by CJ Roberts
I sat up straight and looked him in the eye. “Adam, I love you. I want to be with you…all the time.”
He smiled and damn if it wasn’t contagious.
“Katelyn, there’s one more thing I want to ask you.” My heart stopped when he went to stand, but before he could even push his chair out all the way, his eyes locked on something behind me. The normally pale blue of his eyes turned dark. He sat back down in his chair. Adam’s brow broke out into a sweat and the hand on the table curled into a fist and began shaking slightly.
“Adam?” I whispered and reached for him, but he jerked his hand away.
I looked over my shoulder. The only thing I saw was a tall, elegant older man. Gray hair, lean frame, and a sinister face. He wore an expression a politician might, like he was constantly looking for a different angle to argue. When the man’s eyes locked on us, he looked briefly stunned, then smiled and walked over.
Adam’s nostrils flared and his jaw clenched.
“Son, it’s been a long time.” The man reached out to shake Adam’s hand.
Son? I stared at Adam. His face was locked into ice. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. It was as though he’d been hit by a taser gun.
“He never did have good manners,” the older man chided when Adam didn’t accept his handshake. The man’s attention turned to me. “I am Roger Stevenson, Adam’s father.”
“Step,” Adam snarled.
He nodded at Adam. “Yes. Stepfather.”
I glanced between Roger and Adam. Adam looked tense and pale. I stood, putting both hands on the table, and faced Roger fully.
“You need to leave.”
“Excuse me, young lady?”
“I said, leave.” I stepped close enough so that I was face to face with him. Fury boiled over and I looked Roger in the face with all the hatred and rage I felt. “Get the hell away from him. Now.”
He had the grace to look shocked and unnerved. He leaned in, crowding into my personal space. I didn’t flinch or back away. I wasn’t about to let this man threaten me or Adam.
“Do you have any idea who you’re talking to, young lady?” His voice was low and dark.
“I’m talking to a disgusting coward who thinks he can get away with hurting a child and using his size to intimidate others.” I stepped even closer. “You don’t scare me. Now get away from us.”
“No need,” Adam growled. He rose so quickly that his chair crashed behind him. He reached for me and grabbed my arm. He nearly sprinted with me out of the restaurant and into the town car, never once looking back.
The moment we got into the backseat and the chauffeur started away, Adam’s demeanor shifted to an even darker place. He was quiet. Deathly still. His fists were balled in his lap and he stared straight ahead.
I was beyond worried. I didn’t know what to say. I reached for him, wrapping my arms around his middle, hugging him tightly to me.
He didn’t move.
I hunched down, trying to coax his gaze to meet mine. I held his face in my palms, trying to comfort him, trying to get his eyes to focus on me. He didn’t budge. It was as though ice had crept through him and frozen him from the inside out. His blue eyes were stark and void, staring at nothing.
“Adam, Adam honey, look at me.” Cupping his face, I kissed his cheeks, his chin, his jaw. “He’s gone.” I placed a small kiss on his lips. “He’s gone, honey. I’m here. Look at me, please.”
His jaw clenched so tightly that I thought he would crack his teeth. He didn’t move his head, but finally his gaze unlocked from its trance and focused on my face.
“There you go. Just look at me.”
As if pulled from a spell, Adam shot forward and pushed me back on the seat. He shoved my legs apart and ripped off my panties in one swipe. I didn’t even have time to register what was happening. He unzipped his pants and plunged inside of me. I wasn’t ready for him and the invasion burned. He growled and fisted my hair in his hands. He thrust harder, deeper, as if trying to fuck away the memory of whatever had just happened.
I couldn’t move. A trickle of something simmered in my gut and the buzz of anxiety spread.
Fear.
I had never felt it with Adam before.
He was hurting, and I didn’t know how to help him. So I lay there. Trying to hold on to him. Trying to be that safe place for him to land. But he was racked with tension. Grief. Hatred.
