“Would you, umm, would you…” Her voice trembles, making my chest tighten.
“Anything you need.” I try to smile at her even though catching my breath seems almost impossible.
“Gretchen said that we need a detailed report and photos,” Charlie says, her voice quieter than before.
She’s worried, and if that’s the case, then so am I because Charlie doesn’t worry without cause. She’s the kind of person that believes in her ability to tackle anything that comes at her. She’s got that in common with Mark.
“You can use my office.” He starts past Avery, leaving her staring at me in his wake.
Her eyes have this hypnotic catch that makes it impossible for me to look away. It draws me closer the longer we stand in silence.
“Umm.” Charlie clears her voice. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Avery looks between the two of us before shaking her head. “That’s okay.”
I follow her to Mark’s office; the room feels smaller than usual as I watch her come to a stop in the middle of the space. The warm light gives her naturally golden complexion an otherworldly glow. It’s staggering how she’s still holding herself up, still pushing through all the pain evident in her stiff movements and glistening eyes, and I know I’m not the kind of man to delve deeper than the surface, but she…Avery makes me curious. She makes me want to unpick all her knots so I can see all there is to her. So that I can open her up to me, maybe ease some of the haunting ache that’s stolen her smile. It’s all I’ve been able to think about since she walked out of this room days ago.
“I’ve cleared the desk, and if there’s anything else you need…” Mark pauses beside me. He’s giving me a warning look and I have no idea what it’s for. I don’t know what he’s warning me about, but it doesn’t matter because all the alarm bells are going off inside me already. Loud sirens that fail to drown out all my thoughts and the anger that’s been twisting and winding within me.
A part of me wants to tell him to get someone else to take my place. He knows people. He doesn’t need me. But at the same time, I can’t stand the thought of letting another person near Avery. And that’s a problem. That’s major trouble…for me. For her.
“I’ll be right outside,” he states, gaze narrowing with meaning.
“Sure.” I clear my throat, trying to shake the thoughts out of my head.
Maybe if I stop the wonderings, I’ll be able to keep her out of my mind completely. It’s what I keep telling myself, but so far it hasn’t worked.
Avery looks nervous as I come closer. Her eyes dart between my hands and my feet as though she’s trying to figure out which to fret about the most.
“Are you sure you don’t want Charlie here?”
“No.” Avery shakes her head adamantly, fisting her hands at her sides when I stand in front of her.
“It’s okay if you do.”
“No.”
“Avery…” I don’t know why I say her name, but I like how it feels on my lips and on my tongue. The way her eyes widen on mine in the silence that follows, as though she really is opening herself up to me. Trusting me. It makes my chest tighten with the need to protect her from her own hurt. It’s an impossible task, though.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.” I take her hand and look it over, unfurling her fingers to splay over my palms. “You’re going to talk me through what happened, and I’m going to listen to every word so I can sign that report for you.”
“Okay.” She swallows, staring at her hand resting in mine. “I thought you said you had to see and umm…”
“Talk me through it, Avery. Where does it hurt the most?”
“I don’t—” Shaking her head, she sputters a sob that she’s obviously tried to contain. “I don’t know.”
“Does your face hurt?” I thumb the solitary tear that rolls down her bruised cheek, feeling the swollen, tender bump to her temple where her eyebrow is lightly scabbed over.
“The cream helped.”
That makes the tightness in my chest ease a tad. The notion that in some way I have already alleviated her pain warms me. “Good.”
Tilting her head back gently to get a look at her neck, I catch a hint of her clean, sweet scent, and it takes almost all of my control not to breathe her in until my lungs protest.
“We were arguing, and he struck my face.” Avery cups her injured cheek with one hand while keeping the other in my palm. “I think we tussled…maybe, but then I tried to get away and—” A panicked sputter breaks her voice.
Forcing my composure once more, I control the urge to pull her to me. But I’m not sure what happens—it’s as though my restraint undoes her control, and the tears she’s been holding on to rivulet down her cheeks. Drop after fat drop. My lungs burn with her stammered gasp for air as sobs rip from deep in her gut.
I lose my mind. Every rule. Every protocol. Every single thing I have lived by throughout my career goes out of the window in that second, and before I can stop myself, I pull her into me.
“It’s going to be okay, sunshine.” Fuck only knows what’s possessed me, but I can’t stand by and watch her suffer. Not on her own.
Nobody should feel the anguish that’s so clearly consuming her as Avery allows me to hold her.
“We’re going to help you.”
“I can’t let him take my daughter.”
“It’s going to be okay.”
Hands pushing at my chest, Avery gathers herself. “You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do. You’ve got every one of us and Charlie.”
“And Charlie,” she chuckles without an actual smile, but the sound on its own is beautiful. It warms through me.
“She’s a force of nature all on her own, and then you have Mark too…and me.” I add the latter quietly.
“I didn’t want everyone to see it…how bad it is.”
“Chances are that no matter what you show me, I’ve probably seen something worse. Besides, I’m a great doctor, haven’t you heard?”
