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“What?” I yell, my voice cracking. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“He’s already got his hooks into you,” Jane sobs. “Hasn’t he? He can be so charming.”
“Mom,” I say. “Is it true?”
“They were engaged. He left her…”
“Say it, Vee,” Jane spits.
“At the altar,” Mom finishes.
“But he hit you, Aunt Jane?”
She looks at me. Her lips tremble. It’s like she hesitates. “Y-yes.”
I want to ask Mom, Did you see that? But then I might as well just come right out and call Jane a liar. I can’t imagine him doing that, hitting a woman, hitting his fiancée who’d just lost her child.
“Didn’t he, Vee?” Jane says, and that’s when she goes too far.
Mom sighs. “I wasn’t there, Jane.”
“But you saw the bruise.”
“Yes, I saw the bruise.”
My belly cramps. Suddenly, I turn, duck my head, and start running. Tears are in my eyes, making the world blurry, and I wish I could keep going. Get away from everything and everybody. Then I won’t have to think about any of this.
I burst into the kitchen. Max is waiting for me, his hand resting on the counter. For a second, I’m sure I’m going to kiss him. I won’t be able to stop myself, even if Jane might see us through the window.
“Is it true?” I whisper.
“It depends on what you’re asking.”
“Were you engaged?” I snap.
He clenches his jaw and nods. “Yeah.”
“And you got her pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“She lost the baby, and then you left her at the altar?”
He tilts his head, taking a moment. “I don’t want to come between you and your family.”
“That’s not a fucking answer, Max!” I yell.
“I left her at the altar.”
“And then you fought… and you hit her?”
He takes a step forward, then another one. There isn’t a single piece of me that thinks he’d ever hurt me, even when he stands up tall, every muscle swelling, his hands trembling into tight fists. “Is that what you think? That I beat the shit out of her?”
“She said you hit her.”
“So her story is, she loses the baby, I leave her at the altar, then drag her to a goddamn MMA cage and go ten full rounds with her. What sort of… Do you think I’d do that, Ellie?”
Suddenly, the door to my left opens. A thin woman stands there in a baggy T-shirt and denim shorts. She’s got tattoos winding up her leg. Her hair looks messy but in a cool, sexy way. She’s wearing a choker necklace. She looks like she just got out of Max’s bed. That’s what she looks like, which is all too damn much. It’s like everything’s closing in around me.
“I don’t know what you’re capable of,” I scream and run.
I’m not sure I even mean it. I’m not sure what I even mean, except now I’m thinking of Jane and Max together, and this woman and Max.
He said he owned me, but that was just talk.
I walk to the fence. Jane is pacing up and down. “Well? Did he admit it?”
“We’re going home.” I look over my shoulder, wondering, maybe partly hoping he’s following me, but he’s standing at the window. The woman is at his side. It’s too far away to tell if they’re touching. “Now, Jane.”
“Oh, God, did he hurt you?” Jane asks.
“He didn’t fucking hurt me!” I shout. “God, I just want to leave.”
I walk to the gate and press the release button. It starts to open with a metal whining noise. I press my face against the window in the back of Jane’s car. The world is getting blurry again. I watch the trees and the countryside, struggling to believe this is happening. It wasn’t that long ago we were kissing, me and the man of my dreams.
He was just my professor. A little naughty, a little taboo, fine, but just my professor. Now, I have to think of him and Jane and his baby inside her. He didn’t deny that bit.
“You should thank me,” Jane says after around twenty minutes.
“Leave it.”
“I’m just saying…” Jane glares at me in the rearview. “You should. I know you seem to doubt my story if your bitchy expression is anything to go by, but I got you away from that man. I did what a good aunt is supposed to do.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll talk to Mom when I get home.”
“The world’s a funny place, isn’t it?” Jane says, as if I haven’t spoken. “What are the chances you’d fall for him? Like aunt, like niece, huh?”
“It was just a tattoo,” I whisper.
Jane winks at me in the rearview mirror. “Oh, I’m sure that’s all it was.”
“I’m not quitting college,” I say.
Mom glances at the door before she replies. She asked Aunt Jane to give us some time alone together. Jane stormed from the room, shutting the door with a huff. I wonder if Mom’s thinking about her eavesdropping.
