Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83718 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83718 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
I want to rush past him. If I could get my things and go without talking to him, maybe I could survive this crushing in my chest, this awful pain that’s so bad it steals my breath.
I make myself stop.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come home,” he says softly, standing.
Home. This isn’t my home. It can’t be. Even if I’d begun to imagine . . .
“We should talk.”
I nod and take a breath. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but I didn’t do anything with Jason that day I took him in my office.”
“I know.”
I jerk my head up, meeting his eyes. “You do?”
“The video looks bad.” He drags a hand through his hair, his frustration evident in every jerky moment. “But I watched it, and now I can see he spliced two clips together.”
I nod. I knew that the moment I saw it, and I planned to tell Brayden, but when he just accepted it as it was and assumed I’d let Jason touch me . . . Well, given what happened at the Christmas party, I couldn’t blame him for assuming anything. “I know.”
He lifts his hand to my face but drops it before he touches me. “Then why are you looking at me like this is over?”
“It was just a matter of time before something like this happened,” I say, reciting the speech I planned on my drive home. “I try to teach Noah that we have to be held accountable for our actions, and that’s all this is . . . me being held accountable for who I was.”
“Don’t let Austin off the hook like that. This was wrong and conniving and deceitful. You didn’t deserve any of this.”
I shrug. “But that doesn’t change anything. And you and I . . .” My whole body is shaking with the words I have to say. I don’t want to, but I don’t see an alternative. “This was a bad idea anyway.” I hardly recognize my own voice. The words come out too tight; I’m trying to push past the lump in my throat. “I really have to think of Noah first, and—”
“Cut the shit, Molly.”
I blink at him. “What?”
“I know you believe it—this line you feed me and everybody else about trying to protect your son—but it’s such bullshit. Noah and I are going to have a relationship no matter what happens to us. If you never give us a chance—if you walk away tonight and never speak another word to me—that won’t change the way I feel about that kid. He’s already part of my family, and if someday I fuck something up and hurt his feelings, I’ll hate it. But you and I both know that’s life. Sometimes the people we love make mistakes. But I’d never, never hurt him on purpose, no matter how much you hurt me. So please stop insulting me by pretending otherwise.”
I straighten my spine and wrap my arms around myself. “You have no idea what it’s like—”
“Don’t I?”
My eyes go wide. “To be a single mom? To scrape by, paycheck to paycheck? To not know if your decisions are going to hurt the most precious gift that’s ever been put into your care?” My heart races just thinking about it. Christmas. Our promises to Noah. How excited he is to spend Christmas morning with Brayden. I’ve already messed up. “With all due respect, Brayden, you don’t know.”
“I know what it’s like to be terrified of being hurt again. I know what it’s like to worry—deep down—that every fucked-up thing that’s happened in your life is your fault, that if you’d just been better, if you’d just been worthy, then maybe things wouldn’t have unfolded the way they did.” He takes a step closer, and this time I stay still. I let him press against me, let him lower his mouth to my ear when he whispers, “And I know you. I see you. You’re even more scared than I am, because he hurt you—betrayed you—in the worst way possible.”
That’s when I stumble back. At the he Brayden doesn’t need to name. At that ugly, secret history I wish Brayden had never known. “You don’t see me. You look at me and see a girl who was raped by her stepfather. You think you want me, but you really just want to save me.” The words are so raw that bile rises in my throat. “I already know you think I’m broken, and I’ll never be able to change what happened to me. I’ll never know what it’s like to have you look at me and see . . .” I turn my head and stare at the window and into the darkness, wishing I didn’t have to say more, wishing I could hide from him—from today and all of this.