Only Between Us (31 page)

Katie’s eyes meet mine. “It happened, Cabe,” she whispers, her eyes filling with tears. “But … it wasn’t your fault. You understand that, right?”

I look away, staring out the window. “Katie—”

“No, Cabe,” she says softly. “I know I blamed you. But you’re not the only one who could have told someone what was happening.”

I turn back to her, stunned and amazed at her words. She’s giving me this scared-but-brave look as tears streak down her face, and I know she’s been working up to this for a while.

I get up and sit next to her on the bed, putting my arm around her and letting her rest her head on my shoulder as she sobs quietly. An orderly looks in and sees that I’ve got her, and leaves us alone. “It shouldn’t have happened to either of us,” I tell her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what to do.” Now my eyes are stinging. “I thought I was choosing between getting us both killed by telling or staying silent and keeping us alive. I was so stupid.”

“We were both kids, Cabe.” She sniffles, and I grab her a tissue. “He said the same things to me, and I believed him, too. I’m sorry I blamed you for so long. I feel like I destroyed our family.”

I hold her tight. “You didn’t,” I say in a hard voice. “
He
did.” I snag another tissue and brush it over her cheek, softening my tone. “I feel bad that you still have to deal with so much. And that’s why I’m here for you.” We sit quietly for a few minutes, and I’m praying those words stick, that she doesn’t forget them as soon as I say what I came here to say. I take a breath and let it out. “I have to be honest with you about something.”

She stiffens. “What?”

I look down at her. “I have to be there for Romy, too.”

“Oh.” She wipes her nose, hard enough to leave her upper lip a dark shade of pink. “You’re still going out with her?”

“I love her, Katie.” It’s the first time I’ve said it when someone else could hear. And it is so powerfully true that it steals my breath.

She blinks at me. “That sounds serious.”

“I want it to be serious. I want her to be around. I want to be good for her, because she’s definitely good for me.” That’s the understatement of the year. “And she cares about you, too.”

Katie looks away. “She probably hates me.”

“There’s no way she hates you.” I take her hand. “I wouldn’t be with someone who hates you.”

“I hate her. A little, at least.”

My stomach tightens. “Why? She’s never been anything but nice to you.”

Katie’s cheeks turn pink. “Because you like to be with her so much.”

Daniel was right. She
is
jealous. “It’s a different kind of love, Katie. No matter how much I love her, it won’t take away from my love for you.” In fact, I think I could bear it better if Romy were with me. “But I need to spend some time with her, or I’m going to lose her.”

“And you don’t want to lose her.” She says it almost like a question.

I make sure she’s looking me in the eye. “If I did, it wouldn’t be good.” I stare at her, silently begging her to understand.

She gives me a weak, flickering smile. “Then I guess you should do your best to keep her,” she says, her voice breaking.

We stay in her room until it’s time to go to the meeting, my arm around my sister, her head on my shoulder. We don’t talk; it’s too much right now. But when we get up to go to the meeting, she puts her hand in mine again, like she’s a little girl. I think she got frozen that way, so many years ago, like the ten-year-old Katie got stored on ice until it was safe to start to grow again. I hope she can do that, now that she’s actually dealing with the trauma she pushed down for so long.

We gather in a small conference room off the unit—Dr. Prihadi, the unit psychiatrist, the social worker, her therapist from the partial hospitalization program, Amy, Katie, and me. The docs talk about her meds and the social worker talks about how she did last night. Her therapist explains that this kind of thing is expected, given the time of year and the kinds of things Katie is disclosing.

Amy looks startled. “What … what’s she disclosing?”

The therapist looks startled, too, and turns to Katie. “I’m sorry. You said you’d told your family.”

“I told Cabe,” she says. “But he already knew.”

Amy stares at me, and it looks like she’s going to throw up. “You weren’t lying?” she whispers, quiet and jagged.

“He wasn’t,” Katie mumbles.

I glance at Katie, who’s moved closer to her therapist, seeking safety. “I never lied, Amy.”

