What Lies Beneath (Count On Me Series Book 7)

by Melyssa Winchester

  What she thought about what she just read.

  “She did get me a new pen, but the next one was blue and instead of a puff ball, it had a slinky monster thing on the top. Bounced every time I wrote anything down. It bugged me so much.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “She saw me writing with it once when she came into the room to tell me dinner was ready. Her face lit up like fireworks on Canada Day. So even though I planned on telling her I hated it, I couldn’t. She was happy. I wanted to keep her that way for as long as I could.”

  Another thing she does that even though I don’t quite get it, I love about her.

  Where I spent years making people miserable and getting some level of sick enjoyment out of it because in the moment it was happening, I felt less empty, Belle was the opposite.

  She would do just about anything to make sure the people around her were happy.

  A few months after we got together, she’d even tried explaining it to me.

  Emotions. Reading them, feeling them, and expressing them, it always came harder to her than it did other people. She says it was all part of her diagnosis. A diagnosis that even after years of being with her, I’m still learning new things about.

  But…there I go again, getting off track.

  Belle went through a phase where all she wanted to watch were videos about emotions. She would pause, stop and repeat these things for hours. Reading the expressions, learning the facial cues and ticks until it all made sense to her. It was during that period, she had an obsession with happy.

  Living with her, I have to say the obsession never really went away. Belle is always better when the world around her—the people even—are happy.

  And with the smile she gives when they are, it’s safe to say I’m a big fan of happy too.

  “So what happened to the pen?”

  Shaking her head as she laughs, I catch her eyes and they’re dancing. Lighting up just like her earlier firework reference. Whatever happened obviously a good memory.

  I love her good memories. They’re always so strong they completely demolish all of my bad ones.

  “Tristan flushed it and clogged the toilet. God,” she takes a breath before laughing again. “It was horrible, but so funny. She wanted to be upset with him, but what was she going to say to a baby? It’s not like he would have listened anyway.”

  Bringing up her younger brother, even if it’s a happier memory, makes my stomach twist. Having been there through everything I put her through over the years, even if he might have been too young to understand it all at the time, put a strain on what at first, when Belle and I got together senior year, had looked like a do-over for me in the brother department.

  Tristan getting the Kayden that the daily beatings and mistreatment from my own brother Dean couldn’t kill.

  The better part of me.

  What fell apart the night of the dance and that even though we’ve been on more neutral ground lately, I can still see has a way to go before we can get back to where we were when he was six. The adoration he had for me, the respect, and even love based on the way I was with his sister when he was around.

  I miss all of that and I hate that my years of stupidity didn’t just damage Belle, but him too.

  “He loves you, Kay.” Belle, obviously sensing where my mind had gone, says as she brings my hand to her lips and kisses the knuckles softly. “He’s just a lot like you. Stubborn and protective.”

  “I know that, but you’re not the only one I’ve got to make shit up to. I have to do it with him, and I will. But is it wrong that I hate that there’s no magic fix?”

  “No, but if there’s anyone that can fix things, it’s you, Kay.”

  “You’re a little bias, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe a little.” She laughs. “But I’m also living proof.”

  Can’t argue with that.

  If I could manage to be the boy she knew when we were kids and do things differently with the second chance I was given, then the possibilities really are endless.

  I can right all of my wrongs with everyone.

  “So…” I trail off, wanting to get into what she read, but now that we’re in the moment the words sticking like paste to the roof of my mouth.

  “Did you really start writing in this book because you saw me do it?” she jumps in, and after releasing the biggest sigh of relief known to man, I nod.

  “For like a week straight we’d come over and you had your nose, hell, your entire face, in that diary. It drove me crazy after a while, especially with the way you used to look at me when I’d hover over your shoulder trying to read. God, I hate that look.”

  “It’s your own fault. A girl’s diary is supposed to be private.”

  “Well, I know that now. But at the time, I just wanted your attention to be on me.”

  “Nice to know some things never change, huh?”

  Pinching her in her side, I pull her back when she swats at me and tries to get away, practically crushing her to my chest before leaning my head down into her hair, inhaling deeply before pressing my lips to the top.

  “My obsession with wanting your attention is entirely your fault. I’m powerless against it.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Yeah, I am. But only about you.”

  We’re getting off topic, but where I expect it to feel out of sorts, it doesn’t. It’s nice. Being here with her, the way we’ve been for years, its right. I don’t know what I was thinking, believing that in order for us to move forward to what will one day soon be her taking my name and marrying me, I needed to let her see the past.

  Maybe she’s right and I am crazy.

  “What you wrote, what you thought and said…it was wrong, Kay.”

  “How so?”

  Lifting her head from its resting place over my heart and meeting my eyes, she brings her hand up and over my face, cupping my cheek before shifting her body, lifting it until her face is level with mine. Our foreheads brushing against one another with her lips so close, I can feel the warmth from her breath across my face as she speaks.

