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“I’m the one who lied.”
On his thigh, his fingers curl. “How so?”
“Not to you.” I burrow my hands into the band of my sweatshirt, the fleece flattened with age and wear. Warmth from the kiss has ebbed, abandoning me to the cold realities of my life. “I lied to Jacob. He was little, but it was still a lie—and now I’m paying the price.”
John coaxes my hands from my shirt, swaddling his around them. His eyes are softer than I’ve ever seen. “Talk to me, Hollie.”
Why did I bring this up? Like his trauma for him, these are things I don’t speak of.
“I lied about his father.”
His grip squeezes.
“Jacob started asking questions when he was four. He was easy to put off, but when he was in second grade, he pinned me down, and I had to tell him something. I…I led him to believe his father was a high school boyfriend.
His thumb sweeps the top of my hand. “And that isn’t the case?”
I shake my head slowly, remembering. The lie. The truth. My chest seizes as my mind wanders into dark corners. “The truth…I…”
He slides his palm along my cheek. “Hollie?”
I bolt up, severing the link. Huddling in my baggy sleeves, I pace across the room. “He knows. I don’t know how, but…” I whip around, choked by a sob. “He knows!”
As John stands, I shove the swinging door and retreat to the dark kitchen. I’m done with the topic of Jacob’s parentage. I can’t right now. Maybe never.
I clutch the counter lest I wind up on the scarred linoleum. See? I’m a weak, foolish, irreparably damaged person. Seventeen years should be long enough.
Muscled arms snake around me, wrapping my waist. I thrash until I’m free—but a giant, midnight silhouette traps me.
“Hollie?”
I pummel my hands at the hard surface.
Hands grip my elbows, gently restraining.“Hollie!”
An ugly sound rips through my throat even though, of course, it’s only John.
I fall into his arms, my head against his chest, and heave out another round of nasty sobs.
John
Suspicion confirmed.
Words aren’t needed to know that Hollie has been a victim. I’ve wondered for a while, but at this point, she could deny it and I’d still know.
My heart stutters agenuine prayer. Is the perpetrator the boy’s father? The slug whose memory tortures Hollie into a puddle of panic and tears?
No wonder she lied.
I try to keep my hold loose, even as emotions of my own nudge my arms into a fervent embrace. She doesn’t seem to mind for the moment and doesn’t resist as I cradle her head, letting my shirt absorb the tears. Safety and security are what I long to impart, for tonight, but maybe…isforevertoo long?
Even in my mind, I have to bite back a word. Forever entails things I’m lousy at. History is proof. Besides, I swore those things off.
And yet. My arms tighten, and I whisper the soft assurances of a weak, whipped man. If I can make it better, I will. If I can destroy Hollie’s demons, I’ll do that, too. I’ll do it all, and for the exact same reasons I found myself in front of her house at midnight and again in the predawn hours on my way to work this morning, I couldn’t sleep for thinking about the as-yet unresolved threat against her.
Little did I know the placid calm of the home’s exterior concealed a woman in crisis mode.
Has she eaten? Slept?
