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She lay there so silently that he thought she had fallen asleep. Then she cleared her throat and said, “You know the basic outline already. My parents died, I was separated from my sister.”
When she paused, he tilted her chin up and said, “I’ll listen, but I wasn’t asking you to tell me. Please don’t feel like you have to tell me if you don’t want to tell me.”
“No,” she said, giving him a wan smile. “You should know what you’re working with here, Evan. So, my first foster home, the family was really religious. Micah and Josephine.”
The way she said the names, almost as if she was spitting them out with disgust, gave him a pit in his stomach. This would not end well.
“I didn’t really have much experience with it. My parents were non-practicing. Well, they had this thing. There was a lot of, they called it behavior correction. For any reason. There was some abuse. Bruises. I was too young, too frightened to realize it was wrong. I was there for a few months and then one night, Micah came into my room.”
He felt the bile rise in his throat. “Oh Jesus Christ,” he said as he held her more tightly.
Her voice, shaky now, said, “It’s exactly what you think. It happened a couple of times before my teacher at school caught on. I could barely sit down it hurt so badly. Well, she sent me to the clinic, who sent me to the counselor, who called the state, and I was out of that house that afternoon. Someone went and collected my things.
“I stayed at a group home for a while until another family took me in. After a while, they gave me back though. I was acting out. Angry. Terrified. Absolutely determined to make sure no one ever did that to me ever again.
“It took me some time, a few foster homes and some counseling from the state to work my way through that. That was about the time Betty and Joe took me in. They were good. Decent people. I didn’t feel like I needed to lock my bedroom door. He didn’t look at me that way, and I’m pretty sure Betty would have unmanned him if he had. She was tough. She was great. Anyway, you know how that ended.
“The rest of my childhood was just a series of group homes and shitty foster families. They wanted the check from the state. They didn’t have much interest in feeding me, or doing any of those parent-type things. The second I turned eighteen, I was kicked out of the system. I stayed at a shelter for a little while. You know the rest.”
He sat there, stunned. “Baby,” he said.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t apologize or make a big deal about it. It’s just the shit I was going to need to tell you eventually.”
“No. It’s not just the shit that you were going to have to tell me eventually. It’s your life. It’s what made you…you,” he said. “I don’t know how you’re even able to function, let alone be so successful.”
“I didn’t have any other choice,” she said.
“There were other options,” he said. “You didn’t take them. You’re a beautiful person. I’m not talking about just physically. What you did for my mother tonight, what you’ve done for me. I don’t understand how you can’t see that.”
She scooted back, to face him and said, “I don’t see what you see. After all of the shit that I just told you…”
“I don’t know how I can look at you and not see it, Taryn?” he asked. “I’m completely in love with you. I have been for a while now.”
The declaration hung in the silence between them. He saw the fear in her eyes and said, “I’m not asking you to return the sentiment, but I want you to understand. You amaze me. More now than ever.”
She began to blink and then her eyes filled.
He pulled her back against his chest, and said, “Please don’t do that. Shh. Shh.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, as she sobbed against him.
He felt the acid churn in his stomach, but he held her and said, “Don’t be sorry. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
He rocked her and let her cry until she finally cried herself to asleep. What else could he do?
Chapter 17
Taryn managed to make it through breakfast. Sleep had helped. Getting all of that out had helped, too. She hadn’t shared the majority of that with anyone since that day with the counselor at school. She still felt an embarrassing mixture of stupidity and guilt over it all again. Intellectually she knew it wasn’t her fault, but every so often, emotionally, it didn’t seem to matter.
Evan had been amazing last night. She’d fallen to pieces, completely unable to stop herself. He had only held her and let her cry. He done exactly the right things. He had said exactly the right things.
Evan had told her that he was in love with her.
She felt another frisson of fear creep up her spine. She had been thrilled and filled with dread at the same time. She loved him. She knew without a doubt that she did. But she didn’t know, with everything that she was, how he could possibly still want her. She was damaged.
She needed to put some space between
herself and this man. There was no possible way that he’d stay. How could anyone want to stay with someone so fucking broken?
