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“You thought you could let him hurt you like that and that I’d be okay?” he asks me, his eyes narrowed and his hands clench and unclench. He’s on edge and for the first time, I’m scared.
“I thought you were done with me,” I whisper and hearing the words and feeling the reality of them in this moment, makes a sharp pain tear through me, regret seeping into my veins.
“How could you ever think that?” Dean asks me in a single breath.
I can’t answer. I don’t have the words or the logic. “I just wanted him to pay for what he did to her.” That’s the truth. The need for him to get what he deserved outweighed everything else.
“I already knew, Allie,” Dean says and swallows harshly as if he’s the one confessing. “I had a lot of time in my cell to think. About what I knew about Kevin. About what I knew about you. Samantha Jenkins. She’s the girl who claimed someone raped her at a party I was supposed to go to years ago. They never told us who the charges were against and I didn’t know it was Kevin.”
Disbelief grips me. He knows?
“I heard about it on the news when she killed herself but the details were missing and I was already so far gone … but sitting in jail with nothing to do but think will help put the pieces together. The way you were with him that day outside the locker room … I figured it out myself, Allie.”
My eyes widen and I struggle to breathe. To say anything. He knew and he wants me? How could he?
“You will never do that again,” Dean commands. “And you’ll never talk about this again,” he says and my breath halts. “Never tell anyone else. No one.”
I nod my head, clasping my hands in front of me and with my posture as still as can be. My heart races and a flicker of hope lights inside of me. Dean looks at me for a long time, as if judging what he believes and what he finds lacking.Please believe me.My body trembles as I try not to grip on to him. As I wait for whatever it is he needs. Whatever it is, I’ll give it to him.
“Is that everything?” he asks me. “Tell me now.”
My bottom lip drops but I don’t know what he’s asking, or what he wants.
“What else are you hiding?” he asks in a raised voice and I cower as I shake my head and insist, “Nothing, nothing.”
“You won’t lie to me again.” His voice is hard.
I almost tell him that I never lied, but that wouldn’t be true. I kept the truth from him, and that action in and of itself was a lie.
“Is there anyone else that youwantto hurt you?” he asks me, and I can’t stand the anger that’s there. “Because I swear to God I don’t know what I’ll do if anyone tries to hurt you.”
“No. No. I’m sorry,” I tell him in a croak, shame washing over me.
“Do you realize what could have happened? What he would have done to you?” Dean asks and his own voice cracks.
“Not until he was,” I start to say and remember how heavy his body was, how much it hurt.
My eyes squeeze shut tight, but not tight enough. I just want it all to go away. “I wish I could take it back. I’m so sorry.”
“I would do it again, Allie. I’d kill anyone who tried to hurt you.”
“I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“Don’t keep anything from me, do you hear me?” he asks me, and his voice is consoling this time.
“I promise,” I tell him with all sincerity. “I have no more secrets.”
“Good, because I still love you. I love you, Allison.”
I finally breathe, a large gulp of air that’s nearly too much as I fall into him. His arms wrap around me tightly, holding me just as fiercely as I hold him.
“And I want you to come with me.” His words are whispered into my hair.
I can only nod, I can’t speak anymore. I have nothing left to give, but if I ever I do, it’s all for Dean.
Before I’m ready, Dean pulls me away from him, letting the cold air come between us and for a moment, I think he’s changing his mind. But then he speaks.
“Just don’t stop loving me,” he says as he stares deeply into my eyes.