The smallest of smiles tips up one side of her face. “I think I have.”
“I already know it’s not great from the way you tense every time you move. You can’t twist your body, and you’re using the left side to compensate for the damage to your other side.”
“He dragged me down the stairs,” Avery murmurs, her hands pulling up the right side of her sweatshirt until her hip comes into view. “I wanted to get Iris and leave, and he pulled me down by my ankle. I didn’t get a chance to catch myself or break my fall.”
Another sob leaves her trembling lips while I crouch in front of her to get a better look.
“Iris is a pretty name.” I’m hoping to distract her and maybe myself. “It’s a flower, right?”
“Yeah, it is, but it also means rainbow in Greek. My dad loved wet, sunny days.”
I listen to her tell me about how her dad loved the rain because it was a good omen. All the while, I try to be as gentle as I can as I examine every inch of mottled skin she allows me to.
My previous statement about having seen something worse comes back to haunt me. It’s impossible to see something as awful as the damage her asshole husband caused her. My blood scorches through my veins like molten lava while my heart pounds viciously in my chest. The bruising rhythm making it the hardest it’s ever been to get my feelings under control.
How could someone hurt anyone like this?
How could anyone hurt her in this way?
“Garrett,” Avery whispers so low that I can barely make out my own name over the sound of my rage pumping through me, whooshing in my ears.
Releasing her sweatshirt, she pulls a phone from the front pocket and hands it to me when I stand. “Could you…I need…”
Taking the phone from her, I watch as she pulls the hem of her sweater up. The higher it goes, the tighter my jaw clenches. Without touching her, I crouch closer to get a better look at her abdomen. It’s not just her hip that’s bruised. The entire right side o
f her chest, ribs, and belly is marled red and purple.
“You probably think I’m an idiot…”
“You are not.” The words push from my lips like hot steam from a pressure cooker. “You’re brave, Avery, and it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks because you’re still standing when so many other people would be on their knees right now.”
Tears sluice down her pretty face, getting heavier with every hiccup and sob that racks through her, visibly strangling her chest.
“I don’t feel brave or anything like it. I feel like the biggest goddamn fool.”
Pulling the sweatshirt off, she shudders at the sound of the phone snapping a photo of her torso. There’s barely anything of her, to the point that I’m trying to recall whether or not she actually ate last time I was here.
I feel about the most tender-looking part around her ribs, taking my time so that if it is something warier than I expect, I don’t exacerbate the situation. I’m tempted to take her for an X-ray to be certain that there’s no fracture, but as I examine the area with a little more pressure, I can’t feel anything off, and her discomfort is tame compared to what it would be if she had any fissures.
It takes me a moment of staring at the top of her leggings and the bruising that runs beneath it to garner the stomach to ask, “Did he hurt you in any other way?”
I’m not sure if she understands what I’m implying. I almost don’t want her to because I’m already struggling to hold it together as it is.
Swallowing down the lump in my throat that swells with every second that goes by, I look into Avery’s eyes, blowing out a deep breath I didn’t realize I was holding when she tells me, “No.”
“Okay, how far down does the bruising go? You don’t have to show me. I can write it up.”
“This is the worst of it.” Avery wraps her arms around her torso, and I realize that the worst bruises are around her forearm, where it’s clutching at her side.
When I press on the darker contusions, she practically leaps away from me. “How did you get these?”
Shame draws her face, darkening her hazel eyes. When she doesn’t reply, I take a closer look, and each bruise is an identical line. Uniform. Putting the phone down at her feet, I catch a glimpse of my shoes. The thickness of the bruises is about the same as my soles…
Son of a bitch.
“Did he kick you?”
She nods, and in order to stop myself from cursing breathless, I concentrate on taking a few close-ups of those bruises.
“He’s not coming near you ever again, you understand that? He’s not going to hurt you again.”
Another small smile curves her lips slightly, as though she’s humoring my words but doesn’t believe them entirely.
“You don’t know Carl. He knows people…people love him.”
“You ever thought that people don’t love him, they tolerate him because of what he can do for them?”
“I think in this situation, love and tolerance equate to the same thing.”
I grab her sweatshirt from the floor and hand it to her. Turning on the spot slowly, Avery puts it back on without another word. This is harder than what she’s trying to let on, and it only serves to make me madder at the thought that behind the distanced façade she’s put on, she’s stuck living this hell again and again. With every new turn, it doesn’t matter how safe she is or how far he is, she’s still suffering.
“If you need to talk to someone…”
She turns to look at me. “You mean a shrink?”
“I mean someone that you can trust to talk to and to help you through this without the worry that they’ll see you differently or…that they’ll treat you differently.”
Avery scoffs silently at my suggestion. There’s a small glimpse of the guilt she’s shouldering, and it’s not pretty. Self-loathing looks ugly on everyone, but on her, it’s horrendous. She doesn’t deserve to feel that way no matter what’s happened or whatever she has or hasn’t done.
“I must be crazy to not have seen any of it. Delusional or something…how else can you see all the despicable sides to one person and still want to save something that is irrevocably broken?”
