I shut up the incessant voice long enough to think. Violet was at college. Who else did she know? Amber?
And suddenly, I knew. The one place to go when the rest of the world was fucked.
Wheels squealed as I tore the Buick out of my complex and headed toward the coast. I screeched into a spot in the parking lot and ran as fast as I could along the beach path, tripping over rocks in the dark, slamming my knee into a boulder.
I saw the light of the bonfire first and then there she was.
Thank Christ…
Shiloh was sitting in one of our beach chairs, three of my beer bottles sticking out of the sand around her feet, a fourth in her hand. Blearily, she watched the fire and lifted the bottle to her lips. I couldn’t blame her. I wanted to get plowed and pretend like that night never happened too.
Except she can’t drink.
“Shiloh?”
She swiveled her head, and it was obvious she was wasted. She could hardly keep her eyes open, swaying in her seat.
“Ronan…” she said and then pitched to the side and puked.
“Fuck.”
I hurried to her, held her hair out of her face as she retched up all the beer. Her body was shaking from the cold and the allergic reaction she was having to the alcohol.
When she finished, she lay back against the chair, eyes closed and shivering.
“Hold on, baby,” I said. “Just…hold on.”
I hurried to the Shack for the small stash of blankets we’d collected over the winter and grabbed one.
“Who am I?” Shiloh asked, her head lolling as I wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. “I’m a mistake. No. Worse than a mistake.”
“You’re not a fucking mistake,” I said, kneeling in front of her, face to face. I pulled the blanket tight around her. “You need to get home…”
“A mistake, at least, isn’t violent. What I am…” She shook her head. “I’m a violation.”
I clenched my teeth to hear the pain in her words.
“Shiloh, look at me. You’re not…that. You’re…”
Everything good and beautiful in my life.
But I’d ruined hers. I clenched my jaw. “Come on. We have to get you home.”
Shiloh shuddered, her face flush, and retched again, dry heaving and gasping for air.
“I’m empty,” she said when she caught her breath. Her bleary brown eyes met mine, tears shining in them. “There’s nothing in me because there’s nothing in me. I’m…nothing.”
“Stop talking like that,” I said, lifting her from the chair. “The last fucking thing you are is nothing.”
You’re everything to me and I fucked it all up.
“I’m sorry, Shiloh,” I said, holding her tight to me. “So fucking sorry.”
But she’d already—mercifully—passed out, so I began to walk.
Chapter Thirty
I don’t remember walking to the Shack. After chugging the beer I found in the guys’ mini fridge, the night turned hazy. As if I were submerged in a dark pond, wading through the murk. A million times better than the sharp, piercing light of reality. Images burned in my eyes—the glitter of broken glass, like diamonds. The black slashes of spray paint. The horrified expressions on my family’s faces. The pity.
And lurking beneath all that, Mama’s truth.
Better to drown.
I vomited at the beach. At home. Someone gave me water and I vomited again. I lost track of the hours. Lost track of where I was. I lay in bed and Bibi put a cold cloth to my face. The next instant, I was in the bathroom, kneeling at the toilet.
The hours ebbed and flowed around me in that murk. Ronan’s deep voice spoke to me in hushed undertones. Bibi soothed. Both tried to get me to look at them. To talk to them. Both tried to tell me it was going to be okay. When I wasn’t sick, I lay curled away from them, facing the wall, shudders running through me. The alcohol poisoned me but not nearly as bad as the rest.
Mama…
Finally, my body had purged itself to the point of exhaustion and I slept.
Sunlight was coming through the windows in my room the next time I opened my eyes. Midday, maybe. Ronan was sitting on the floor against my bed, head down. I watched him for a few moments, the rise and fall of his chest.
God, I loved him. It felt impossible I could love him as much as I did. But how could he look at me now that he knew the truth?
Ronan stirred, and I rolled away again, curling up tight.
“Shiloh…”
I squeezed my eyes shut and after a while he gave up. I slept.
When I woke next, the light was honey-colored twilight and Ronan was gone.
He left me.
In the deepest part of my soul, the thought didn’t ring true, but I wanted to leave me. I wanted to crawl out of this skin and into someone else’s body. Someone who was created with love out of partnership. Being an accident, like I’d been raised to believe, was better than this. Anything was better than knowing I was the product of my mother’s nightmare.
I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest. I was in my underwear, the dress for my grand opening hopefully in the trash. Or burned. The alcohol was out of my system and the murky drunkenness was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts, clear and naked.
My shop…
I sucked in a breath, unwilling to let the torrent of pain come flooding out. If I cried over my shop, my mother’s revelation would follow, and then I might not stop.
A soft knock came at my door, and Bibi poked her head in.
“Shiloh?”
“I’m awake,” I said, my voice a hoarse croak. “You must have a sixth sense.”
“Of course, I do. You’re my girl.” Bibi sat on the edge of my bed and cocked her head. “How we doing, baby?”
I shrugged. “My store is ruined and my father’s a rapist. That’s how I’m doing.”
Bibi sighed and took my hand. “Oh, honey…”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “I don’t know how to talk about it. Or what to think or feel except…horrified. Disgusted. Dirty. I feel so dirty, Bibi…”
“Now don’t you talk like that. There’s nothing you did wrong. Nothing wrong with you. Not one thing.”
I was too exhausted to argue, and it was useless anyway.
“Where is everyone?”
“They’re back at the hotel, ready to come over the minute you feel up to it.”
I was already shaking my head. “Tell them to go home. Tell them thank you, but they should go home.”
Because how can I ever look them in the eye again?
“Come on,” Bibi said. “Let’s get you a shower. Get some food in you. You need to eat. Then you’ll feel better and can think more clearly. When you’ve rested up, we can work out what to do about your shop—”
“My shop.” I scoffed. “There is no shop, Bibi.”
She pursed her lips, her expression harder than I’d ever seen it. “Now you listen to me, Shiloh. What happened last night was bad. Very, very bad. And you’re allowed to feel all kinds of ways about it. But you cannot give up. Do you hear me?”
Giving up sounded really good right about then. All the work I’d done—years’ worth—was teetering on the edge of a high cliff. Barely hanging on.