“Maybe part of me wanted him to try convincing me to stay, but I also didn’t expect that. Because he knew why I hid in his closet, and how many times I locked myself in mine to avoid the bullshit I always had to hear. He knew the missed birthdays, and the cop calls, and the police reports. That boy telling me no was the only gift I’d ever gotten in life. He let me leave.”
Aiden’s nostrils twitch, and there’s a blanket of something damp forming in those icy eyes I used to be obsessed with. “I’m not angry that you didn’t come along with me, Aiden. I was okay with that. Happy, even. It meant that you were going after your dream to play football. You didn’t risk messing up your life like I did mine because I was sick of being stuck in a rut.” My throat gets thick, cramming with emotion that I swallow. “So, no. I’m not holding anything against you. The only grudge I have is that life couldn’t have given me a better home that I wouldn’t have wanted to run away from.”
With that, I lift my shoulders dismissively and stand up when the washing machine stops spinning. Walking over with a rolling basket to transfer my things to the dryer, I try ignoring the eyes I feel on me, and the heat when footsteps near my back as I throw in a dryer sheet, close the door to the large machine, and shuffle through my wallet to gather change.
Before I can put any in, I hear the telltale signs of quarters being dropped into the slot in front of me. Peeking through my lashes, I see long, tan fingers, sliding in each coin slowly before he says, “I waited. I remembered when you’d locked yourself in your room for a day and a half before your parents ever knocked to check on you. So, after two days passed from when you’d said goodbye, I told my parents you’d left, and they went and told yours. I waited.”
He gave me time.
Almost so quietly I can barely hear myself, I say, “Thank you.”
He inserts the last coin and watches me play with the settings until I have it on what I want, then press the button to start the load. It isn’t until then that he takes my arm closest to him, slowly lifts the sleeve, and flips it around to face him.
My heart pounds when his thumb runs over the scar, and it’s a sensation I can’t describe. I don’t like the touch, but I don’t hate it either. I’d rather pretend the markings aren’t there, and Aiden makes it impossible when he does stuff like this. “They grounded me. Said I should have told them sooner because—” His voice grows hoarse. “—something bad could have happened to you. Something bad did happen, didn’t it?”
I can’t look him in the eye, and my energy is low, so I don’t even try yanking my arm back even though he’s close to discovering all the other marks if he moves the sleeve higher. They’re the same ones that coat my inner thighs, outcomes of every stupid choice I made since getting on that bus instead of listening to Aiden or my mother. “What didn’t happen to me?”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Iv—”
“You don’t want to hear it,” I snip at him, this time finding the effort to jerk out of his hold and lower my sleeve back down. “You don’t want to hear about the places I stayed, and how I afforded it…” I stop myself realizing that’s exactly what he needs to hear if I want him to leave me alone. He’ll see I’m not a worthy cause anymore—not the same Ivy he took under his wing all that time ago. “I slept with people. Lost my virginity to a 33-year-old when I was only sixteen because I thought why not? Not everybody wanted something from me, but I rarely ever fought the ones who did because I had nothing to lose. I’ve had a lot of sex with a lot of people and done things I’m not the proudest of. Pot, ecstasy, sometimes I’d be offered harder stuff by the people I stayed with and I’d be so tempted to take it if it meant getting out of my head for a while. I managed to say no though.
“But this?” I gesture toward my wrist with my distressed gaze. “This was all me. It wasn’t the drugs or the guys that led me to making this decision. It was desperation. The doctor called it a cry for help.”
His throat bobs. “Nobody told me.”
“I was eighteen,” I explain, wrapping my arms around myself. “I didn’t have to tell them anything, so my parents weren’t contacted. I wasn’t even in New York at the time.”
I’d been in Vermont, and the hospital I was brought to only asked the questions they needed to. My I.D. had confirmed my age, and the fact I had no insurance or way to pay for the care I’d received. I had a plan to run in between nursing shifts, but then one of the hospital counselors walked into my room and handed me a pamphlet all about a program that helped cover the cost of hospital visits for people with no insurance. I’d qualified, got to stay an extra day, get fluids, get my bandages changed, but by day three, they’d walked into my room to find nothing but an empty bed, a discarded gown, clean bandages missing, and my personal belongings gone. I wasn’t about to risk anybody finding next of kin to collect me or let them haul me off to some sort of asylum to get help I couldn’t afford.
“I shouldn’t have let you go,” is what he finally says to break the silence that’s thickening the atmosphere around us.
I shrug. “But you did. And I’m glad.”
He goes to reach for me, but I take a step back, halting when he states, “I won’t make that mistake twice, Ivy.”
Blinking slowly, I gape at the massive man built on muscles, lean protein, and hard work. “That’s not up to you, Aiden.”
“You didn’t miss me?”
Every day.
But I say nothing.
“You didn’t regret leaving?”
Stop talking.
He manages to grab ahold of my hand, threading our fingers together like he needs the connection more than air itself. “You don’t hate me?”
This time with my silence comes a hand squeeze that causes me to look up at him with a wary expression weighing my lips downward.
I’m not sure what’s going on in his mind, but his jaw moves back and forth and the tendons in his neck tighten. “I dare you to hate me, Ivy. Because we both know you don’t. You couldn’t even if you tried.”
Because he gave me time.
I let out a tiny breath and unwind our fingers. “Thanks for the change,” I murmur, distancing myself from him again.
His lips twitch into a frown before they settle into a flat line that shows his feelings about the matter. Hurt and anger—it’s all in the narrowed blue eyes lined with thick, long lashes that make the bright tones pop that much more.
“We’re not finished,” he informs me.
But we are.
We have been for a while.
Chapter Seven
Aiden
Coach Pearce screams at us to reel it in after another bad practice, leaving us all in shit moods by the time we make it to the locker room drenched in sweat and bitter as hell. Half of us are dragging, and the other half are bitching about the newbies on the team.
DJ and Caleb are grumbling over Justin Brady’s ACL injury that’s going to leave us with the second string alternate whose team spirit is about as nonexistent as Ivy’s is these days.