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7
When I stepped into the room, Pierre had a big smile on his face. Even under all the bruises and bandages, he was glowing.
“Hey,” I said, pausing in the doorframe of the small cubicle-like space. He was sitting up on a hospital bed. I smiled back at him. “You okay?”
“More than okay,” he replied, maybe a little too enthusiastically. I mean, he had just gotten pummeled as if he was thrown into a wrestling match. Still, I had known him long enough to know when he was being genuine, and it didn’t sound like he was forcing his words. “Seriously. I feel great.”
“Uh-huh,” I replied, a little sarcastically. “Looks like it.”
“I mean it.” He slid off of the pad and walked over to me, laying his hands on my shoulders. He was grinning, but all of a sudden, his smile faltered. “Something’s wrong.”
I let out a snort.
“You think?” Reaching up, I took his hands in mine. “My best friend just got beaten up over something as stupid as my ass.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” he murmured as I brushed a lock of wavy black hair from his eyes. “Guess I saw it as something more sinister.”
“Yeah,” I said a little absent-mindedly, the bathroom situation clouding up my headspace again. “It could’ve been.”
He held me there for a moment longer, glancing between my eyes before stepping back. He moved to grab his coat, and I noticed him wince as he lifted his arms to slid it on. Suddenly, part of me wondered if he had been expecting a different response from me. Any other girl might’ve said “thank you,” for, you know, standing up for me. But I was just mad at him.
“You didn’t have to do it, you know,” I said. He froze, looking at me. “Seriously. This …” I gestured up and down his bandaged body. “This wasn’t worth it.”
“I wanted to do it,” he said shortly. “Maybe it wasn’t about you.”
“It doesn’t matter whether or not it was about me. I know why you did it,” I retorted, stepping closer to him. Now there was an edge to my voice. “You did it because you wanted to prove to yourself that you’re not a total pussy.”
The look he shot at me was colder than the freezing London weather, than the feeling of Tommy’s fingers forcing their way inside me.
Pierre let out a heavy breath.
“I know you, Kat,” he said slowly, his dark eyes flickering with shadows. Memories. “You’re just mad because you think of it as your fault. Trust me, I made the choice to go ahead and punch him. You didn’t.”
Nodding, I stepped back toward the door, pulling my gaze away from his. I couldn’t bear to look at him any longer.
“Let’s just go.”
Pierre didn’t respond. We left the room in silence, him taking the lead in front of me while I walked a few steps behind. It wasn’t awkwardness that enveloped us, but shame. Maybe even embarrassment. Because we both had things to explain, and both of us knew it.
Tommy and Derrick. They were the “friends” he had been speaking so highly of. The guys that offered him a place to stay.
And one of them had tried—almost succeeded—to rape me.
Neither of us had to bring up the fact that we weren’t headed to Buckingham Palace. Not after all this. We boarded the shuttle back to Pierre’s building in silence. Once we made it back into his apartment, we both collapsed onto the bed, exhausted, and stared up at the ceiling. A few minutes passed. The sound of church bells chimed far in the distance, and Pierre’s heater started clanging. The whole apartment seemed to want to break the silence between us.
Another minute or so passed, and Pierre finally moved to go to the bathroom. By the time he came out, I heard the toilet flushing and his voice. Sounded like he had been talking on the phone. A thought occurred to me.
“Should we order in?” I asked as he approached the bed.
Pierre smirked. “Already did.”
It was an early dinner, but by the time the delivery guy from C’est Bien rang the bell, we couldn’t give a single fuck about the time of day.
“So,” I said, through a mouthful of my quiche. “Tell me about these friends of yours.”
It was time to set things straight between us. Over food, it’d be ten times easier.
We were calling it dinner, but it was really more like a 4 PM brunch. Pierre was switching between a creamy soup and a croque monsieur, and I couldn’t help but giggle as he reached to wipe a cheesy stain off his shirt for the third time.
