by LJ Evans
Seth glared at Justice again before moving over to the bed, grabbing a cup with a straw off the tray, and bringing it to her. “You’re awake.” He tried to kiss her, but she pushed him away.
“What the hell?” she’d demanded in a voice so scratchy it hurt to hear it.
“Drink, Bella,” he demanded. She wanted to refuse, but she didn’t because her throat hurt. She drank, and then she pushed the cup and his hand away, trying to glare at him.
“Seth?”
PJ didn’t doubt that he’d started it. Justice would never fight with anyone in her hospital room. Seth. Seth would fight anywhere if he thought it would prove his point.
Justice reached her other side, trying not to make eye contact with Seth. He gently touched her bandaged wrist. “Quite some damage you’ve got there to your scaphoid and ulna, S&M.”
“Guess that’s better than permanent damage to my glaBella,” she teased back, but Justice didn’t smile. Instead, he looked like he wanted to cry.
“I’m okay, Justice. Honest,” she said, squeezing his hand with her good one.
Liv wedged in between Justice and the bed and kissed her on the cheek while the baby grabbed at everything around him, gurgling happily, unaware of the tension in the room.
“You scared us, girl,” Liv said. She handed Cole to Justice.
“I think you boys need to go get some air while I chat with Peej,” Liv told the two males who still had chests puffed out like roosters ready to crow.
Justice didn’t bat an eye. He took the baby and swung him up in the air before tucking him up against his side while heading for the door. Seth, however, didn’t budge. He wasn’t used to anyone giving him orders. Or maybe he just wasn’t used to anyone enforcing them.
Liv eyed him darkly. Seth just crossed his arms over his chest. What he didn’t realize was that all of this was just pushing PJ farther away.
She’d been so happy to see him at first, love and fear and relief swelling through her. But now, everything was coming back to her in waves of anger. At her. At him. At everything in her screwed-up life.
He didn’t know that the intensity that was him was freaking her out almost as much as Michael had. Because there was no doubt that the attacker had been Michael. Michael had made two mistakes that day.
The first being the child latch. The second was that he’d called Seth a He-Man just like he had at the gym and at the bar. That wasn’t a coincidence.
Her whole body shook.
“Seth. I want to talk with Liv,” she said to him. He didn’t look happy. In fact, he still looked like he wanted to punch a wall. “Please, Seth.”
He just nodded and stalked out.
Liv and PJ just sat there for a moment in silence.
Finally, PJ turned to Liv, “What was that all about?”
“It was just stupid male testosterone stuff.”
“Just tell me.”
Liv debated and then sighed. “Seth was angry that Justice let you drive around in the Caterpillar for so long. And Justice said you were a grown woman and made your own choices. Seth said if Justice really loved you,” Liv’s voice bobbled. “He said if Justice really loved you, he wouldn’t have let you take your life in your hands.”
“Shit.”
“He’s just scared.”
PJ just nodded.
“No Peej, not regular scared. He’s terrified because you almost vanished from his life.” Liv’s voice caught on her own emotions. “We all are, but him more than any of us.”
It was all frightening. Michael. Seth. They both were holding on so tight to her.
It was unfair to compare them. Michael was a psychopath. Seth loved her so much that he didn’t know another way to show it. Liv was right. He was afraid of losing her because he’d already lost so much in his life. But that fear was holding her almost as tight as Michael’s zip ties.
PJ started crying. It was just all too much.
Liv ran her hand on PJ’s arm.
“Peej. Did he…did he...?”
PJ shook her head. He hadn’t raped her. That’s what they all wanted to know. He would have. She knew that with every bone and muscle in her body, but he hadn’t had time.
Liv let out a deep breath.
“Okay.”
And she let PJ cry.
♫ ♫ ♫
When Seth came back, they were wheeling her out so that they could collect whatever physical evidence was left after she’d been handled by EMTs and doctors and nurses and people she loved. From there, they were going to cast her hand.
When she told Seth that he couldn’t come, it hit him to the core. She could see it in his eyes, in the mask that came down over his face.
She took Liv with her instead. Liv sat with her while they swabbed her neck where Michael had licked her. While they looked for fingerprints and hair samples on her neck, head, and body. They’d already taken her clothes and the zip ties.
After that, they sent her to get her cast, and Liv sat patiently with her through it as well.
When they wheeled her back to the hospital room, Officer Tate was there with Seth, Locke, and Justice. The men were still scowling at each other. Tate looked like she wanted to slam their heads together.
Seth picked PJ up out of the wheelchair, cradled her to him like she was a little girl, kissed her gently on her bandaged forehead, and set her back down in the bed.
She let him because it made him feel better.
She let him because she already knew that she was leaving, and it was going to torture his already tortured soul. But she also knew that she wasn’t going to be able to stay no matter how much she loved him.
Tate asked if PJ felt like telling her what happened. PJ just nodded.
“Do you want us to leave or stay?” Liv asked.
Seth parked himself by the window. He was still in his tux from the party, and yet he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon; she knew him too well.
