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“How could Liv manage to play volleyball in both high school and college and never get hurt, but in the last two years has broken her wrist, hit her head on the cupboard, and been in a car accident?” he questioned.
“Car accident?” Jess asked. “When?”
“The weekend of her birthday,” he told them, more concerned seeing neither of them knew a thing about it.
“She wasn’t in an accident Sunday. I was with her at a play,” Jess said, shaking her head at him.
“She said it was Saturday I think with Anna.”
“No that’s impossible,” Dan stated. “I was out and saw Anna that night, Liv wasn’t with her, and I saw her car Monday it wasn’t damaged any.”
“Fucking hell,” he said closing his eyes as the truth hit him. The supposed clumsiness, the long sleeve tops even in the summer, her moods, Scott’s anger, his not wanting her to work, and especially Olivia’s derision to going home, it was all too much to be a coincidence. “She didn’t get bruised ribs from a car accident.”
“Then how?” Dan asked glancing from him to Jess then back again.
“Oh my god,” Jess gasped, her eyes turning towards Will is horror. “That play we saw, the wife in it was abused. I said she reminded me of the way Liv used to be at one point in it…oh god…no.”
“You think Scott…no way,” Dan said shaking his head.
“No?” Will asked looking at him intently. “Then tell me how she could be fine when Jess dropped her off after the play to fainting in my arms thenextafternoon? Her car didn’t have a scratch on it, so she didn’t wreck it that morning and she was with me the entire day up to that point.”
“You’re seriously suggesting that Scott…Scottis hitting her?” Dan asked. “Maybe she was hurting, and Jess just didn’t realize it.”
“If she’d been hurt Saturday night, Jess would have noticed it; she could barely get up and down. Think about it though, she doesn’t do anything without checking with Scott first; he nearly took your head off after that comment at the barbeque, nearly took me out when I was innocently trying to get Liv to take off her long-sleeve over-shirt because she was hot. Why else would she wear long sleeves all summer long? She hates scarves but yet she wears them more now than ever. She doesn’t let you just randomly hug her anymore either, does she?” he added to his friend whose brow rose in shock at the truth in that statement.
“Why wouldn’t she say anything though…especially to us?” Jess said feeling the tears prick her eyes.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because we all believed that she was happy we never looked to see if it were real or not,” he admitted, hating that he hadn’t seen it himself with everything else he’d seen in Olivia. “When she said she could come to Vancouver with me there was this relief in her and I bet anything the tears she let loose weren’t for Scott and his injury; they were because we had to come back.”
“You really think he’s hitting her?” Dan asked again.
“No, I think he’s beating her Dan, and I think it has to stop now.”
“If you’re right…I’ll kill him.”
“Oh my god, Dan, that’s why she wouldn’t say anything to us because he can kill her…really easily,” Jess said as she went back over the last couple years with her sister. “Or us…when I stopped in to see if she wanted to come to that play, she came in and there was this look on her face that I couldn’t understand, it faded the instant she saw me smiling though. What if…what if he didn’t just threaten her?”
“Slow down,” Dan stated, trying to calm the two of them. “We’ve gone from thinking that Liv and Scott have the perfect marriage to thinking in about twominutesthat he’s beating her and what? Threatening the rest of us?”
“What does Liv love more than anything else?” Will asked, staring him down, not about to risk anything happening to Liv he were right—and deep down, no matter how much he hated it, he knew he was right.
“Us,” Jess answered. “We need to talk to Mom and Dad.”
“We do,” Dan agreed, a bit on the fence still Will saw, but at least not telling them to slow down again.
An hour later they were waiting for Liv to show up, and Will’s heart raced wildly hoping this was the right way to go about it.
“Hey, I thought we were meeting at the bar not here,” Olivia said when they answered the door to her parents’ place. “What’s going on?”
“Where’s Scott?” Jess asked forcing a smile onto her lips.
“Working, they had to drive out of town to talk with a suspect,” she replied, giving them a grin that was exceedingly forced. “Would someone tell me what’s going on; you’re all acting weirder than the year you tried to throw a surprise birthday party for me.”
“Livy…we know,” Jess stated walking her over to the couch.
“Know what?”
“We know what’s really going on with you Liv,” Will answered her. “Why didn’t you tell us, sweetie?”
