by Blair, E. K.
Still, the palm of my hand strikes beneath his chin, snapping his teeth into his tongue. He steps back in a moment of distraction.
I see the blood on his lips.
His eyes lift to mine, and my heart pounds with unimaginable violence when he lunges at me with his balled-up fist raised. He comes at me so fast that I can’t get away before his knuckles hammer down into the crest of my cheek, snapping my head to the side so severely that my neck pinches in agonizing fire. The impact knocks me to the ground, sending the other side of my face into a small table. A lamp crashes on the floor next to me, shattering into slivers of porcelain and glass that cut into my arms as I scramble to get away from him.
“Help me! Someone, please, help!” My screams are frantic and bloodcurdling, but only last a breath of time before he jumps on top of me.
Pressure from his knee digging into my spine deflates my lungs. I try to scream for help again, but only a strained hiss is all that sounds.
“You fucking bitch!”
“Caleb stop!” I manage to wheeze.
My nails claw into the carpet in an attempt to escape because I’m scared to death of what he’s going to do to me if someone doesn’t stop him. The moment I gain a little traction and am able to move, I realize he’s no longer on top of me and that we aren’t alone.
The dark room grows loud with so much commotion that I can’t even focus on what’s happening as I shuffle back on my hands and feet. When my back meets the wall, I see silhouettes and find that Brody has Caleb restrained in a hold against his chest. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement and turn in time to watch Micah charge toward Caleb and barrel his fist into his face with a raging, “You motherfucker!”
An elixir of fear and anxiety detonates through my veins. Flames singe my throat when a deafening sob rips through me. I want to run for my life, but I’m trapped inside a paralyzed body. Another person barges into the room, followed by someone else. It’s utter chaos, and I don’t even realize Trent kneeling in front of me.
He takes my face in his hands, and with panic-stricken wide eyes, he urges, “Come on, Kate.”
Trent grabs me from around my waist and pulls me onto my feet as Brody and a couple of other people fight Caleb to the ground. There’s so much shouting and hysteria that I can’t even hear my own crying. Someone shouts, “Get her out of here!” but Trent is already rushing me from the room.
Tucked under his arm, I keep my head down as he leads me through the party, blocking me as best as he can from the curious stares. It isn’t enough, and it’s as if I can literally feel their eyes all over me, touching me, judging me.
I’m mortified.
My darkest secret is out for everyone to see, and I lay waste to any self-worth I thought I had as tears free fall down my cheeks.
“Come on,” Trent presses, leading me down the sidewalk.
He has me in his SUV so fast that I barely have my seatbelt on before he peels away. I can’t bring myself to look at him. I don’t know where we’re going, but he eventually says, “You’re coming to my place.”
His voice is fierce.
“I want to go home,” I mumble through my tears as I keep my focus on the streetlights passing by.
“Fuck that,” he nearly shouts. “That dickfuck knows where you live. I’m not taking you home.”
And he’s right. Not only does Caleb know where I live but he also has a key. My hands tremble as I think about what he would do to me if he showed up in the middle of the night. If he got this out of control because I saw Trent at the beach, I can’t fathom how he’s going to react after watching me leave with Trent. The thought of it has me doubling over and resting my forehead on my knees as more tears come.
Trent places his hand on my back with a heavy, “You’re going to be okay.”
But nothing is okay. Everything is all wrong.
After he pulls in to the garage and parks, he helps me out and leads me inside and onto the elevator. He keeps me tucked under his arm, and I can’t muster even an ounce of courage to say anything when we walk in his place and he takes me to his room, shutting the door behind us. He grabs a T-shirt and a pair of pajama pants from his dresser before taking my hand and leading me into his bathroom. He sets the clothes on the counter, and I keep my chin tucked down as he turns on the faucet.
“Come here,” he says softly, reaching for my hand and pulling me over to him.
When he turns my palm up, I see the blood. In all the commotion, I didn’t even realize how bad they had been cut. He puts my hand under the running water and carefully washes the dried blood from my forearm before doing the same with the other.
“Stay right here. I think Micah has a first aid kit in his bathroom.” He rushes out, but he isn’t gone for more than a minute before he returns with a bunch of bandages and a stack of washcloths. They land with soft thuds on the counter a second before he takes my hand back into his and examines the cuts for glass. “Does it hurt?”
I nod, too embarrassed to speak.
He handles me with care, meticulous as he scans each abrasion before applying ointment and bandaging me up.
It’s humiliating.
He lifts my chin, but I don’t dare look at him.
“Kate, please.”
I shake my head, silently pleading with him not to make me talk.
“Please just look at me.”
But I can’t.
“This is killing me. I had no idea it was this bad,” he says painfully. “This is fucking unimaginable. We need to call the cops.”
“No!” I blurt. My heart rate spikes at the thought of going to the police. “My dad is a cop; he would find out.” I drop my head again with a harrowing, “I can’t.”