Amy’s eyes fill with tears. It happens so fast that they’re spilling down her face before we can get the box of tissues across the table. “Oh, Katie,” she says in a choked voice. “Oh my God.”

The therapist, a lady with graying blond hair, leans forward. “Katie’s been working very hard on all these things in our program. It takes a lot of courage to come to terms with what happened to her.”

Her tone is all warning—
don’t make this harder
. Amy manages to get the message. She nods as she holds the tissues to her face, hiding her eyes as she tries to compose herself.

This is what I wanted to happen, and I feel grimly triumphant as I watch my older sister struggle with a truth almost too painful to bear. I needed her to hear this from Katie, because maybe she’ll be able to stop blaming me. Maybe it will make her more willing to help.

I sit quietly as the professionals talk about discharge dates, and then I clear my throat. Here we go. “I need the team’s help in making a plan for the few days before Christmas.”

Katie folds her arms across her body and nods. I can tell it isn’t easy for her, and I give her a grateful smile before I say, “I’m going to go out of town with my girlfriend for two days.”
Assuming I can change her mind about leaving without me.
“Morning of the twenty-third to the afternoon of the twenty-fourth. I’ll be back for the evening and Christmas Day, but Katie will need support while I’m gone.”

“We have our on-call service in place,” says Dr. Prihadi.

The therapist puts her hand on Katie’s shoulder. “And you know you can call the emergency hotline.”

Amy meets my gaze. “Katie can stay with me,” she says. She turns to Katie. “If you want to?” She wipes her nose and smiles. “I think the boys would love that. And you guys can have Christmas Eve at our place.” She sounds scared to death.

I sag a little in my seat as they all start to chatter about the plan for Katie, a plan to keep her out of the hospital if at all possible, a way to keep her safe under any circumstances. I help when it comes to thinking of all the ways this might be hard for Katie so we can plan for how to support her, and how to guide Amy if she doesn’t know what to do. Amy seems nervous, but she’s in it for the first time ever, and I’m so thankful.

It feels like a huge weight is lifting off of me. It’s not Katie—she’s not a burden. She’s my family and always will be. But her needs are intense, and I can’t be the only one trying to meet them anymore. Not if I want to have my own life. Not if I want to be the kind of boyfriend Romy deserves.

I kiss Katie goodbye and walk out to the parking lot with Amy. Wet flakes of snow have started to drift down from the sky. We’re supposed to get a few inches tonight. Amy’s quiet until we reach my truck.

“I’m sorry I never believed you,” she says. “I wondered. So many times. Phil is such a …” She shakes her head. “But Katie kept denying it, and Mom said all these things about you—”

“We don’t have to do this right now, Amy.” I so don’t want to hear what my mom thinks of me. That’s a deep wound best opened on another day. “I’m really grateful you came today. I know it wasn’t easy.”

She touches my arm. “I’m going to do what I can, Caleb. I know Romy is important to you.”

I kick the edge of the truck’s front tire. “She is. I’m not actually sure I’ll be able to convince her to take a chance on me after everything that’s happened.” I pull my keys from my pocket. “But I’m sure as hell going to try.”

Chapter Twenty-nine: Romy

I finish packing and set my suitcase by the door. I’m leaving early tomorrow morning, and I don’t want to be shoving stuff in a bag at the last minute. I take a shower, put on some cozy fleece PJs, and heat up a bag of microwave popcorn. Caleb said he’d be over tonight, so I should have a few hours until—

Someone knocks. I peek through the peephole and my heart instantly speeds.  With shaking hands, I open my door. His dark hair is pulled back, wet flakes of snow still melting between the strands. He looks me up and down as I remember I’m wearing pajamas that make me look like I’m ten years old. I had planned to change before he got here.

“I know I’m early,” he says. “But can I come in?”

I open the door wide. I don’t know what to say. So many things are clogging my thoughts, exhilaration, craving, fierce love, piercing sadness. He stands next to the kitchen table, his gaze lingering on my suitcase. “Do you … want some water or something?” I ask.

“No.” His wolf-gray eyes are eating me up. “How was the arraignment?”

