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No apologies because I don’t want them.
She’s hurting with a pain so raw that I feel it.
But she’s here, and I want to keep her here, in my arms.
She can break here.
After all, even the most broken things can be put back together.
Twenty-Three
“Logan, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Claire chirps when she answers the phone.
“What happened to her, Claire?” I almost snap.
I had tried to collect my thoughts before making this phone call. I tried sleeping on it, but that only ended in me tossing and turning until I finally relented and went for a run at five a.m. Then, I saw a light switch on next door, and I knew she couldn’t sleep either. It took everything in me not to put one foot in front of the other and go to her.
My blood has been boiling, and nothing is cooling it down.
I can’t face Beth again until I get this under control, and I’ve convinced myself that the only way to do that is to understand.
When I finally peeled myself away from her, her eyes were swollen from crying. But after taking a deep breath, she scrubbed the flesh of her palms over her face, and the tears were gone. She acted as though it never happened.
Claire sighs. “Logan—”
“I know. I fucking know I’m not supposed to ask, and I know you can’t tell me, but I’m going out of my mind. My imagination is running riot,” I say, my patience wearing thin. “It's driving me crazy.”
“Is she okay? What happened?”
No, she’s not. Nothing about what I saw last night was okay.
“I don’t even know how to answer that. She dropped a glass last night, and it was like the life left her body. She was shaking. Couldn’t fucking speak. It was like she wasn’t even there.”
Another silence before she clears her throat. “That can be normal.”
“Normal?” I shout, but my jaw locks in anger, and it comes out as a frustrated growl. “That wasn’t normal.”
Her voice is sullen when she admits, “You know I can’t share details. It’s unethical, it’s not my story to tell, and I don’t even work with the shelter anymore. What I can tell you isn’t going to be what you want to hear, but it will be the truth. Whatever you’re imagining, she went through worse.”
“Fuck,” I grit, slamming my fist into the punching bag. I came home during lunch hour just to burn off the excess rage.
“Can you tell me exactly what happened?”
“We had dinner. She put the girls to bed. We had a beer. She handed me one. It fell and broke. That’s it.”
“You had dinner?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Were the girls there?”
“Yes.”
There’s hushed chatter before she’s back. “Sorry, I had to put you on speaker. Did she invite you to dinner?”
“No, I fucking barged in there and demanded one.”
“Friend or not, King, lower your fucking voice when you’re speaking to my wife.” That explains the whispering.