  “You were my best friend. My one and only friend. You didn’t need to write in a journal in order to get it because you already had it. You had me.”

  “If I’d written to you that day and asked you if I was your best friend, what would you have written back?”

  “The truth. As much of it as I understood at the time anyway.”

  “Which is what exactly?”

  “That I loved you, even then. Maybe not the way I love you now, because it was different when we were kids, but I definitely loved you. Even when I looked through you, cried because of you, or had no reaction at all. I was happier whenever you were there. Inside. Where it counts.”

  Lowering her hand down until it brushes over where my heart beats a little faster below, she gets her words across loud and clear. She may not have been able to show it in an external way when we were little, but there’s no denying that she felt it.

  The same way I did.

  Inside.

  Where the rest of the world and its shit can’t touch it.

  “Why did you want me to read this so badly, Kay?” she asks after a few seconds of silence pass. “Why now?”

  “Our story didn’t begin senior year. It began a lot earlier than that. And even though there was a whole lot of years where I didn’t exactly show it, before I walk down the aisle and before we start the next chapter of our lives, I needed to fill in the missing parts. I need to show you that even when I acted like you didn’t exist, you did. Inside.” I repeat her words back, meaning every one. “Where it counts.”

  “Then I guess now is probably not the best time to say I don’t want to read it.”

  There it is.

  I knew it was only a matter of time before she said it. Admitted to not wanting to go back. It was stupid of me to assume she could. After everything she’s already had to endure, the last damn thing she should ever have to do is go back. E
ven if the memories in that book aren’t hers at all, but mine.

  “I’m sorry, Belle. It was stupid. I just thought that—”

  Pressing her lips to mine, she affectively cuts off my words and my train of thought completely until all I can feel is the taste and scent of her as it covers and pulls me in.

  Just her.

  Always Belle.

  “I was just going to tell you to shut up, but since we’ve both done that before, I figured I’d try something new.”

  “Why did you want to shut me up?”

  “Because when I said I didn’t want to read it, I didn’t mean that it was wrong that you showed it to me. Wanted to share that part of yourself. I just meant that I really didn’t want to read it.”

  Where I thought her words would offer some clarity in the confusion of the moment, it only seems to make it worse.

  “Okay, I’m lost. If you don’t want to read it, then what do you want?”

  “Easy.” She bounces back on the sofa, pulling the book from the arm and handing it over with a smile. “I want you to read it to me.”

  She what?

  “You said this was a story you wrote when you were a kid, right? And that it was about me. So who better to read it to me than the author? Tell me your story, Kayden.”

  So after a minute of studying her, looking for any sign that she’s only doing what she thinks I might want, and finding nothing but glowing eyes, a bright smile and the overwhelming peacefulness that comes from the love we share, I do what she asks.

  I open the book to the second entry and I do it.

  I tell her a story.

  “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived this beautiful princess and a beast determined to slay her.”

  Flinching when her elbow connects hard with my side, I swallow down the urge to drop an F-bomb, turning my attention instead to the laugh that escapes and the eye roll I’ve earned that quickly follows.

  “I’m pretty sure if you’re going for accuracy here, Kay, it’s the princess that slays the beast.”

  It was supposed to be a joke, starting off like this. Mainly because I already know what the second entry in the book is about and I’m sweating balls over here worried about how she’s going to react when I read it.

  Before senior year, nothing about my life was fairy-tale worthy. I guess I just want to keep things light for as long as I can. Exposing myself is the easy part. Exposing my girl to the pits of hell that were the parts without her in it? Not so much.

  She’s got a point though. She is the princess and she did slay the beast.

  “You’re right. How insensitive of me. Let me start again.”

  As I part my lips to repeat the joke, her finger coming to rest across my lip stops me.

  “You’re stalling. Which means whatever comes next in this story of yours is probably something that’s going to make me cry.”

  Nailed it.

  “Do you read everyone else this well or do you save it all for me?”

  Lifting her hand, she waves it before dropping it, flashing me the most adorable smile in the process. She’s not the only one with the ability to read people. Like now, without so much as a word, I know she means it can go both ways.

  “You’re right. This story isn’t just about you. It’s about me too, and there wasn’t a whole lot of good on my end.”

  “Is this about Dean or your dad?”

  Even though I’ve spent the last couple of years making sporadic visits to the prison in order to see my brother, attempting the same way I did with my mom at letting him in despite everything that’s happened between us, he’s still a sore subject.

  The wounds still as raw as they were when I went through them.

  “Most of the memories I can pull up are Dean, but this one, I blocked it out as best I could. It’s the one memory I’ve tried my hardest to forget. It’s my dad.”

  Dad isn’t a word I’d use for the man that beat my mother, Dean and me within an inch of our lives every damn chance he got. That name is reserved for a man with a stern hand but softer heart. One that wouldn’t dream of putting his hands on a woman or his children in any way other than love.