I wouldn’t push him away. Wouldn’t leave him. Whatever his demons were, I would be right by his side fighting them. I clutched him, hoping he could feel me, feel my love and know I was there. That’d I take his hurt if I could.
He didn’t relent. He kept going. The sounds that came from him were more like those of an animal than a man. Harder and harder—until finally he came. He groaned as if it had caused him pain.
He pushed himself off me, his gaze never meeting mine. He sat there, motionless, staring forward as the bright lights of Chicago sped by us.
20
I knocked lightly on the door to Adam’s home office. He looked up from his desk.
“Hi,” I said in a soft voice.
Once we had come home, he’d gone into his office and I knew he needed some time alone. So I gave it to him. I had taken a shower and tried to wrap my brain around what had happened. I knew what deep, long-past pain felt like. How it crept up on you and smothered any ray of light you had.
In a pair of sweatpants and a shirt, I stood at his door. “I think we should talk about what happened tonight.”
“I’m sorry if I was too rough with you,” he said, but didn’t look up from his desk.
I stepped inside. My heart was breaking for him. The demons he carried weighed heavy in the room.
“Adam?”
“No,” he snapped. “I told you, Katelyn. This topic is closed.”
I frowned and took a few more steps toward him. “Adam, I saw the way you reacted to your stepdad. We need to talk about it. What did he do to you?”
Adam slammed his hand down on his desk and eyed me. “Drop it, Katelyn.”
“I want to help. Let me.”
“Oh?” He stood and walked around the desk. Placing his palms behind him, he gripped the edge of his desk and leaned back against it. “Are you going to tell me what to do now?”
“No. I just want you to talk to me.” I reached out to him.
He stood there. Stone. His face was devoid of any emotion as his eyes bored into mine. I barely recognized him.
“Do you enjoy making me angry?” He looked at the hand I offered him and scoffed. “Pathetic.”
His words hit me like a slap in the face and I dropped my hand. It was like being a child again, wanting to make everyone okay, wanting my love to be enough, only to be reminded that it wasn’t—I wasn’t.
I hugged my middle. “Who are you right now?”
He held his arms out. “Same guy I’ve always been.”
“No. The man I know wouldn’t treat me this way.”
“Here we go. It’s always about you, isn’t it? What I can give you. What—clothes, jewelry aren’t enough?”
“I love you! That’s it. I don’t care about the rest and you know it. I want to help you. Be there for you.” I swallowed back the tears rising in my throat.
I knew he was hurting. Knew this piece of himself was difficult even for him to handle. From the looks of it, he’d never handled it. He was lashing out. I just needed to stay strong. “I know this is hard for you, but you don’t have to face this alone. We can deal with this. Together. If you need more time, that’s okay, but I’ll be here, whenever you’re ready.”
He stared at me. “No.”
My heart sank. He was refusing to let me in. Stay strong.
“Do you have any idea what I’m capable of?” He took one slow step toward me. “I’ve almost killed a man with my bare hands…and I’m not sorry.”
I nodded. Breath was strangling in my windpipe. “I don’t blame you.”
He took another step. “You shoul
d be scared of me.”
“You’d never hurt me, Adam.”
Step. “You seem sure about that.”
I inhaled deeply. Though he was moving closer, he was using his words to put a wall between us. A wall that was dependent on my fear. I wouldn’t give in. I loved him too much and knew deep in the center of my being that Adam would never raise his hand against me.
He wasn’t my mother.
“I trust you,” I whispered.
“Then you’re ignorant.”
Everything we had shared, everything we worked to build, was falling into a shambles around me. He was driving me away on purpose. Admitting to this kind of abuse was devastating. I had gone through it, and the first time was always the hardest. Once you accepted it, voiced out loud what had happened to you, it became real. But once it was out there, handling it and moving forward became easier with every step.
“I love you, Adam. I trust you. I want you whole and happy. There’s nothing ignorant about that.”
