I break away. I turn away from her, my hands linked behind my head as I try to sort through the murk and muck swirling around my brain. When I spin back around, Cora’s arms are folded across her breasts, her armor up, her gaze pointed at her freshly painted toenails. I inhale sharply. “You were pregnant?”
Cora sucks her bottom lip between her teeth as she scratches at her wrist and spares me the smallest glance. She looks flustered as she replies, “Yes.”
I crack on the exhale. “Jesus. Are you okay?”
A shoulder shrug. That’s all she gives me.
“Cora…”
“My HCG levels were high enough to indicate a pregnancy had occurred. But there was nothing on the ultrasound, so they told me it was either a chemical pregnancy or I miscarried early—likely when Earl kicked me until he broke six of my ribs, then tossed me down a flight of stairs like I was a bag of trash.”
She keeps scratching her wrist.
“Fuck, Corabelle…” I run a palm over my face, reeling from the knowledge that our three weeks of hell created a life—as fleeting as it was. A thought pokes me and I add, “Do you know if it was… mine?”
I watch her cheeks burn as she stares off behind my shoulder, bobbing one knee up and down. “No. There’s no way to know,” she says, refusing to look me in the eyes. Refusing to acknowledge what that question implies. “It wasn’t viable.”
I look down at the cream-colored carpet, zoning in on a matching tuff of dog hair. “You should have told me when you found out.”
I feel her eyes on me again, but I don’t look up.
“Told you? When, Dean?” Her tone is strained—accusatory. “When you were shutting me out? When you decided to abandon me after everything we went through?”
“I just needed time, Cora.”
“How much time? I noticed the look on your face when you saw me standing in the kitchen tonight. You looked like you saw a ghost,” she says, heated and ready to break. “You didn’t want me to be here.”
“That’s not true…”
“It is true. You probably would have avoided me forever.”
I spare a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure no one is standing outside the door, then I take a step forward and whisper harshly, “I raped you.”
Cora presses her lips together, her eyes glossing over. “You did what you had to do to get us out of there. I told you to do it. That’s not rape.”
“You didn’t want it. That is rape,” I counter.
We avoid the elephant in the room: the fact that maybe we both wanted it that final day.
“I wanted to live,” Cora insists, taking her own step closer to me, her voice low. “I would have done almost anything to survive at that point.”
“Everything okay?”
We spin around, moving away from each other in the process, to find Bridget standing in the doorway, her hand against the frame as she leans into the room. I swallow, bowing my head.
Cora clears her throat. “We’re just catching up, Mom. Sorry I bailed… we’ll be out in a minute.”
I raise my chin, watching as Bridget gives us a tight-lipped smile and that ‘worried mother’ look before retreating back down the hallway.
Catching up.
Like we’re two old friends reconnecting over margaritas.
Nope—just chatting about rape and abuse and miscarriages, wondering how the fuck we’re ever going to move past this and just be us again.
Cora releases a long sigh, dropping her arms to her sides and glancing up at me. “We should get back to dinner. I’m sure Blizzard is eyeing my dissected meatloaf.”
I’m about to ask her, What now? Where do we go from here? When can we talk again?
But she sweeps past me, daffodils and passionfruit and so many unknowns lingering on my skin as she disappears out the door. I watch her go with gritted teeth, hopelessness swimming through my veins.
We are bound, chained, tied—to our trauma and to each other.
We’re in this together.
And yet, I’ve never felt more alone.
Chapter Fourteen
I zone out as I stare into my refrigerator, eyeing the assortment of fresh groceries Mandy just dropped off. I told her she didn’t need to do that—I’m more than capable, and I sure as shit don’t have anything else to do since I’m not back to work yet. But she insisted, carrying inside two brown paper bags filled to the brim, tucked under both arms.
Mandy is now wiping down my countertops as she fixes me a sandwich. “How are you feeling? Did your appointment with Dr. Dryden go well?”
I blink into the yellow light, not fully registering her question even though I heard it. I stare at the head of broccoli, fairly certain I can make out a vague outline of Pat Sajak. If I just tilt my head a little to the left…
Is he still alive? Is Wheel of Fortune still a thing?
“Dean, did you hear me?”
I glance up. Mandy is standing in front of me, holding out a sandwich on a paper plate. Her heavily painted eyes are narrowed, slicing me with concern. I close the refrigerator and force a smile. “Yeah, it went okay.”
She sighs with relief, her worried lips turning up into a toothy grin. “Good. You’re being honest with him?”
Honest? Well, I’m not outright lying. But I’m certainly not revealing everything. Dr. Dryden knows I killed a man, but he doesn’t know it was her face I envisioned, the images of her dignity being dismantled, that drove my fists into those savage, fatal blows. He knows I was forced to watch Cora get raped and abused, but he doesn’t know that I, myself, was forced between her legs with a pistol to my head.
Dr. Dryden knows a lot, but he doesn’t know about the real ghosts that haunt me and keep me up at night.
So, I guess I’m lying by omission.
“Yeah,” I reply, taking the plate from Mandy’s outstretched hands. “I’m being honest.”
Now I’m lying to my fiancé.
Mandy nods her head, her perfectly coifed hair bobbing over her cashmere sweater. More relief. More smiles. “I’m proud of you, Dean. I know it’s not easy to—”
I spit out the bite of sandwich as soon as it touches my tongue, dropping the plate and wiping at my mouth with the back of my hand. “This is turkey?”
Mandy gapes at me, her glossy lips parted with alarm. “Y-Yes. You love turkey.”
“I don’t love turkey.”
“I thought…”
I close my eyes, shoving the painful flashbacks away as I shake my head. “I don’t love it anymore.” I trek backwards out of the small kitchen, trying to control my breathing. “I think I need a nap.”
“Dean…” Mandy follows me to the couch, sitting down beside me, closer than I’d prefer, and grazes her super-sized fingernails that resemble talons along my knee. “I’m here for you, babe. What can I do?”
I think over all the things she can do, but she won’t like any of them.
Go home.
Stay home.
Give me some fucking space.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, guilt soaring through me in waves. I hate that I’m pushing away my girlfriend of fifteen years—I know she’s only trying to help. I know she cares and wants me to get better. But I feel like an entirely different man, and I’m not even sure this man wants to marry this woman anymore.