“Avery…” I take a deep breath to stop myself from getting closer. There’s a pull in my gut that keeps tugging and tugging at me, drawing me closer to her when I know I need to keep my distance. I’ve had enough of my own shitty, self-inflicted drama. “You’re not crazy or delusional.”
“Then I must be a fool because I was blind to it all. The cheating and…and the complete lack of moral compass? My husband and my best friend. Who would miss that? The two people they are closest to…what’s wrong with me?”
That right there is all the warning I need to end this conversation and get the hell out of here. To walk away and pretend Avery doesn’t exist.
Still, in spite of all the alarm bells and sirens going off, my body and head go rogue on me.
“You’re not a fool,” I tell her, taking her hand and squeezing it like my touch might fix things.
“All I’ve ever wanted is to protect Iris, and I think that I’m the one that’s done the most damage. I don’t know what to say to fix this for her or to make her understand without ruining what’s left of her innocence. I don’t know how any of this works. I’m lost and I have no idea how to find the answers I need.”
“We’re all a little bit lost, sunshine.”
Avery stills, her hand trembling in mine as she looks up at me, her glistening gaze boring into mine. I wish I could look and pull away from her, but I can’t, and it’s a maddening feeling being so caught up in someone I barely know. But there’s that light still flickering in her eyes—a hope holding on for dear life—that’s hypnotizing…enthralling even.
“Maybe.” She finally breaks the silence surrounding us. “Maybe you’re right, Doc.”
Without another word, she leaves me completely baffled and stunned at her use of the nickname that Mark calls me by. Avery leaves me in a limbo of conscience and feelings. I don’t know which way is up or down, right or wrong. There’s just her and the tug that has me following her out of the room.
Chapter Nine
AVERY
“Someone is about to get a generous serving of fuck you!” Charlie holds up the documents I’ve just signed.
Divorce wasn’t a priority high on my list, but Gretchen said that for the sole-custody filing to hold more weight that it would be good to have both proceedings going through. Besides, the court would struggle to give me sole custody when Carl and I are still married.
There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s going to come at me, and I keep telling myself that I’m ready. I’ve got fight in me, and there is no way I’m letting him take Iris away from me. Not when I’m not certain he loves her. It’s not as if he’s ever shown her affection; it’s always been tolerance. And she deserves more than that, even if it’s just from me.
“Gretch said that it could take up to a month for the paperwork to be processed by the court, maybe even longer depending on how busy they are, but the good news is that you’re filing before Carl, so his little scare tactic of sending his bitch with a note from his lawyer worked in your favor.”
It might have been a scare tactic, but it got my attention, and I know that there’s plenty more in his artillery. I know he’s going to do everything he can to grind me down.
“This is going to get messy, isn’t it?” I take a sip of my coffee. “I keep looking over my shoulder, expecting Carl to show up and drag me back. It’s been two weeks since Kayla was here, and the silence is killing me.”
Looking around the small coffee shop, I try to settle back into my seat, but I just can’t relax. It’s the first time we’ve come into the Virginia Beach town center, and I’m aware of how exposed we are.
“I honestly think that he wouldn’t be stupid enough to come here and make demands in person. You’ve seen the media frenzy around him and the consultancy. If he knows what’s good for him…” She pauses, her face l
ighting up in the direction of the dinging coffee shop door.
“Don’t stop on my account.” I recognize the voice, and when I turn to look behind me, Jo smiles down at me.
She’s got her cane in one hand and the kind of smile that makes me think of my grandmother. Every time she’s been over to the house, she’s talked about her ranch. Iris keeps asking to go see the animals whenever Mark says he’s going to see her.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Jo. We’re kicking ass,” Charlie tells her, as I stand to pull a chair out for her with a lot more ease now that my body is healing. “You know, plotting jerk demise and all that…”
“Good, my favorite kind of conversation,” Jo says with a smile at me. “Looking good, sugar, much better.”
“Thank you.”
“Hey, Jo.” Makenna comes over from the play area in the corner where she and Iris are having their milk and shortcake at one of the cute little tables.
Jo twists to let her sit on one of her legs. “Did your dad tell you that one of the chicks hatched early?”
“Nope, what color is it? Did you take pictures?”
“It’s jet-black and so fluffy. A thing of beauty. Look,” Jo tells her, taking out her phone to show her photos.
“It’s so cute. Can I keep that one?”
“No.” Charlie doesn’t miss a beat.
Rolling her eyes in exactly the same expression as her mother, Kenny takes Jo’s phone to show Iris the photo.
“Don’t you encourage her to chicknap either. Last time Mark had a bitch fit thinking I let her get chickens.”
“Ugh, for God’s sake, it’s a chicken. You fatten it and you eat it.”
“Eww, you can’t eat Marvin. You’d have to kill him and cut his head off…that’s gross.” Makenna sits in one of the chairs, sharing it with Iris as they continue flicking through the other photos of the baby chick.
“Don’t be such a chicken about it!”
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