“He can’t get away with this.”
“I just can’t,” I weep.
Fresh tears seep out and coat my cheeks, as his lips press against the top of my head and he whispers a heartbreakingly defeated, “Okay,” into my hair.
A part of me wants to cling to him, bury my head against his chest, and beg him to fix this, to make it all go away. But I’m frozen, too scared to give into that want for fear of completely shattering under the weight of it.
After a moment, he slowly pulls away from me and soaks the washcloth under the warm water again. I wince when he presses the cloth to my cheek. He’s being so gentle, but even that tiny pressure on my broken skin has fire skittering along my nerves.
“I’m sorry.”
I stand still for him, but my mind is maniacal as it replays what just happened over and over again. Thoughts and visions overwhelm, and the walls begin closing in on me.
I step away from his touch with a meager, “I can do it.”
“Kate . . .”
“Just give it to me,” I say as I take the washcloth out of his hand.
Looking down at my feet, I wait for him to walk away from me, but he doesn’t—not yet. “I’ll go make an icepack.”
I nod, and he goes, closing the door behind him.
I’m unmoving, my eyes still stuck on the floor, staring at my shoes that I put on a couple of hours ago.
A couple of hours.
Everything was fine. Today was fine. I was fine.
And now . . . now nothing is fine. In a slip of a moment, everything has changed.
Lifting my foot, I step over to the sink, toss the cloth aside and raise my eyes to the mirror.
I gasp when I see my reflection. It’s haunting, but I can’t look away because this has to be a mistake. This has to be some sort of a bad dream because the tragedy on the other side of the glass can’t possibly be me.
She just can’t be.
My face is splotchy from all the crying, my cheeks and jaw are already bruised, and my eye is nearly swollen shut. I can’t look for too long before the reflection blurs into a muddling of watercolors as I begin to cry again.
Bracing my hands along the edge of the sink, I hang my head beneath a mountain of shame.
How could I have let
this happen?
How does someone do this to a person they claim they love?
I was an idiot to have ever believed Caleb cared about me.
I never want to see him again.
The skin around my face grows tighter as it continues to swell, and I can’t even stomach looking at myself. I’m beyond devastated. After all the times I defended him, my god, I can’t even fathom what everyone must think of me.
I startle when the door opens and Trent steps inside with an ice pack for me. There isn’t a hole deep enough for me to crawl into to hide from the humiliation.
“Can I help?”
I can’t even give him a response as I stand here—a cowardly disaster.
“Will you let me?”
With hardly any strength left, I nod. What else do I have to lose? He couldn’t possibly think any less of me at this point.
He takes the hem of my shirt in his hands, and I lift my arms as he pulls it off.
“Jesus,” he breathes in, what I can only imagine is, disgust.
All it takes is one look at the bruises—both fresh and fading—that mark my shoulders and stomach for him to realize the ugly and shameful truth—that I’m a stupid girl who was dumb enough to allow my boyfriend to beat the shit out of me, while trying to convince everyone around me that he is a good guy. Completely resigned, I don’t even bother trying to cover my body as he looks at everything Caleb’s been doing to me.
With my eyes cast down, a tear slips along my lashes and drops to the floor. I can’t do it—I can’t be a part of his ridiculing eye as he stares at me. Covering my face with my hands, I crack, allowing a weak sob to break free. His arms come around me, and the touch is so profound that I lose all composure and crumple into him. Anguish wracks my body, and he only holds me tighter.
I wish to God that Trent didn’t have to know this about me, but he does, and there isn’t anything I can do to change that. It makes me feel inhuman in a way I can’t really describe—gross, weak, ignorant, everything you would never want to feel. It crashes over me, burying me under its scrutiny, and I’m suffocating.
I step back, and Trent’s arms fall away.
Holding out my hand, I ask, “Can you hand me the shirt?”
He does, and I pull it on before he gives me the pajama pants. As soon as I’m dressed, I walk into his room and slip into the bed. From my peripheral, I watch Trent change out of his clothes and into a pair of gym shorts before he slides in next to me.
He slips his arms around my battered body and pulls my head on to his chest. Tears steadily fall and land on his chest, which is now damp against my face.
“You’re going to be okay.” He keeps telling me this, but we both know it’s a lie.
How could I possibly be okay after tonight?
How am I ever supposed to erase this from my memory?
Eventually, the tears run dry, leaving me numb and tired. In the warmth of Trent’s bed, I somehow manage to fall asleep, but it’s superficial. As I toss and turn throughout the night, my heart grows heavier and heavier with each passing second, minute, hour. Trent’s arms have long since slackened around me, and I slowly push away from his body so I can look at his face.
Even in his sleep, his brows remain tense with concern or anger. He’s going to have questions for me in the morning. Questions I don’t want to face. Questions I won’t have the answers to. He’s going to want to know why.
