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You’re everything to me and I fucked it all up.
“I’m sorry, Shiloh,” I said, holding her tight to me. “So fucking sorry.”
But she’d already—mercifully—passed out, so I began to walk.
Chapter Thirty
I don’t remember walking to the Shack. After chugging the beer I found in the guys’ mini fridge, the night turned hazy. As if I were submerged in a dark pond, wading through the murk. A million times better than the sharp, piercing light of reality. Images burned in my eyes—the glitter of broken glass, like di
amonds. The black slashes of spray paint. The horrified expressions on my family’s faces. The pity.
And lurking beneath all that, Mama’s truth.
Better to drown.
I vomited at the beach. At home. Someone gave me water and I vomited again. I lost track of the hours. Lost track of where I was. I lay in bed and Bibi put a cold cloth to my face. The next instant, I was in the bathroom, kneeling at the toilet.
The hours ebbed and flowed around me in that murk. Ronan’s deep voice spoke to me in hushed undertones. Bibi soothed. Both tried to get me to look at them. To talk to them. Both tried to tell me it was going to be okay. When I wasn’t sick, I lay curled away from them, facing the wall, shudders running through me. The alcohol poisoned me but not nearly as bad as the rest.
Mama…
Finally, my body had purged itself to the point of exhaustion and I slept.
Sunlight was coming through the windows in my room the next time I opened my eyes. Midday, maybe. Ronan was sitting on the floor against my bed, head down. I watched him for a few moments, the rise and fall of his chest.
God, I loved him. It felt impossible I could love him as much as I did. But how could he look at me now that he knew the truth?
Ronan stirred, and I rolled away again, curling up tight.
“Shiloh…”
I squeezed my eyes shut and after a while he gave up. I slept.
When I woke next, the light was honey-colored twilight and Ronan was gone.
He left me.
In the deepest part of my soul, the thought didn’t ring true, but I wanted to leave me. I wanted to crawl out of this skin and into someone else’s body. Someone who was created with love out of partnership. Being an accident, like I’d been raised to believe, was better than this. Anything was better than knowing I was the product of my mother’s nightmare.
I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest. I was in my underwear, the dress for my grand opening hopefully in the trash. Or burned. The alcohol was out of my system and the murky drunkenness was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts, clear and naked.
My shop…
I sucked in a breath, unwilling to let the torrent of pain come flooding out. If I cried over my shop, my mother’s revelation would follow, and then I might not stop.
A soft knock came at my door, and Bibi poked her head in.
“Shiloh?”
“I’m awake,” I said, my voice a hoarse croak. “You must have a sixth sense.”
“Of course, I do. You’re my girl.” Bibi sat on the edge of my bed and cocked her head. “How we doing, baby?”
I shrugged. “My store is ruined and my father’s a rapist. That’s how I’m doing.”
Bibi sighed and took my hand. “Oh, honey…”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “I don’t know how to talk about it. Or what to think or feel except…horrified. Disgusted. Dirty. I feel so dirty, Bibi…”
