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I wrap a hand around the back of my neck and take the plunge. “Can we talk?”
All she has to do is say no. Bite my head off for waking her up and tell me to go fuck myself. That’ll be my sign that this was a terrible idea, and I’ll never try it again.
“Sure.” She sits up in bed and turns on the bedside lamp.
I walk over to the bed and sit down on the side, near her legs. Fear claws at my neck, begging me to stay silent. The fewer people who know the truth, the better.
I’ve come this far, though. I look at the wall, unable to meet her gaze.
“It’s about what happened with us that morning,” I start. “Well, more than just that.”
“Okay,” she says softly.
Okay. Here we go.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mila
“I don’t want your pity,” Colby says, his eyes still focused on the wall.
“I don’t pity you.”
“I mean after I tell you this. I want to explain myself, but…” He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, scrubbing his hands down his face. “I don’t want to talk about it again after tonight.”
“Okay.”
I can’t fathom what he’s about to tell me, and what it might have to do with what happened between us. In the past month, we’ve hardly spoken. I try to be in his home as little as possible when he’s here.
He won’t even look at me, and I worry he’ll do something to spite me, like tell a reporter I backed him into a fraudulent marriage to avoid deportation. Elle Lawrence would eat that shit for breakfast.
Peter has made progress with making political allies to help me out of my situation, but it’s slow going. He’s establishing relationships; doing small favors for a few politicians to build trust. Soon, he plans to choose one to throw our full support behind, and even then, he won’t immediately ask for help with Mills. It’s a waiting game, and it’s excruciating when I know Colby could blow my entire life up with just a phone call.
“My dad isn’t a good man,” he says. “I guess we have that in common.”
I nod, the thought of my war criminal father leaving a bad taste in my mouth. But this isn’t about me, so I remain silent, just listening.
Colby sighs heavily. It pains me to see him suffering this way, shame clearly heavy on his shoulders.
“He abused my mother,” he continues, his voice flat and void of emotion. “And occasionally me. But you know how it goes—Mom tried to make herself the target instead of me and Heath, and since I was the older brother, I tried to make myself the target instead of him.”
I’ve heard family members discussing horrible things as casually as most people discuss the weather. But imagining Colby experiencing abuse as a little boy cracks my heart. My father was cold, harsh, and mostly absent from my life when I was a kid. But he never raised a hand to me, and he would have arranged a painful death for anyone who did.
“When I was thirteen, he beat my mom up worse than he ever had before. Because the electric bill was high. He opened it and lost his shit on her. Said it had to be her fault.” He stands, pacing across the room but still not looking at me. “My brother and I were at school and we both got called out of class. My mom crawled out of the house to a neighbor’s and they called an ambulance.”
Silence hangs between us. I want to give him space to say what he needs to, but it’s hard not to go over and hug him.
“She almost died,” he says, walking over to a chair in the corner of the room and sitting down. “Her back and both arms were broken. The doctors didn’t think they’d be able to get the swelling in her brain down.”
I close my eyes, aching for him. Thirteen years old. He had to be terrified seeing his mother like that. Nothing I’ve ever been through compares.
When I open my eyes and look at him, the anguish in his eyes is too much. My vision blurs and silent tears spill over. This is why he couldn’t spank me harder—because his father abused his mother. And I was an asshole, demanding to know why.
“I am so sorry,” I say, unable to keep my voice level.
There aren’t words to convey the remorse I feel. For what he went through and for giving him the silent treatment for the past month.
“She made it,” he says, his gaze finally meeting mine. “But she was in the hospital for more than a month and then in different rehabilitation centers.”
“And your dad?”
“He went to prison for eighteen months. I ended up moving in with my youth hockey coach and his family, and Heath lived with a friend’s family. I was able to keep playing hockey, but he wasn’t.”
