Groaning, I flip onto my back, the coloring book abandoned. Of course, I’ve fallen for him. I’m not an idiot. I started falling for him the day we met, and I haven’t stopped falling since.
“That doesn’t change how I need to handle this,” I tell Lo, my eyes fixed to the beamed ceiling in our small house. It’s in a great neighborhood, but our place is small—just the right size for Sarai and me. A tiny square of grass serves as our backyard, and we have a lemon tree that scents the air when we sit outside. There’s a second-hand . . . okay, third- or fourth-hand car in the driveway, purchased with a little bit of the money MiMi left for Lo and me to split. It’s not much, but it’s all mine.
“When I told you to change your course,” Lo says, bringing me back, her eyes and voice matched for seriousness, “I didn’t just mean find a job. There’s a life out there, girl. You are not just somebody’s mama.”
“And I’m not just somebody’s woman either,” I say curtly. “Believe me. I’ve been that.”
“Don’t let Caleb win, Bo.”
Since Lo helped me escape and already knows what happened, she’s really my only outlet to speak freely about it. That NDA keeps me locked down, but it’s also the agreement that gave me my freedom.
“I’m not letting him win.” I sit, finding her eyes and looking at her straight. “I just have reservations.”
“About August?”
I shrug, not sure where my reservations stem from, but sure that I have them.
“It’s hard to trust again,” I admit. “I missed all the signs with Caleb. The jealousy and possessiveness. Pressing for deeper commitment than I was ready for. Isolating me from the people I care about. When you’re that wrong about someone, it makes you cautious.”
“And that’s it?” Lotus presses.
“I also worry about what Caleb will think—what he’ll do.”
“Excuse me?” Lo’s face wears full-coverage indignation. “What’s that sombitch got to do with anything?”
“He hates August. Hell, August hates Caleb, too.” I plow a nervous hand through my hair. “You know it was Caleb’s dirty play that broke August’s leg two seasons ago, right? He did that on purpose, Lo. And he told me he’d do worse if I got involved with August.”
“He can’t do a thing to either of you now.”
“That’s easy to say when it’s not you,” I say bitterly. “You have no idea.”
“So now we gonna compare rape stories?” Lo asks softly. “Is that it?”
“Oh, God. No.” I rush to the couch to sit and grab her hand. “I didn’t mean it that way. I know you know how it feels to be violated. I just meant . . .” How do I make her understand the depths to which Caleb sank to control me?
“Caleb is crazy. Like truly crazy.” I close my eyes against a torrent of nightmarish memories. “The things I’m holding over him only work if he cares about his career and his endorsements and everything else more than he cares about . . .” I don’t want to make my fears more real by voicing them.
“More than he cares about you?” Lo finishes for me.
“Yeah.” I hesitate before going on. “He was obsessed with me. I know that sounds self-absorbed or conceited or something, but it’s true.”
“I’ve seen his crazy, Bo. You don’t have to convince me.”
“He threatened to hurt August again if I didn’t stay away from him. He threatened to hurt you, too.”
“Me?” Lo touches her chest. “The hell. I’d like to see him try.”
“I told you before he knew your address by heart. Knew your schedule and where you worked in New York. I didn’t even know that.”
“I know.” Lo’s thick brows converge above the outrage in her eyes. “I just hate that he used me against you.
The walls feel like they’re closing in on me even discussing the invisible but very real chains Caleb used to hold onto me.
“Everyone who meant anything to me, he used against me, and he’d do it again and worse if he got the chance.” I shake my head. “Seeing me and August together—I just hope it doesn’t push him over the edge. That’s part of my hesitation, too.”
“You can’t live your life in fear of him, though.”
“Sometimes it’s the fear that keeps you alive, Lo. I learned a lot from this experience. I learned that people are really cavalier with other people’s lives.”
“What’s that mean?”
“They tell women to ‘just leave’, and they say ‘you’re so weak to stay.’” My words tumble out of me faster than I can process. “Yes, there are women who stay too long. Yes, there are women who accept abuse, confused that somehow it’s still love. That wasn’t me, but I knew that if I tried to leave and failed, he would kill me.”
Lo stares at me in silence for a few moments. I can tell she thinks I’m being melodramatic, and I have to make her understand.
“Seventy percent of domestic-abuse homicides occur when the woman tries to leave. That means that when a lot of these motherfuckers say ‘I’ll kill you if you leave me,’ they mean it.” A sob catches in my throat, but I shove it back down, determined to have my say with a strong, unwavering voice. “Imagine if I’d left and he got partial custody of Sarai. That monster having my daughter on the weekends? Never.”
“That wouldn’t have happened,” Lo says, but she sounds less certain than she did when we first began.
“Oh, yes, it would have. He’s rich, famous, has the best lawyers money can buy, and no prior offenses. Sports, especially at his level, is so insular, and they protect their own. I’ve seen it for myself. Behind every woman who comes out telling her story, there’s a line of officers, staff, coaches, and people who should have helped, who knew and did nothing.”
Hurt, outrage, and fury throw a tantrum inside of me. I pause to draw a calming breath before going on. “He wouldn’t have gotten more than a slap on the wrist, and that’s if anyone believed me.”
I gather my hair back from my face and link my hands behind my neck. It’s an impractical justice, a woman having to share custody with the man who tried to kill her because his parental rights should be protected.
“People have no idea what some women go through behind closed doors or what keeps them there.” I shake my head. “That was me, living a lie and getting beaten up by the truth until I found my way out. And I don’t know if I’ll ever really get over it.”
“You will.” Lo tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, and I flinch.
“See?” My laugh comes out slightly hysterical. “He used to do that. He’d push my hair behind my ear so gently, but with his gun.”
“Shit, Bo,” Lo says, anger and horror taking up arms in her expression.
“You know I still sleep curled at the edge of the bed because it’s the only way I can. I didn’t want our bodies touching while we slept.” Tears clog my throat, and a few escape my eyes no matter how much I will myself not to cry. “I didn’t want him that close when I was asleep, but he wouldn’t let me sleep anywhere else.”