to hers. The scent of her hair, the feel of her body, the fact that’s she’s here, they give me the strength to begin.
“My family. They’re all dead, and for a long time, I believed it was my fault.”
Abby doesn’t say a word, but I feel her flinch. I wait for a reaction, for something. Finally, she breaks the silence. “I-I’m sure you didn’t kill them,” she rasps, her voice shaky.
“I’m learning to accept that it wasn’t my fault, but I went to a party.” I swallow past the lump that forms in my throat. “I hated those parties. Never wanted to go. Wasn’t ever interested, but I played the part. I hated the shallow snobs I hung out with.” I pause to collect my thoughts. Abby snuggles closer. “That night, I went with a girl from school whose dad worked with mine. To make my parents happy. When I got there, I took a dose of X and lost track of everything, partying until I passed out. By the time I woke up, everyone was gone.”
I hear her sharp inhale, her back shuddering against my chest. The amount of pain Abby feels on my behalf is staggering. It makes me fall in love her even more.
“I had to call my parents to come get me. They were coming home from a late dinner at a friend’s house. My sister was with them to visit with their daughter.” Abby sobs, turning in my arms to run her hands down my chest.
I run a hand down her hair. “Shhhhhh, it’s okay, Bee. I have to do this.” I kiss the top of Abby’s head as she cries for me.
“On the way home, a car ran us off the road. I don’t remember any of it. Just… waking up in the car. It was dark and it took me a minute to realize it was upside down. I wasn’t wearing my seat belt.”
I bark out a pathetic laugh at the fucking irony, a word so relevant in my life I had it tattooed across my abdomen. “Somehow, I was the only one who wasn’t wearing a seat belt and I’m the one who made it. Fucked up, right?” Abby stays quiet, letting me work through this on my own. “I thought it was raining inside the car, but something was off. Wrong. The rain, it was…it was hot.” Abby clings to me, her arms tightening almost painfully around my back. She throws a leg over my hip, locking us together from shoulders to toes. Breathe. Keep going. “I looked up to see what it was. It was my little sister, suspended over me by her seat belt. A tree branch went straight through her neck. The rain I felt, it was her blood.”
I shudder from the relief of getting it out of my body, off my chest, finally explaining to Abby what happened so long ago. “That’s why I did all those reckless things. To forget. It’s the only way I could, Bee. The darkness never stopped.”
“Henry…” Abby shifts to lie on top of me. I put my arms around her and pull her close. Abby’s tears streak down my bare chest, over the tattoo of angel wings with my sister’s initials drawn between them.
“I love you,” I whisper. Abby shudders, shifting her head to release another quiet sob into my neck. “I’m sorry, for never telling you.”
“No. Don’t apologize.” Abby runs her hands up and down my arms. She pulls back and we lock eyes when she presses her forehead to mine.
“It hurt so much for so long, but I’m finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, Bee. It’s you. You’re my light.”
Abby
As I stare into Hawke’s eyes, our foreheads pressed together, our mouths a hairsbreadth apart, my heart breaks for this man. What he went through is so much worse than anything I imagined. I inhale sharply. It’s my turn to be brave.
“My mom said she told you about Nick,” I whisper.
Hawke nods. “I’m sorry.”
I stifle a sob. “It wasn’t my fault. I know that now. I-I…”
“Bee, it’s okay.” Hawke brushes his thumbs across my cheeks, swiping away the tears. Tears I cry for him, for me, for our losses, our misplaced guilt, the enormous amount of pain we both carried for the last decade.
