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Hero leans into her face. “Remember, you do anything stupid, she gets it.”
Something inside me snaps, breaking in two. All I know now is the Hero I knew, the Hero I cared for, is gone.
Tasha nods her head in understanding.
Hero dismisses her, turning around on his feet and walking back in the direction of his car.
I sag against the seat, my heart broken, fear, confusion, and sadness threatening to drown me.
Tasha enters the car slowly, her hands shaking as she closes the door and buckles her seatbelt.
She’s scared. It’s written all over her face.
“We—I-I need to get you to the hospital.” Her voice sounds calm.
I can’t even feel the pain from my wrist or ankle any longer. It’s just a dull ache in comparison to the pain I’m feeling inside my chest. “He won’t hurt me, Tasha,” I reassure her, holding my wrist to my chest. I feel betrayed, broken, lost, and damaged. I trusted him—and I was so stupid to do so, because now I’m here, and he’s gone.
“He will, Elyse. He will. I saw the look in his eyes. I mean, he already has. Look at you. Look at me.” She sounds so unstable, so afraid.
Taking in her words, I swallow them down and consider that maybe she is right…maybe she was right all along. Her warning isn’t for nothing, and it’s painfully obvious now.
Still, pieces of me cling to the Hero I knew, the man beneath the mask. I may not be experienced in much of anything, but I know pain, and Hero is hiding his, shoving it way down deep.
Tasha doesn’t say anything more to me and starts driving.
The pain in my wrist is nothing more than a dull ache now, and I decide I’m better off nursing the damn wound myself. If I go to the hospital, my parents will find out, and if they find out, they’ll try to get me to come back with them.
It’s not something I can afford to deal with right now. The last thing I need is another run in with them. “Let’s go back to the dorms.”
Tasha looks at me through the rearview mirror. “What? Your wrist is clearly broken, and Hero had to carry you out of there. Aren’t you worried you’ve hurt something?” Her response is typical Tasha.
I shake my head.
“I know I hurt something, but I can’t go to the hospital.” I frown. “If I do, my parents will find out, and if they find out, that’s another storm I have to endure. I’ve broken plenty of bones before. There isn’t anything a doctor can do I can’t do myself.” And that’s the truth, at least when it comes to broken bones. “We’ll just get a brace, I’ll wear that for a few weeks, and before you know it, I’ll be better than new.” I force myself to smile.
Tasha doesn’t seem like she wants to listen to me, but as we get closer to town, she heads in the direction of the dorms instead of the hospital.
I damn near sigh in relief.
When we pull into the parking lot of our building, she puts the car in park and kills the engine. Then she turns in her seat to face me. “We need to go to the police…you know that, right?”
“No!” The word comes out in a scream, and I slowly exhale, calming my voice before I continue. “We can’t go to the police for the same reason we can’t go to the hospital. Don’t you get it?” I plead with her to understand and hope she buys this is the only reason I don’t want to go to the police. Because the truth is, I wouldn’t do that to Hero. He might be able to hurt me emotionally, but I will not inflict the same pain on him. Not when I know he does really care about me, deep down inside.
He might’ve messed up tonight, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to go back to prison, and even if it did, it doesn’t mean I want to be the reason he goes back.
“Okay,” she whispers, her voice soft. She’s not acting like herself at all, but then again, neither am I. There is no taking back what we saw tonight, or the things that were said.
“It’s going to be okay, Tasha.” I lean forward and give her a half hug, wanting to put all our broken pieces back together.
But even I know the broken pieces of my heart will never be whole again. Not until I see him. Not until I get the answers I need.
***
The next week goes by in a blur. My wrist is healing up nicely in the brace Tasha picked up from Walgreens. I focus on my studies as best I can and hope every day he’ll show up at my door to apologize. I make sure my phone is charged and the volume is up just in case he finally returns any of my calls or texts.
