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“I woke up to a man standing over my bed. He said he had a knife. It was dark. I couldn’t…I never saw his face.” She stares at the floorboard for an unsettling, agonizing collection of seconds. “It was bad.”
Bad?
Oh, Heavenly Father!
She rolls her lip in, pulverizing the soft flesh. “He left around sunrise—and I didn’t tell anyone…until I couldn’t deny it had happened any longer.”
Because Jacob.
I want to run and hide and cry for her.
“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue, Chavez?” Fire brims her eyes.
I know the anger is self-protection—but what does a man do with any of this?
“I-I don’t have a clue what to say, Hollie—other than that I’m more sorry than you can know.”
Her eyes tear into mine for another round of blaring silence. Any way I jump could be the wrong way.
She deflates, wilting against the door. “There isn’t anything to say.”
No, I suppose not.
Only nothing and everything.
She allows it when I merge my fingers with hers, and then, blessedly, she lets me hold her again.
Chapter 27
Hollie
He’d laugh if I said it, but John is a saint.
Without complaint, he’s suffered through multiple flooding meltdowns. He’s endured wildly uncomfortable conversations and navigated bizarre mood swings—yet managed to convey comfort and solidarity along the way. Not everyone can do that, even when they mean to.
The question is: why. Any right-thinking man should be making tracks the other direction.
Sure, there’ve been sparks and flares between us…
I touch my lips as my thoughts roll back to the first part of the night.He kissed me.
But I’m bad at relationships—so bad that I’ve had none. Now that John’s gotten a load of the real me and the depths of my dysfunction, his choice is so easy that it’s really no choice at all. I come with more baggage than the average cross-country jumbo jet.
He has got to be rethinking that kiss right about now.
As the car rolls toward the unknown, I look at my hands. I’ve barely slept in two days. I haven’t eaten, chewing on nothing save my fears. I’ve cried buckets of tears.
Strange. I should be about to give out, like a car driving on fumes. But my hands? Steady. Stomach? Hunger pangs for the first time in days.
I don’t get it. What is this measure of calm that’s engulfed me? My breaths go all the way down, even with thoughts of Jacob. Even after recounting the thing I’ve not spoken of in more than a decade.
I study John’s solid profile.Don’t get used to having someone, Hollie.
John is with me now, but whether he knows it or not, he’s on his way out the door.
In the hour since leaving the rest area, he hasn’t spoken. I haven’t either—so which of us is setting the tone? Occasionally, he dashes his head like he’s trying to shake something off.
He reaches for the radio and fiddles with buttons. He sets the thing to scan mode, but after a minute, turns the system off. Yawning, he folds his hands atop the wheel and leans forward. “I’m sorry, Hollie. I’ve got to stop. We’re almost to Midland.”