  The kind of man that despite the way I was raised, I hope in the future I can be.

  For Belle and our children.

  Holy shit.

  It’s not the first time I’ve thought about my future, but it is the first time that sitting here with her, with my past damn near burning a hole in my lap, I’ve been able to picture kids.

  Mini versions of ourselves running around. The boys acting like me and creating all kinds of shit, while the girls—who in my mind look exactly like their mother, are lighting up every room they enter. The same way they do our lives.

  God, I’ve got it bad.

  “Tell me,” Belle prompts, brushing her hand across my cheek and pressing her lips to the side of my head when I lean into the touch. A move so simple that’s happened a thousand times before, but that never ceases to soothe me. Like a healing balm to an exposed wound. “If you can’t read it, tell me what you remember.”

  “I’ll read it, but it’s one of those situations where I shouldn’t have even been there. I was in my room, flipping through this comic my mom had picked up on the way home from work and everything was fine. There was a bang, followed by a crash, and all of a sudden I’m not in my room anymore, but the living room. I’m jumping between them, taking what he was obviously about to do to her and wishing I was anywhere but.”

  My throat is on fire. Acid burning its way through as my stomach revolts against me. The urge to puke getting stronger with every visual of that day I can bring up in my mind.

  The day he realized I made an even better punching bag than Dean.

  “Kay…” she whispers, leaning her head against mine.

  “I’m sorry for this, Belle. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want this to touch you. Anyone else, whatever. Never you, though.” I say in reply, flipping the book open and turning the page to the entry. Shaking off the nausea building in my stomach and clearing my throat, readying myself for what comes next, I read.

  And just like that, I’m seven all over again.

  Chapter Two

  May 3, 2004

  He’s angry.

  So mad that his entire face goes the color of my red crayons and thick lines pop out on his forehead.

  I could hear her screaming, then this crash bang sound, then silence.

  The end.

  She says I’m supposed to stay in my room when he gets like this, but since she also thinks its okay that he throws her around, I didn’t listen.

  I went out there.

  Listening from my hiding place behind the sofa.

  It was like someone pushed a button and stopped time.

  It was so quiet.

  When things are that quiet, it’s scary.

  I used to think there was something wrong with my ears when it got like this, so I’d jam my finger in and try to clear the blockage so I could hear again, but since I can hear sounds from Dean’s room across the hall, I know it’s not me anymore.

  It’s never been me.

  That’s when I did something stupid.

  I came out of hiding when he raised his fist and stepped toward her. I jumped out and before his fist could make contact, slipped between them.

  He hit me.

  It hurt.

  All of the air came whooshing out and like a piece of paper that blows off and drifts to the ground, I dropped to the floor.

  Shadows scare me.

  They didn’t before. I used to play games with my shadow, but now that I’ve had his over me, I want to make sure I never go anywhere where I have to see mine again.

  Hover. Slap. Growl. Curse. Hit.

  He hurt me.

  Scared me.

  Her cries and the sound of skin on skin break up the silence.

  I reach out for her but meet the cold metal leg of the bar instead.

  No one can help me.r />
  Spit flies across my face before I feel the sting of his fist in my stomach.

  I curl in to try and protect myself, but it’s too late.

  There’s a flood of warmth and it’s not from being picked up and taken someplace safe.

  This is a different kind of warm. One I know because I’ve lived it before.

  She’s done it and I laughed at her when she did.

  Belle…

  I get it now.

  Not being able to breathe, shivering, shaking, and curling myself into the tightest ball I can. It’s because I’m afraid. Like Dean says, I’ve got the fear of God in me.

  Except he’s not God.

  My daddy is the Devil.

  I never should have laughed at her when she had an accident.

  It isn’t funny.

  She did it because she’s as scared as I am.

  When mommy comes back from the hospital, I’m gonna make her take me to their house.

  I’m gonna tell Belle that I get it, and I’m sorry.

  I’m gonna make sure neither of us feels this scared again.

  I swear it.

  “I can still smell the blood.” I admit shakily. “From where she fell and her head got cut open. Like melted iron or rust. I don’t know. I just know it was the sickest thing I’ve ever smelled.”

  Admitting this to her, god, even admitting it to myself, turns me inside out. As much as I hate the smell of blood, let alone the sight, I sure went out of my way to make sure it happened repeatedly every day after.

  Even at one point craving it like I did air to breathe.

  Pull back. You’re not that kid anymore. Your air is different now.

  My air now sitting beside me.

  “I never did tell you I was sorry.” I realize, turning and bringing her face level with mine. Running my thumb under her eyes, wiping away the result of her reaction to what she’s read.

  I fucking hate making her cry.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for, Kay.”

  We may have come a long way, her calling me on my crap more than she did in the past, but we’re not entirely there yet if she believes even for a second that what she just said is right.