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She’d been trying to sleep in the frigid cold, and then here we’d come, a massacre of drunk assholes into her life.
Conner uses his key, and the sound alerts me he’s here.
“Hey,” he says, dropping down on the ottoman in front of me. His eyes look as if he’s annoyed with me. “I really wished this wouldn’t happen,” he says, tousling his hair before dropping his keys next to him.
I quirk a brow.
“You haven’t remembered all this time, so I did worry with her close to you that you might start to recall that night. I hoped not though. She needed a job, and I needed to do something for her that...” he trails off, looking into the fake flames dancing on the heater.
“You needed to make up for what happened,” I realize.
He nods, not looking at me as he does.
“What did I do?” I ask him, voice crackling under the weight of the world as I try to wrap my mind around being the cause of the scared, guarded look in Carina’s eyes. I didn’t deserve to have the moments I’ve had with her. But it makes me wonder why the fuck she’d want to even be near me if she remembers.
It makes no sense.
“I don’t know what all you did, to be honest. I went looking for you when you didn’t come back to the living room. I found you in that bathroom. She was on the floor unconscious, and you were covered in her blood. Her pants were down, and you were in the corner, frantic.”
His words stab through me, causing me to wince at the pressure of them.
“I brutalized her,” I choke out, a heaviness making me dizzy as I admit to something I hadn’t thought I’d done this entire time. I knew there was a girl there that night, but I thought that she’d gotten out safely. Conner and I had talked Wes and Declan out of touching her, only for me to turn around and let some foul inner beast out to turn on Carina.
He closes his eyes. “It looked to me like you did, yes. I panicked. I tugged you out of there and took you home. The fire happened, and I didn’t know if she got out alive until I saw her in school two weeks later. I lived two fucking weeks not knowing if my actions had killed her. But I’ve lived my entire life with the knowledge that my actions helped bury what you did.”
I swallow past the density of what he’s telling me, standing, and placing my hands on my head, so I can breathe. “I should’ve helped her. But instead, I hurt her.”
Conner stands, placing his hands on my chest and grounding me. “Look at me,” he says. “You were fucked up. You were high and drunk, and it doesn’t excuse it, but you’re not that man.”
“Aren’t I?” I ask, shoving him back. “Just last week I saw fear in her eyes when I got too close to her in her office, and it turned me the fuck on. I pushed her. I unnerved her more instead of backing off and taking a beat. I’m a fucking monster, and just because it’s buried deep within doesn’t mean it still isn’t there!” I shout, fever settling in my bones as whiskey takes hold of my insides.
“I need to go to the cops. I need to turn myself in. I shouldn’t be rolling in fucking money and protections. I should be locked away. I’m fucking insane!” I tell him, heading for my room for shoes and a shirt.
“Hey,” Conner shouts, grabbing me by the arm and stopping me. “You’re not going anywhere. The statute of limitations is up even if you turn yourself in. But what good would it do? You have the chance now to make it up to her. To make her life better. Do that. Repent for what you’ve done with how you act going forward.”
My chest seizes under the burden of my actions. I don’t think he understands how I feel. I don’t know myself. And that’s a big deal for a person on a mental level. Knowing yourself is half of how you move through life with confidence and ease. I now have to work to figure out who I truly am, and from what I saw in my dream, I don’t know if I want to look inward. I might not like what I find.
* * *
“The papersyou asked to be edited, sir,” a voice says, plopping down a file onto my desk as I hold my head in my hands. Last night’s dream mixed with the whiskey I’d used to forget it, is pounding through my head this morning.
I look up and see Carina standing in front of me, eyeing me warily. I stand, chair going flying as I scramble for what to say. Conner was explicit in his orders not to make her relive it. Not to say shit to anyone. I don’t know how I can, though. But looking at her, I wonder how I could say anything, either. I don’t want to bring it back to the surface for her. Or does she live with it every single day? Am I the asshole who thinks she’s somehow forgotten whatever it is I did to her?
“Sir? Are you okay?” she asks me, cocking her head. She moves to walk around the desk to check on me, and I back away, throwing my arms up in the air.
“I’m fine. Don’t come any closer,” I almost shout.
She stops abruptly, eyes narrowing. “Listen, I’m sorry I slammed the door the other day, I had company, and I didn’t want it to get weird.”
Lies. She’s lying. Carina has a very expressive face, and you can tell every time she lies, but I can’t call her on it because I’m a fucking liar too.
“It’s forgotten. I don’t feel good, and I don’t want to share if I’m contagious.”
She nods, smiling broadly. “Well, that’s kind of you, sir.”
When she turns to walk out, I avert my eyes. I can feel the shift between us, and I’m sure she can too. No longer is there thrumming attraction burning through me. Only thoughts and feelings of remorse and anger at myself.
One memory had changed the course of us in an instant. Which, logically, that night had changed the course of her life. So, I got the easier end of it. I always do.