But I don’t know why.
All I do know is that I can’t have him looking at me with judgment or pity or disappointment—the look that screams I told you so.
Quietly, I slip out of the bed and into the bathroom so I can change back into my own clothes. With my shoes in my hand, I cautiously pad over to his door and sneak out. When I peer down the hall, I see Micah’s door is open, so I ease my way through the living room where I find my cellphone sitting on one of the end tables. I don’t know who thought to grab it for me, but I’m thankful they did.
Once I manage to get out of the condo without waking anyone up, everything else happens in a series of motions that hold nothing more than a fog of gloom as I get onto the elevator and call for a cab to meet me downstairs.
When the taxi shows up, I open the door to get in and my phone rings. Trent’s name flashes across the screen.
“Where to, ma’am?”
I silence the call and give the driver my address. I know I shouldn’t go back there, but I figure I’ll latch the swing guard so if Caleb tries coming over, he won’t be able to get in.
My phone rings again. It’s Trent.
Decline.
A moment later, it chimes with a text.
Trent: Where did you go?
The driver looks at me through the reflection of the rearview mirror with curiosity. Who could blame him? He’s got a girl in the back of his cab with a beaten face at three in the morning and a phone that’s blowing up.
When it rings again, I decline it and then switch it over to silent.
Trent: Where the hell are you? Why did you leave?
Even when the cab pulls in front of the high-rise, my phone continues to buzz in rapid succession while I swipe my credit card and sign the receipt.
“Take care of yourself,” the man says as I get out of the car.
I stand for a moment and watch as he drives into the night before I make my way inside and up to my floor, all the while my cell vibrates in the palm of my hand. Once I’m safe inside my condo, I lock the knob and the deadbolt and then flip the swing guard over.
Another round of vibrations shakes my phone, and I turn it completely off. Everything goes silent aside from the throbbing of my head that echoes in my ears. I toss my phone onto the bed as I head into my bathroom to find some migraine pills and some ibuprofen.
When I flick on the light, I nearly jump out of my skin when there’s a knock on the door. I run and grab my phone, quickly powering it back on in case I need it. Standing in the threshold of my room, I stare at the door. Another knock sends my heart rate into overdrive, and I pad across the room, careful not to make a sound because I have no clue who’s on the other side. It can only be one of two people: Caleb or Trent.
When I reach the door, I hold my breath as I lean in, peer through the peep hole, and look out.
Read the conclusion to the Secrets & Truths Duet in The Truths We Told
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It’s no question that this needs to start with my husband. I know, I know—sappy—but truthfully, this book would’ve never happened if it weren’t for his unyielding support.
Shawn, wow, where did you come from and how on earth was I lucky enough to find you? I realize I’m a handful and that I drive you crazy—after all, I’m an artist, I was born with crazy in my blood.
You don’t often get the credit you deserve, so let me take this opportunity to tell you how appreciative I am of your constant love, support, and yes, toleration. By the blessings that be, you have embraced me wholly. There was a time I thought I was going to give up writing, but then you sat me down one night after dinner and asked, “Babe, what’s your passion?” My response was easy: Writing. When you responded by saying, “Then write,” you completely unraveled all my hesitations.
It was two words, two words you probably don’t remember, but two words I will never forget. Like a strike of a match, you lit a fire inside me. I couldn’t grab my laptop fast enough. I locked myself away, and this duet is the reflection of those two simple words.
Thank you for allowing me the freedo
m to chase my passion and live my dream. You’ll never understand the therapy writing provides me—I’m inhuman without it. I know that seems strange, but let’s face it, I am strange. Seriously, though, I love you so much for always being selfless with me. Again, thank you!
Sally, my wonderful assistant, where would I be without you? You are my secret weapon. Your unconditional support means the world to me. We’ve been through a lot—ups and downs and all arounds—yet, here you are, unwaveringly loyal. You push me when I need to be pushed, comfort me when I’m getting too stressed, guide me when I’m straying off track. More than anything, you believe in me. You really believe in me, and that alone is the best gift I could ever ask out of an assistant and a friend. I love you dearly, my Sally-boo.
My editor, Ashley . . . man, oh man, this manuscript challenged me in a whole new way. You told me to trust you when I wanted to run away. You knew this would be tough on me, and it was—it was very tough. But I trusted you, just as you had asked, and I am so glad I did. You’re a tough editor, which is why I love working with you so much. You said to me, “I know this is going to be a lot of work, but I want you to be proud in the end.” You were right. I put in the work that needed to be done, and I’m glad I did. I’m proud, thanks in large part to you!
I also what to acknowledge my PR team from Give Me Books Promotions for helping me launch this release, Champagne Book Designs for formatting, and to my readers—you guys are the icing on top of the cake for me, and I couldn’t do what I do without you!