“It’s okay. Stay,” PJ said. They would all just ask her the same questions individually if she made them leave. This way she could just say it once and be done with it. This way she had a shield between her and Seth.
She didn’t look at any of them while she told them what happened. Officer Tate’s scratching pen and the machines in the room were the only noises besides her voice as she talked.
She hated reliving it. The black bag. The licks. His words. The choking sensation. The fear in the trunk. The fear of not getting away.
She wanted it to be done.
“He said he’d waited a long time for it to be his turn. Do you know what that means?” Tate asked.
He’d said it in his letter to her too. The one he’d left on the car. It had made her think of high school and that awful party where she’d heard the stupid boy telling her boyfriend that he’d waited for his turn. The one she’d taken into the back room, helping him to lose his virginity. But that hadn’t been Michael. She hadn’t known Michael in high school, had she? She’d gone to a huge school. And she hadn’t really been in the right frame of mind to even pay attention to any of her classmates. She hadn’t made many friends.
The girls had hated her because the boys liked her. Well, they liked flirting with her because they thought it would get them in her pants. And for a few, it had. Some of the boys had broken up with girlfriends just so they could be with her. Because she put out.
Had she brought this on herself? With those awful years of poor decisions? Shame surged through her, and she knew her cheeks turned a matching color.
But she shook her head at Tate. It wasn’t worth speaking about. Truly, she was unable to speak of that time. Unable to share that humiliation. But when she glanced at Seth, she could tell he was thinking the same thing she was. It had been her own words when she’d told him about the boys in high school.
Tate asked several more questions and then closed her book and stood.
“Do you know where he is?” Seth asked,
his voice cold and hard. Unreadable except to PJ who knew it held that lethal tone to it.
“No,” Officer Tate said honestly.
“But you’re going to arrest him?”
“We’ll bring him in for questioning.”
“You heard what PJ said. It's fucking him,” Seth seethed.
“We understand that’s what she believes, but until we have hard proof or a confession, it’s all we can do,” she responded.
Seth pushed himself up off the wall, but Justice blocked his path to the officer.
“What does that mean?” Justice asked, brushing his hand through his hair. “Don’t you believe her?”
“I believe her, yes. Very much,” Tate reassured. “But if we want the arrest to stick, we have to have more than a word that both men happened to speak.”
“The same shithead,” Seth growled.
“I’m going to go touch base with my partner. We’ll let you know when we have more information.”
“The…DNA?” PJ asked.
“From him licking you?” Tate asked.
PJ nodded.
“We’ll have to see what comes back. Sometimes we get solid markers. Sometimes we don’t. I’m not saying this to piss anyone off.” She looked at Seth. “I’m saying this so that I give you the lowest expectations possible in hopes that I can come back and give you much better news.”
Liv thanked her, and the officer left.
Everyone was quiet.
She was getting sleepy again from all the medication, and the pain, and the emotion. And the truth was, she wanted to sleep. Sleeping was better than thinking. Thinking about the fact that she might have started this avalanche rolling toward her years ago. But they wouldn’t let her stay asleep long because they were watching her concussion. Her eyes drooped anyway, the medicine kicking in.
“Peej?” It was Justice, rubbing her arm.
“Hmm.”
“Liv and I are going to take off for a bit. Just enough to take care of Cole. We’ll be back. Call us if you need us before then, okay? For anything. Even if you just need to talk.”
“K.”
There was a hushed conversation going on, but she was so tired she didn’t even care to listen to it.
Eventually it got quiet, and she knew everyone had left. Everyone except Seth because she could feel him in the room with her like she always did.
She managed to open her eyes and saw him in the chair next to her bed, eyes glued to her. She rolled onto her side with a little groan. Every piece of her body felt like it had been hammered into submission. She watched him as he watched her. Their fight, and their unspoken words, and the questions and answers were still whirling around them.
But she didn’t want to talk.
“Go back to the house. Change. Get some rest,” she told him.
“Is that your way of telling me I look like hell?”
“No. I just…there’s nothing you can do here.”
“I’m not leaving until I can take you home.”
She couldn’t tell him then, but she wasn’t going back to his house. She couldn’t. She needed a break. She needed space. She needed to heal in more than one way. She needed to be able to breathe without him taking the air as she did it.
“I’m just going to be sleeping. You should too.”
“No.”
“Ugh!” She rolled away from him. It didn’t help. She could still feel his eyes cutting into her back.
But she was too tired to fight him. She fell asleep with him watching her, knowing that when she woke, he would be exactly where she left him. In the chair, with his hand outstretched toward her.
♫ ♫ ♫
When she woke the next morning, Seth was still there, but he’d changed. He had on his typical jeans and a t-shirt. A pile of clothes that was once his tux was sitting on the floor. She didn’t know who had brought him the clothes, but it was obvious he hadn’t gone anywhere to get them.
He was drawing something on his sketchpad that must have been brought along with the clothes.
She must have made a noise, or just his normal panther senses made him aware that she was awake, because he leaned forward and put the sketchpad down on the bed as he kissed her gently on the lips.
