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He kept his eyes down but pushed his thumbs into the soft space in the middle of my ribcage. As if he’d pressed a button, my insides melted like butter, warming my lower half.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
“I do worry. I can’t help it. I think the worst.”
“What’s the worst?”
“I worry that they hurt you. I worry they changed you. I worry you hate me.”
“Hate you,” he repeated, not a question. “There are some things I hate about you.”
I was too wrapped up in him to be hurt. He could say anything to me when we were like this, and I’d take it. I shuddered. “Like what?”
“That you’re not the girl you were when I went away. That you still are. That I could,” he squeezed my middle, “ruin you in one stroke. That I could give you nightmares.” He got closer, as if he were going to tell me a secret. “Cuts and bruises, broken bones, they heal, Lake. They’re nothing.”
“What doesn’t heal?”
“Everything else.”
My chest ached with the weight of my regret for what I couldn’t change or take back. No matter how much time passed, no matter how life turned out, it would never be right what I’d done. “My mistakes hurt you. They did this. They’re why you hate me.”
He didn’t say anything, but the way he avoided my eyes was answer enough. He put one large hand on my chest, spreading his fingers and wrinkling his brow as if trying to see if he could reach both my shoulders. “That’s not what I’m talking about,” he said finally. “There are things I can’t share with you.”
“You can,” I whispered, locking my hands around the back of his neck. He was pushing me away by my chest, but I held on. “You can tell me. I’m stronger than you think.”
“I was alone,” he said. “For over two months. In a cell. That’s what I dream about.” He paused. “You’re there sometimes.”
“In the cell?”
Slowly, he raised his eyes to mine. “No. Just outside of it. Outside my reach. Everyone else can touch you, and I can’t.”
My limbs quivered, fatigued. This felt like a breakthrough and my entire body reacted to it. “Why does that scare you?”
I thought I knew the answer, and it could be summed up in one word—helpless. It described his role in Madison’s death, his situation with the courts, and his relationship to me. It was maybe the only thing that could incapacitate a man as big and protective as Manning—knowing he could help, and being unable to.
“It scares me because things go wrong. Life isn’t fair. Some people are bad. I don’t want you to experience any of that.”
“You don’t have nightmares because you think I’ll get hurt. You have them because you can’t stop bad things from happening.”
“I couldn’t for Madison.”
“You were helpless.” I ducked my head to look him in the eye. “There was nothing you could’ve done for Madison, and you know you won’t always be able to protect me.”
“Helpless,” he repeated.
“Why did you beat up that guard?” I asked. His gaze darkened. As close as his face was to mine, I couldn’t deny feeling intimidated, but I held his stare. He didn’t scare me. “What would make you that angry?”
He shook his head. “I can’t explain it.”
“Try. You’re not protecting me by not telling me. When you don’t, I fill in the blanks, Manning. I think these awful things, like that they took away your food or stole from you or—”
“I snapped, Lake. That’s it. I snapped.” His palm went clammy against my chest. “Just like him.”
Snapped. It took me back to that night in the truck when he’d opened up about Maddy. Not only had Manning watched his dad’s anger burst in an instant, but as a teenager, Manning had also been accused of, and nearly arrested for, snapping. “You’re not like him,” I said. I put my hand over his on my chest. “You are a better man. The best.”
He looked toward the sink. “They wanted to get under my skin, and I let them. I went somewhere I shouldn’t.”
“Then what?” I asked. He wouldn’t look at me. I grabbed his face and forced him to. “Then what?”
“I had to face the punishment. Solitary confinement for over two months, and I almost caught more charges, but for once, luck was on my side.”
“How is that luck?” I asked, curling my fingers into his cheeks. “Two months alone, without anything or anyone. It’s not right.” Now, I was the one breathing hard, my frustration getting the better of me. I hated the idea of it, of them beating him and locking him up alone. Had he had enough to eat, been warm enough, had friends to confide in? “What did you think about in there?”
“Everything.”
I moved my index finger down the crooked bridge of his nose, then touched the raised scar, the break in stubble on his upper lip. “Did they do this to you?”
