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I put my hand on her face and she lets me keep it there, “There’s nothing off the table anymore, Mal. Please. I’m fucking miserable without you. Will you look at me?”
“I can’t,” she closes her eyes and it guts me that she can’t even bring herself to look at me.
“I’m so fucking sorry, please believe me. I’ll earn back your trust, I don’t care how long it takes. I might have a lot of free time now.” I’m not trying to be a smart ass, I just want her to stop crying. I don’t ever want to make her cry again.
“Why did you do that?” She wipes her tears away and brushes my hand off in the process.
I watch her in her seat and I have no doubt that it was the right thing to do. None. “I can live without driving. I can’t live without you. If you want to live in New York and open a firm, or work for Cooper, whatever you want to do now, I’ll support your dreams. I just, I know how it feels to have your dreams crushed and I couldn’t let you go through that, too. And I want to be someone you’re proud to be with, not some asshole fraud.” Like Digby, I think, but I don’t want to speak his name.
“I’ve always been proud of you.”
My chest tightens. “I didn’t deserve it, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be the man you deserve, if you let me.”
All of a sudden she bursts into tears and her shoulders are heaving, her hands cradling her head. I try to console her but I can’t reach her to hold her and she’s trying to get out of the car door. She finally pushes the right button and the door rises and she shoots out. I jog around the car where she’s pacing back and forth along the car, red-faced and trying to get control of her emotions.
“Love,” I reach for her and try her to pull her in.
“No, don’t call me that,” she snaps and turns away from me wrapping her arms around herself.
“Why?”
“You won’t love me anymore,” she sobs.
“Mallory,” I take her by the shoulders and make her face me, “there’s nothing that will make me stop loving you. I know, Christ, I know a lot has happened and I don’t understand it all right now, but I don’t care about any of it.”
“You will when I tell you what I’ve done.”
All of my breath escapes me and my heart sinks to my stomach. I don’t know if I can hear this. “Whatever it is, if it’s over now then it doesn’t matter.”
“You don’t mean that.” She throws her arms up. “Jack and Matty are going to tell you anyway, let me just get it over with then you can leave me again. Leave me in this, this fucking apple orchard this time!”
“I will not leave you. I will never leave you again,” I stand before her and take her tear-stained face in my hands.
“Just, let me get it over with,” she breaks away and starts pacing again. As much as I don’t want the details of whatever the hell has happened that culminated with videos playing of Digby with drugs and prostitutes, she wants to talk and I need to listen. I lean up against the side of the car and brace myself.
“You have to know I was doing it for you,” she starts. I close my eyes and swallow. I can’t live with myself if she did something to make her this upset and she did it for me. “I, I found videos on Digby’s phone and I had to get them away from him, I had to get him alone.”
I’m channeling all of my self-control to stay still and silent and stand still against the car, let her get it all out and then we’ll deal with it.
“I had to lead him on, let him touch me,” she sobs. “I did terrible things, Lennox.”
The thought of him touching Mallory is unbearable, every nerve in my body is on fire. She’s staring at me now waiting for a reaction. “I’m listening. I’m not leaving.”
She’s watching me closely, “He, he grabbed my ass, he touched my chest, he kissed my neck. I let him. I didn’t want him to, but I let him.”
“Still here,” my eyes track her. This is killing me but I won’t leave. Being without her is the only thing that has ever felt worse than this.
“I touched him, Lennox. I groped his disgusting little Digby dick.” Her body recoils and the disgust she feels recalling this is all over her face. “It was the only way, I hated it. I hate him.”
“Aye, I know,” I dip my head and agree quietly.
“That’s it. You can go now.” She turns her back to me and takes a few steps away toward the trees.
“That’s it?”
She turns back around. “What do you mean that’s it?”
I shrug my shoulders, “Ok. I’m still here, Mal.”
