Page 50 of The Love Penalty
CHAPTER 21
LEILANI
My eyes creep open to a gentle light. It must be coming from a lamp behind me, because it doesn’t hurt my eyes too much to open them.
Asher’s on the bed. I can feel him shuffling around. I kind of want to reach back and pull his arm over me, or maybe snuggle into his chest again.
I’m done talking. I’ve woken up feeling drained but maybe a touch lighter. I’m not sure. Just because I’ve told him doesn’t mean the weight of what happened suddenly goes away. I’ll still be tormented by it. But maybe I can start to move on somehow. Maybe I won’t be caught in this trap forever.
Rolling over with a tentative smile, I’m about to shuffle against Asher’s side when I suddenly realize that he’s not the one beside me.
It’s Caroline.
She’s lying with her arm tucked under her head, her big blue eyes red-rimmed and puffy.
“Are you okay? What happened?” I sit up on my elbow, gazing down at her with a worried frown.
“It’s not me.” She shakes her head. “I’m fine, but…” Tears fill her eyes, her voice dropping to a soft whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me? How could you carry that on your own all this time?” Her voice shudders. “It kills me that I wasn’t there for you.”
I go still, my heart rate dropping to nonexistent as I slump back down on the pillow and stare up at the ceiling. “Asher told you?”
“Not exactly,” she mumbles. “I caught him yelling at the sky, and he was really cut up. I asked what was wrong, and he hinted that you’d told him something bad.”
Tension coils my muscles, and I grip my fingers together.
“Lani, were you… did you…?”
“I was raped.” Huh. Saying it was easier that time. My voice didn’t waver. It’s just a fact now—a permanent record in my history.
Caroline whimpers, covering her mouth with her hand while she struggles to speak.
I wait her out, staring at the ceiling, realizing she’s gonna need a sec, just like Asher did. This truth isn’t my wound alone. I didn’t think about how it would hurt other people too.
Or maybe I did.
And that’s why I held on to it for so long.
“I’m sorry,” Caroline whispers. “I’m sorry I didn’t know.”
“That’s not on you. I just couldn’t get the words out.”
“But I care about you so much. I love you, Lani. I want to help you, and I haven’t been able to because I didn’t know.” Fat tears roll down her cheeks, and she slashes them off her face. “And now I’m making it all about me, and I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. I just… I want to take this away from you. I want to make it all better.”
I roll to my side, reaching for her hand with a soft smile. “You can’t. It’s my journey. It’s my experience that I have to deal with.”
“But you don’t have to do it alone.” She touches my cheek, her thumb gently rubbing my skin, and I realize she’s right.
I’ve been trying to carry this weight, and maybe if I’d let her in sooner, I could have coped better. I don’t know.
But it’s not like I could have told her that night.
“Why didn’t you say something when it first happened?” Caroline gives me a pained frown. “We usually tell each other everything.”
“I was going to.” The memory comes back to me. I was. I had every intention of walking into our dorm room and falling apart, but then… “I got back to our room, and you were sitting on your bed with all these positive pregnancy tests and totally freaking out. You needed me… and I didn’t want you feeling bad for bailing on the party when you were going through your own crisis.”
Caroline’s expression buckles, and I quickly wipe at the frown lines forming on her forehead.
“It’s okay. Don’t feel bad. It was my choice to keep it to myself.”