His lips pulled back from his teeth as though my words offended him. “You think you’re special in this? Do you think you’re the only woman who has claimed to love me? All of them were happy with what I offered, but not you. Never you. You’re always wanting more.”
Bleak terror hiccupped in my throat. “I only want you.”
He stood right in front of me and looked at my face. His eyes moved from my cheek to my neck, following the line of scars I knew he couldn’t see but were there all the same. Disgust squeezed his face like he’d sucked on a lemon.
“Well, I don’t want you.”
My knees nearly buckled. I gripped the edges of my shirt. My stomach burned so badly, like I had swallowed acid, and it was eating me from the inside out. I couldn’t breathe. My chest caved in on itself. I loved him. So much it actually pained me.
He possessed everything I was, and I was merely a spectator in his life because I wasn’t enough.
“Go.” The look he gave me was clear. I was dismissed—only this time, he’d thrown in a sucker punch and vicious words that unraveled my entire existence.
I walked out of his office. Tears were screaming behind my eyes, but somehow, I couldn’t shed them. This must be what shock felt like.
I grabbed my purse from the foyer table and hit the elevator button. I looked around, realizing nothing was mine. It was his. All his. Right down to the clothes he bought me and the shampoo I used in his shower. He was my whole world and I was just another fixture in his life.
I walked into the elevator, turned, and hit the first floor button. As the doors closed, I saw Adam rush into the foyer. His blazing blue eyes were the last thing I saw before the metal doors clamped shut, closing me off from him completely. I began my slow descent down. A sharp pain shot through my chest like a rusty blade.
I slumped to my knees, and cried.
21
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I clutched the phone to my ear and waited for Megan to respond.
“Yeah, I’m better. I thought you were staying at Adam’s tonight?”
I bit my bottom lip to keep from telling her how wrong things had gone, asking instead, “Where are you?”
“I’m going out of town for a few days. I need some time to think. I went over to Grace and Tim’s. I talked to Grace. Everything is in the open. Tim, Brian, all of it.”
“A-are you okay? You don’t sound upset,” I said, trying to keep the trembling out of my voice.
I hugged my knees to my chest and sat in the middle of my living room floor. My world was collapsing around me. After the fight with Adam, I’d hailed a cab and barely remembered the ride home. My eyes were swollen and I could hardly see through the tears.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with Grace and Tim, but it didn’t look good when I left.”
“Was Simon there?”
“No, Tim mentioned something about him staying with Tim’s mom for a few days.”
That was good. Tim was a poor excuse for a human being, but his mother was a nice lady. Simon would be okay staying with her for a little bit until this mess could be sorted out.
“Are you okay?” Megan asked. I put my palm over the receiver to keep the hiccup of despair out of my voice.
“Yeah. Fine. Keep me posted, okay? I know getting some space can be good…”
“I’ll check in with you. I’m going to visit my mom upstate. I’ll see you next week, okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered.
The line went dead. I looked around my cold apartment. Alone. I was completely alone. Even the dysfunctional world I’d had before Adam was in shambles. There would be no picking up. No starting over.
Because there was nothing left to salvage.
There was a loud pounding in my ears and I my head felt like it was being pushed between two planks of wood.
My eyes hurt. I tried to open them and was greeted by a fog of leftover tears. The booming sound rang out again and it took me a moment to realize I was on the living room floor. It was still dark out, so I must not have been asleep that long.
I sat up. Every bone creaked and whined. I palmed my temple and willed the rising headache to go away. It was no use. Every muscle was aching. Every brain cell was screaming.
I heard a jingle like keys coming from the other side of the front door. Had Megan decided to come home after all? I tried to make use of my legs, but sleeping on the hardwood floor had stiffened my entire body.
I glanced at the clock. It was three in the morning. I stood up just as the front door burst open.
I grabbed the wall behind me to keep my knees from buckling. There, standing in the doorway, disheveled and looking like a god from hell, was Adam.
