Damage Me (Crystal Gulf Book 2) (38 page)

He continued to stare straight. His breathing had deepened, and his hand shook on his lap. “Sweets.”

“You are. That’s why Harley loves you. It’s why Dylan can’t truly let you go. Why I want you in my life. You can think bad about yourself all you want, but it isn’t true. I love you. Jerk face,” I tacked on to make him happy.

He cracked a smile just as there was a rustling at the door. There were keys, a growl, and then the door banged off the wall. My mother busted into the apartment like a momma bear. Her nostrils flared, and her claws sharpened. She was going to fight for me to hear it her way. For the first time, I was going to fight back for it to be my way.

“Hillary.” She threw her purse on the recliner and stared at me. Really stared. “You’re still a baby. You’re still my sweet, little girl. Why are you doing this?”

“I’m not a little girl anymore.”

“But you are. You are!” she insisted, but I had a feeling she was really trying to convince herself. She looked at Bach helplessly. “Isn’t she?”

He leaned over and kissed my hair. “I don’t think so, Patty.”

“This is your fault!” Rage contorted her face. She pointed at him. “She was fine until she knew you existed.”

“No, I wasn’t. I wasn’t fine. I was following your rules. That’s all. But I wasn’t fine. He isn’t the one who lied to me either,” I reminded her.

“Oh, come on, Hillary. I didn’t lie. I kept the truth from you to protect you. I did this for you!”

“I know. I know that, Mom. Now I’m doing this for me. But that doesn’t mean I’m leaving you forever. I just need to get away. I can’t think straight. Zane is everywhere. I’m not doing anything I want. I can’t figure out anything with all this pressure on me. I have to get away.” I pleaded with her to understand. Underneath my desire to escape was still the Hillary who wanted to please a woman who’d sacrificed everything for me. “Let me take a breath. Make a choice. Choose wrong. Maybe even get it right. Please.”

Her strength shattered. She sank down in her recliner and stared at me, eyes glossy, hold breaking. “They’re not going to charge him. There’s no proof he was in that room. No proof he was even there since no one’s willing to come forward. It’s your word against his.”

I looked down at my hands in my lap, letting her words wash over me. Zane Eastwood drugged me, locked me in a room, and tried to break me. But he didn’t. I was unbreakable. I was a strong woman, a fighter, a being who would not fall because of one monster. My mother didn’t raise me to break, but to hold myself together. She didn’t succumb and I wouldn’t either. I would not let Zane Eastwood win.

I got up. “I’ll be back,” I promised them, shutting the apartment door behind me.

I walked across the apartment complex on my own, a cold resolve moving my feet as the moon followed my steps. When I got to my destination, I knocked. It was late, but I didn’t worry myself with time. This had to happen. This fear was too strong. It was too dark to not fight back. I wanted my light. I didn’t want to change anymore and refused to fall another foot.

Piper opened her apartment door wrapped in a robe; wavy black hair messy, eyes closed in sleep. When she saw me, they widened and panic filled them. “What are you doing here?”

“Did he rape you?”

She inhaled sharply and looked inside, probably checking if her parents were around. When she returned her gaze, she was both terrified and broken. Piper hadn’t been running from her father. She’d been running from Zane. Zane had stolen my best friend.

“Hillary,” she hissed. “Don’t say that word to me.”

“You didn’t give him your virginity. He raped you. He got you drunk, and you said no, and he took it anyway, didn’t he?”

“Shut up.”

“He raped you. Just like he tried to do me!” I screamed. “He drugged me. He punched me. He forced me down and tried to take something from me that wasn’t his to take. And you let him. You let them all blame me because you were afraid. How could you? How could you do that to me?” I broke down. Tears trailed down my face. “You were my best friend, Piper!”

“Because no one would have believed me. I thought he wanted me. I thought he liked me. But when I said no he wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t stop, Hillary.” She broke too, falling apart right in front of me. “He wouldn’t get off. He wouldn’t stop. He told me that if I said anything, everyone would call me a slut. They’d all watched us together, dancing and flirting. They saw him come out of that room, and when I came out after him, they all whispered about me. Emery and Jasmine didn’t care. They told me to get over it. I was probably drunk. I got it wrong. I almost believed it too. But I know that isn’t what happened.” She took a step toward me, as lost as I was. “Hillary, I am so sorry.”

