Page 104 of Older

Our stares locked.

Two dark eyes flared, looking blacker than midnight, when recognition slowly filled his shellshocked gaze.

The universe shrank to a pinpoint as I froze in place.

I was breathless, wordless.

There was a young brunette wrapped up in his meaty arm, a woman who was not my mother. They had been wandering out of the bar—situated in the strip plaza next door to the roller rink—my father puffing on a cigarette, the woman snapping a mouthful of pink bubblegum.

I glanced at her, drinking in her slow-blink of confusion, before backing away from the scene. Maybe he didn’t recognize me at all. Maybe he couldn’t recognize me because he had never truly seen me in the first place.

My soul rolled over broken glass as memories rained down on me. The scent of his whiskey breath, the snarling pitch of his voice, the crack of his leather belt against my skin.

“You’ve never been good at doing hard things.”

“You’re a disgusting disgrace, just like your mother.”

“You’re a whore. A waste of goddamn space.”

“You’ll never amount to anything, little lamb. You’re a nobody.”

Dozens of jagged scars on my back pulsed in remembrance, while heat needled down my arms and legs.

I shook my head, quickly, briefly.

And then I spun around and dashed away.

I heard their voices echoing behind me as I retreated back toward the rink.

“Who was that, Frank?” the woman asked.

“Dunno. Never seen her before.”

This is impossible.

He was in jail.

My father was supposed to be in jail for five years.

My eyes were on the ground, my mind a million miles away.

I didn’t understand. Nothing made sense. I?—

A hand curled around my elbow.

I shrieked with pure terror.

“Jesus, Halley.”

Reed’s voice punctured through my paralyzed daze, and I blinked up at him, my chest billowing in and out, legs trembling. “S-sorry…I…” I didn’t know what to say. My bottom lip quivered pathetically, and my eyes blurred through a screen of tears.

He stared at me, worry creasing his brows as he tried to get a read on me. Tried to make sense of my current state as I stood before him on the cement footpath, tremoring like a weak little girl.

I wanted to throw myself into his arms and let him carry me away from here.

I wanted him to save me.

God…all that training down the drain.