“No…no, don’t you dare do this to me.” I shook my head back and forth. My mind was spiraling, my anxiety dialed to high. I wanted him near, yet couldn’t run far enough away. I wasn’t ready to go round two with him. My home was my sanctuary. And he’d plowed right into it.
“You can’t break in here. This is my home. Y-you told me to leave…you can’t take this from me, too.”
His eyes were fierce, like lighting striking the ocean at daybreak. He stomped toward me, not stopping until he cupped my face in his hands. Had I not known better, I could have sworn relief washed over his face.
“I didn’t break in, I have a key,” he rasped.
I pushed away from him. I wasn’t in the mood for whatever it was he was dishing out. Sarcasm, hate, love…I couldn’t tell the difference and didn’t want to find out it was the latter.
“Are you okay?”
I scowled at him with my raw eyes. “No. I’m not okay. What are you doing to me? You throw me out of your place just so you can stalk me at mine?” I shook my head, tears beginning to fall again. “I’ll never know peace from you, will I?”
He looked down at me, an intense frown bending his brow. “No, you won’t. Because I’ll never leave you, and I’ll never let you leave me.”
“I don’t believe you,” I whispered. “You did let me go.”
“No,” he snapped. “Listen to me, Katelyn. I made a mistake. I didn’t mean it.”
His voice sounded so far away. The only thing I could focus on was the slow beating pulse in my ears. With every breath my body grew weaker. Adam was my drug, and though he stood right in front of me, I knew I should run away or suffer the withdrawal. And it would be painful.
“I gave you everything I was,” I whispered. “It still wasn’t enough.”
“That’s not true,” he grated. Still cupping my face, he forced me to look at him. He ran his thumbs beneath my eyelids, tracing the tears away. “I want to be a better man for you, Katelyn. I didn’t—” His voice caught and I saw his crystalline eyes gloss over. “I have never had to share my past with someone outside of a shrink. I was caught off guard by Roger at dinner and I didn’t think you could ever look at me again.”
“I love you, Adam.”
“That’s what confuses me. You’ve known for a while
…about the things that happened when I was young, but you still stay by me. What happened…what he did to me…I never wanted you to know the kind of shame and hate I carried for myself.”
Before I could think better of it, I wrapped my arms around his neck and tugged him into me. “I’m sorry you suffer. Nothing could ever make me think less of you. You own my soul, Adam. I wish I could take the pain for you.” I backed away enough to look him in the eye. “But I can’t handle your rejection. Throwing me away…”
“I’m sorry, Katelyn. God, how I’m sorry. I wanted you gone because I didn’t want you to look at me. Not the other way around. I pushed you away. I’ll never forgive myself for that. As soon as you left, I knew the mistake I had made.” He tilted my chin up. “It took me all of five minutes to run after you.”
“It took you hours to get here,” I argued.
He took a deep breath and took several steps backward. “I know words aren’t enough. I would have gotten here sooner, but I had to wake up and harass my psychiatrist to get this before I showed up here.” Adam took a manila envelope from inside his wool coat and handed it to me.
“Outside of my shrink, you’re the only one who’s ever seen this. Who will ever see this.”
My hands were shaking but I opened the envelope. Documents, records, photos. A big pile of Adam. I saw the picture of Adam as a young boy right before he went into the custody of the state. His eyes were stark and deathly looking.
“Oh, Adam.”
“It’s all there. The last twenty years of my life. And it’s all yours, if you’ll still have me.”
My chest felt tight and my stupid eyes wouldn’t seem to stop dripping. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to. Because I trust you, Katelyn. And for you…I’ll try.”
A watery smile split my face. My tortured, brave man. He was trying. I knew dealing with this, airing your darkest secrets to another, left you vulnerable and terrified. But he trusted me. Just like I trusted him.
“From the moment I met you, Katelyn, I knew you were it for me.”