I didn’t know what to do. We’d both fallen, but she’d watched it happen, and that was unforgivable.

I pushed her away. “Don’t touch me. You left me alone to deal with this. You let everyone take my pain and make it a lie. Now guess what? He got away. Again. I blamed myself! I blamed myself for what happened. But it wasn’t my fault at all.” I had an epiphany. My fears were leaving, giving me enough room to see things how they really were, and not through my terror. “I didn’t deserve that, even if I did all the wrong things in the world. Even if I dressed like that. I can dress how I want. Even if I went to a party. Even if I went upstairs. I did not deserve that, and it wasn’t my fault. No one deserves to be that afraid, that broken, that hurt. No one!” I shouted, probably waking up the neighborhood. “You are not my friend anymore, Piper Cullen. But I forgive you. I’m sorry that happened to you. I know what you’re going through, and if you need me, I’ll be there the way you weren’t for me. I’ll help you. I’ll do what you need me to do, but we’re done.”

“Hillary!” she wailed after I took off. “I’m sorry!”

Letting Piper go was difficult. We’d been friends for so long, but I wondered if that mattered in the face of her betrayal. One betrayal paved the way for more, opening a door for someone to hurt me over and over again. I had no choice but to slam that door shut.

Along with so many others.

It took me a long time to understand that her fear and pain were probably too strong to withstand the truth, and then my anger turned into guilt. I imagined her nightmares when I woke up from mine. Did her sweat smell as bad as my own? Did her fears fear their own existence? Did she miss our friendship, or was she glad I wasn’t a reminder of her hurt? When we passed each other in the parking lot, she ignored me. When I happened to look at her apartment, I felt her ice. Piper let me go long before I did her because sometimes facing your fears meant facing your mistakes, and I knew how difficult that was.

Fears kept us ill.

Memories kept us in the past.

Blaming ourselves made it hard to move on.

Forgiving yourself was almost as hard as the wrong that put you there. But it had to be done.

So I forgave myself for being stupid—because I wasn’t stupid at all—but I did not forget.

I forgave my mistakes—because those were a part of life—and I would not make them again.

I’m sorry, Hillary.

I’m so sorry for blaming you.

It wasn’t your fault.

Chapter Ten

Dylan

“Are you sure?”

I cast my gaze around the beach house. There was nothing here I wanted. “I’m sure.”

Bach waved the movers inside, giving them orders to donate everything other than my bedroom furniture. I rested against my crutches awkwardly, pushing my hair out of my face. I needed a haircut. I needed a clue. But what I really needed was my good girl. Her face, like it had been doing for the past couple weeks, filtered into my mind. Her sad, broken pale green eyes, broken because of my words, haunted me. I wasn’t in the beach house anymore, but Harley’s guest house, pushing away the only woman worth losing myself with.

This slowly damaging emotion moved over me. It was worse than the realization I lost Harley. I’d accepted her absence over the past weeks. This feeling meant something I wasn’t willing to accept yet. It made it difficult to breathe. To see anything other than the nightmare. In my nightmares, it wasn’t Spits anymore. It was Hillary. I would hurt that woman the same way I hurt him, the same way I did my daughter, Harley, and Bach—I hurt. I refused to do that to Hillary. She had suffered long enough without me adding to it, but everything inside of me steeled when I thought about her, and this sinking feeling that she was gone made it impossible to take a breath that didn’t ache.

In my heart, I knew this would be my forever without her. These gray areas that didn’t smother me, but didn’t make me feel alive either, they didn’t take my breath away, make my heart pound; they didn’t make me want to live.

There was a hand on my shoulder suddenly. “Dylan,” Bach said, sounding far away.

What was she doing?

Was she drowning in her nightmares?

Who was going to remind her she got out safe?

Who was going to make sure she didn’t fall?

Why did I always have to ruin everything?

I refused to picture another man in my place. Someone good like her, someone worth her touch and kiss.

Those were my fucking lips.

“Yo, D?” He waved his hand in front of my face.

