Page 38 of On the Wild Side
She sighs and, if I’m not mistaken, chuckles.
Chuckles.
“This isn’t funny, Abbi.”
“No.” She presses the pack to her face and cringes. “It’s not funny. But it’s typical. I’m a fucking mess and a half, Brady. You don’t need to bring my bullshit into your life.”
“I don’t see any bullshit.”
“No, you’ve seen what I want you to see, and I don’t mean that as deceitful as it sounds.”
She walks back into the living room and sits on the couch, pulls her feet up under her, and looks so…sad.
“Maybe you should talk to me.”
I take Chase’s seat across from her so I can look her in the eyes.
“I don’t ever talk about this,” she replies quietly and shivers, and I pull the throw blanket off of the back of the chair I’m in and take it to her and wrap her up in it, before returning to the chair. “I’m not going to go into the nitty gritty because Ican’t.I have to go home later to be with Daisy, and if I go there, I might not come out of the darkness that it puts me in. But I was in foster care. You know what Jake went through.”
My brother’s son was in foster care for over a year after his biological parents died in a car accident. He was brutalized in that house, over and over again, until Chase and Ryan saved him.
I narrow my eyes on her and nod. Christ, I want to hold her.
“I was abused in every way there is to hurt someone. In. Every. Way.”
Unable to stand it, I cross to her and lift her into my arms, settling with her in my lap, and press my face to her neck.
How couldanyonewant to hurt this beautiful, smart, sweet woman?
“Never again,” I say, my voice rough with emotion as we cling to each other. “No one willeverhurt you again, Abbi.”
“I didn’t think so. Until today. And I was unprepared, unarmed, and so damnstupid.”
I pull back and frown down at her. “What are you talking about? Are you supposed to carry a gun every time you leave the house?”
“I should have been more aware of my surroundings,” she says. “I should have checked every room before I started cleaning, and I should have had a partner with me.”
“I won’t argue about the partner,” I agree. “That’s just common sense, but it’s the holidays and you were short-staffed. Jesus, Abbi, it’s not your fault.”
Her lower lip quivers, and I cup her cheek, pressing my lips to hers.
“I wish…” She stops talking and closes her eyes.
“What, baby? What do you wish?”
She takes a long, deep breath. “I wish you hadn’t seen me like that. The panic attacks don’t happen very often anymore, and it’s bad enough that poor Daisy has to help me through them. I didn’t want you to see it.”
I don’t like that Daisy is the one she has to lean on.
“Well, to answer your previous question,no.This doesn’t change anything between you and me. We all have a past, Abs. We all have stuff. If you need to fall apart, thenfall the fuck apart.I can handle it.”
She leans in and buries her face in my neck.
“I have secrets, Brady. You don’t deserve that.”
“Will any of your secrets hurt my family?”
She jerks back as if I’ve just hit her, her big, blue eyes full of fire. “Of course not. Jesus, of course not.”