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Grace
Jasminescrapesthelast drop of pistachio ice cream from her cup. “Are you sure you’re okay, Grace?”
I nod, spooning a dollop of brownie-batter ice cream into my mouth so I don’t have to talk.
She eyes me dubiously. When we reconnected after the devastating reveal at Aidan’s office, she’d already texted me six times asking where I was and if I was okay. I apologized for leaving campus and told her I’d gone to check out a café with a guy I met who turned out to be a creep.
“You’re too trusting, Grace,” she told me, and not for the first time. “I know you were probably trying to be polite, but you have to be more careful about who you trust.”
She has no idea, and I’m honestly fine with keeping it that way for now. I don’t think I could bring myself to lay out all the painful details.
Our first day of orientation is officially behind us. Tomorrow morning we have a session with the faculty from the dance program and then a performance by a group of upper classmen.
Tonight’s ice-cream social is being held in one of the larger dining halls on campus. Ever the extrovert, Jasmine has already attracted a small assemblage of potential friends and admirers. They seem nice, like the sort of people I’d be happy to hang out with under different circumstances.
I’m supposed to be mingling and getting to know my peers, but I really don’t want to be around people right now. The thing is, I know if I go back to the dorms, I’ll text Aidan.
I almost begged him to take me home this afternoon.
The temptation to let him gather me up and take me back to the shelter of his home, where all I have to do is follow his orders and be his little one, was so strong I needed to physically exit the building in order to escape it.
Going home with him would’ve been like slapping a Band Aid onto a gaping wound.
Aidan lied to me. He kept secrets from me—disturbing secrets. Ones that he didn’t trust me to know.
When Liam said Aidan had raped his mother, my body instantly revolted. I instantly thought of my father. I don’t know for sure if he ever raped my mother, though there were times when she came back after a beating with bruises around her wrists.
I stab my spoon into my half-eaten bowl of ice cream, too sick to take another bite. I still can’t picture Aidan doing something that monstruous, even by mistake.
But when he finally laid out the whole story, everything else fell into place. Why he refused to have sex with his subs, and why he only ever had vanilla sex with his romantic partners. He instituted those rules for himself to ensure he would never make the same mistake again.
I know it’s foolish to trust a man who lied to me, but I believe him when he says he didn’t mean to hurt Liam’s mother. There’ve been times when my father’s anger rattled me so thoroughly that I couldn’t move or speak. I know what it’s like to be paralyzed with fear, to feel the walls closing in and my throat closing along with them.
I try to imagine how it would feel to be struck speechless in the middle of an intense BDSM scene that I desperately wanted to end. Even when Matthew and Dante were manhandling me, I knew I could use my safe word to end it.
The experience must’ve been horrifying for Liam’s mother—and for Aidan, once he realized the damage he’d caused. Liam doesn’t see it that way. He holds his father responsible for his mother ultimately killing herself, though from the sounds of it, she’d already been through a lot before she met Aidan.
My heart aches for all three of them.
The group around our table bursts into belly laughs and chuckles. Someone must’ve said something funny that I was too distracted to catch. I plaster on a smile, but it doesn’t convince my best friend.
Jasmine squeezes my shoulder and whispers, “You’re so not okay.”
I want to brush off her concern, but I can’t make myself do it. Pretending everything’s fine isn’t working anymore. I want to be curled up in bed where I can think and cry and listen to old voicemails just to hear Aidan’s comforting voice.
If I end up calling him, so be it. It’s not like we don’t have a thousand things to talk about.
“I’m actually not feeling very well,” I tell her. “I’m going to head back to the dorm.”
“Want me to walk with you?”
I shake my head. “No, stay. Have fun.”
“All right. Text me when you get to the room.” She scans the table, then scoots her chair back to look at the floor. “Shit, I think I left my clutch in the bathroom.”
We both rise from the table. She hugs me, tells me she’ll let me know if she’s going to be later than eleven, then goes to look for her purse in the restroom. I make my way over to the trash and recycling bins to toss out my bowl and spoon. As I head for the exit, my gaze catches on a familiar pair of sunken eyes.
My shoes skid on the tile as I stop short. Why would Liam come back here?