“What?” I mumbled. I burned to ask him. Bach had the answers. He knew everything Hillary was doing. Instead, I kept my mouth shut. If I asked, I’d want to see her; I’d want to taste her sweetness one more time. Two more times. Just one more time.

“You ready?”

I joined his stare as we took in the beach house for the last time. “We had some good times in this place.”

He cracked a grin. “Yeah, we did.” But he frowned too because he hadn’t.

“I’m ready.” I’d miss nothing about this house. I had this fear that I could live anywhere, and my garbage would follow. I was moving in with Harley and Bach in their apartment in Houston. It was a five-minute drive to Whitney’s new place. I was trying. The closer I was to my daughter the clearer my goal was. I wanted to be her father and not just the man she called Dad.

“Are you going to go see your folks?” Harley spoke up, dusting her hands off on her white jean shorts.

I smiled softly at her, still so sweet. “I know it’s hard to believe, but they won’t even know I’m gone. They didn’t even know I was back home.”

Sadness entered her eyes. “Maybe we can talk about it later in group?”

I pushed down my irritation. “Sure, Miss Evans.”

With a roll of her eyes, she reached up and kissed Bach’s lips. “I’ll see you later, honey.”

I looked away when he kissed her and shuffled over to where the couch had been to give them some privacy. Harley would undoubtedly give me enough to be upset about later in group therapy. Just thinking about it made me want to run. But I couldn’t run. Probably never would be able to again. It had been a couple weeks since Hill made me take my first steps. All the rest were taken on my own. I walked around the beach house until my screams were louder than my failures. I gave up only when the betrayal I instilled in her was gone from her eyes.

How could she believe me? Forget that I wanted her to. What I wanted was to protect her. If that meant pushing her away to do so, then I had no choice. I wanted to prevent the inevitable damage I’d do to her. So I lied. Like I always did. I made her think she was the only one who wanted this, that I didn’t want her, when I was starting to realize she was the only one I did want.

One more day in Crystal Gulf and I would explode. Being trapped in this house without my daughter was driving me crazy. But being trapped in this city knowing Hillary was just a ten-minute drive away was worse. Twice I’d gotten out the door before I talked myself out of it.
Let her go
. Moving in with Bach was the best option. Leaving her behind was the only choice I had.

Inside I burned.

It was worse than Harley, worse than the realization that if I kept my angel around, she’d fall right along with me. Because in my dream it wasn’t Spits anymore, it was her. Seeing those jade green eyes cold and lifeless because of me, because I kissed her, loved her, damaged her—was worse than the bullet that ripped through my femur.

When Bach closed the door on the beach house, I felt nothing. When we got into his truck and left Crystal Gulf behind I felt even less. When we got on the highway, I was empty. But when we got to Houston, I felt a stirring. When we pulled up in front of our new apartment, I felt relief. When I stepped foot inside, I felt peace. It was a ground floor suite with three bedrooms overlooking a crystal blue lake. The rent was astronomical, and even with Bach and Harley’s incomes to cushion the bill, it was still too much for my benefits. It was lavish, too much for me, but Harley had wanted the indoor hot tub, and what Harley wanted, Bach made sure to get. It was suitable for Aubrey, and that’s all that mattered. She had her own room, decked out in pink and white, and I swore there was even glitter in the air.

I tried to think only about her when Bach dropped me off outside of the rec center. The sun was shining down, but the air was cold, smelling strongly of exhaust and smoke. Gone was the smell of the Gulf. In its place were the bustling, gritty streets of Houston. I was oddly satisfied with it. Cars lined the road, and people walked by dressed in business attire, probably on their lunch break. This was the only space Harley could get for her group. Bach and I both agreed it was a shitty place for her to work, and that I would attend every meeting she had to make sure she was okay. She thought I was there to spill my guts, to attend her group meetings full of damaged people telling strangers how damaged they all were. And maybe deep down inside I was. Maybe I didn’t mind hearing about others darkness because it made mine less choking.

“I won’t be here to pick you up, so catch a ride with Harley,” Bach said, staring straight ahead.

I raised my eyebrow at his stiffness.
What was his problem?
The day I let Harley go things between us had gone from unrepairable to barely holding on. But at least we were holding on. “Why?”