“Bella,” his voice was gruff with exhaustion and emotions.
She looked down at the picture he was drawing. It was another cage. Not unlike the cage on his shoulder. Not unlike the one he’d made for Cam. Her jealousy and anger from the party hit her all over. She wasn’t stupid. She realized that Seth loved her, PJ. God, he was so over-the-top crazy protective that it would be impossible to not realize that. But it also didn’t remove the hurt from finding out that she was just a reflection of this woman from his past that he couldn’t have. From the little seed of doubt that said this is why he loved her, PJ, because he was trying to obtain something he hadn’t been able to have before.
“Is it her?” she asked as she ran her finger down the picture. He looked confused. “It’s the gilded cage, right? The one you destroyed?”
“No, it’s not,” he breathed out, realizing what she meant.
He pulled her from the bed into his lap, and she yelped as the wires tugged at her veins.
“I know you think…” He struggled for words because they weren’t something he was good at. “I know you think I still have feelings for her. But there is nothing there. Nothing but relief that losing her has brought me to you.”
She heard what he was saying, and she believed him because Seth always told the truth. But it was like her brain, and her heart, and her body were separate entities, all reacting to him in different ways. She had tears pouring down her face again, and she wasn’t even sure why.
“God, Bella.” He wiped at her tears. “You’re so goddamn much more than she ever was.”
He pulled her chin back to face him, and his lips found hers in the way that always reminded her of how much he needed her. Of the current that tied them together like the water and the shore. And yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had landed on their beach that didn’t belong and was tainting the water red.
She knew again that these were all the reasons she wouldn’t be going back to his house with him. Because they had to fix it before they moved forward. She had to fix herself before she could move forward with him.
♫ ♫ ♫
Even now that she’s in New York, and he’s in L.A., she still feels the current that draws them together. She feels it and is still struggling against it. She hasn’t necessarily found peace in New York. But she’s been able to think, to breathe, and to learn how her past was trying to tear up her future.
The psychologist and distance have allowed her to see the way her past impacted her view of Seth and his nonexistent relationship with Cam and his real relationship with her. And she’s finding ways to forgive herself for being a screwed-up teenager, and ways to convince herself that what happened with Michael was not her fault.
She’s getting there. She’s not sure she could have done that with Seth breathing over her shoulder, trying to force her to see it because he believed it. He tried so hard to show her the beauty and strength that he saw in her, and she’d rejected it. What he didn’t know—because she’d never done a great job of showing him—was that she saw it in him too. That same strength. That same resiliency. He’d survived so much in his own life. More in many ways than she had, and he hadn’t run away. He was just facing it every day. Confronting the loss and the addiction and trying to love.
She finds herself being drawn back to the pictures of the cracked plate welded together with gold that she’d found on the website about Kintsugi, and she wonders if Seth is right. If somehow, they can fuse themselves together in a way that makes them more than their experiences. More than their mistakes.
Letter Ten
I’D DIE FOR YOU
“If you could see inside my heart,
Then you would understand
.
I’d never mean to hurt you, baby,
I’m not that kind of man.”
-Bon Jovi, Child, & Sambora
Dear Bella,
I knew you were agitated and worried. I knew you were terrified of Michael and the fact that he was still out there. I knew you were frustrated with me, and Cam, and my inability to let you out of my sight. But I didn’t know that you were really going to leave me. That you were going to move out and not come home. Even though you’d talked about Pratt, you hadn’t brought it up again, and I had deluded myself into thinking I’d convinced you to stay.
The reality was that I’d held on to you so tightly that you’d actually slipped through my fingers.
When the doctor said he was releasing you, my heart soared because I thought I was going to be able to take you home where I could take care of you. Liv and Justice were there without the baby, and I guess that should have been a clue. Like they thought they were going to need to fight me.
Justice was grabbing your things, and I stopped him.
“I’ll take it.”
He looked from you to me, something unspeakable passing between the two of you that caused me to pause in a new way.
“You haven’t told him?” Justice asked.
You wouldn’t look at me. And that’s when I knew. You were running. You were leaving.
“Bella?”
“I’m going to stay with Justice and Liv.”
“No.”
“You can’t tell her no,” Justice said, dropping the bag and stepping between you and me.
It was Liv that stopped us from going at it again. Even though I hadn’t moved a muscle, she put her hand on my arm. “Seth, PJ just needs some space. Some time. This…. Everything has just been a little too much.”
“I want her to say it.” Did you hear the hurt in my voice? Probably not. I’m good at hiding my emotions, but you were slowly battering my shield apart. I knew eventually the feelings would show. Just like my tears had flowed for the first time in my life.
“I’m going to stay with Justice,” you said quietly, but you wouldn’t meet my eyes.
What could I do? Fight your family? Fight you? I knew that if I could just touch you, you’d know the truth because our bodies always spoke the truth to each other, even when our minds got in the way. But to touch you, I’d have to go through them, and that would just cause you to hate me more.