“Short. He pled guilty after Eric showed Alex’s lawyer surveillance footage of Alex pounding on my car. I have no idea how Eric managed to get it—it only happened yesterday.”

Caleb’s hand clenches over the back of one of my chairs. “Is Alex out on bail or something?”

I shake my head. “The judge gave him thirty days for criminal contempt.”

“That’s it?” His jaw tightens.

“It’s all they can do. But the personal protection order will be in place when he gets out, and if he does this again, he’ll do a much longer sentence.”

He lets out a breath, still looking unhappy. “He was following you, wasn’t he? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I rub my arms, fighting the chill that comes with the memory of seeing the flash of winter sun off the red hood of Alex’s car. “Caleb, you’ve been dealing with so much—”

“Do you have
any
idea what it would have done to me if he’d hurt you?”

I have a sense, only because I remember the raging protectiveness I felt that night Caleb was hurt so badly. “I wasn’t thinking about that,” I admit. “I didn’t want to worry you over nothing.”

His eyes go wide. “Nothing? I’ve seen what that guy can do. I know how dangerous he is. And you’ve been dealing with it for—how long has it been, Romy? Since Thanksgiving? Before that?”

I turn away, needing to escape from the rough edge in his voice. “I don’t want to fight with you,” I say, my voice breaking.

He touches my arm. “I’m sorry,” he says, the edge gone. “I … need you to help me sort something out.”

“Okay.”

“And I need you to be honest.”

“All right.”

“You said you were leaving, and I’m assuming that means I’m not coming with you.” He’s quiet for a few seconds. “You’ve been having second thoughts about … us?”

I turn back to him. “Yes.”

He swallows. “And was that because you … because I …” His fists clench, and it makes me want to kiss him, how hard he’s searching for his words. “Are you embarrassed to be with me? I know my life is a mess, and—”

“What?” I laugh. “No.” He’s making it easy to be honest. It’s never occurred to me to be anything but thrilled that he was standing next to me.

“But you don’t think I’m strong enough to be there for you. To give you what you need.”

“
Catherine
needs you, Caleb.”

“I know,” he says evenly, like he expected me to say it.

“I didn’t want to make you feel like you had to choose.” My chest is getting tight. “You wanted to be close to her for so long, and you were finally getting that, and she said that if you went with me, it meant you didn’t love her—” The tears sting my eyes. “I didn’t want to be the cause of drama in your life. I didn’t want you to lose that closeness with her.”

“So you thought you’d hide what you were going through?” he says, frustration creeping in again. “You thought that would be easier for me?” He watches my face. “You did.” He chuckles, but there’s no humor in it. “Of course you did. I walked away yesterday. I’ve walked away from you so many times.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s a big job, keeping Catherine safe, and I know why you’re doing it. I don’t want you to have to worry about me on top of all of that.”

He steps back, his arms rising in agitation. “I
want
to worry about you! You pushed me away—you wouldn’t let me—you didn’t tell me—” He presses his hands to either side of his head, like he’s trying to keep himself from exploding. He draws several breaths before letting his hands fall away. “You did this for me?” he finally says. “Pulling away, hiding what was happening with Alex, that was to protect me? Because from here, it feels like you didn’t think I was strong enough to be what you need or you didn’t trust me.”

I grimace and cover my mouth with my hand. I wanted to make it easier for him, but seeing the pain in his eyes tells me I did the opposite. “I didn’t want to demand that from you.”

“Why, Romy?”

“Because I love you!” I swipe tears from my face. “I love you, Caleb, and seeing you in pain kills me. The thought of having anything to do with you losing Catherine all over again made me feel terrible. Our relationship was so new, and you were finally getting your chance to be a family, and I knew I didn’t have any right to interfere.”

“You had
every
right to interfere!” he shouts. “You had every fucking right.” He comes toward me and grasps my shoulders. “Because I love you, too.”

His lips crash down on mine, and I throw my arms around his waist as he puts his hand on the back of my head and deepens our kiss. The sensation of him is overwhelming, the firm lines of his body, the warm scent of his skin, the merciless thrust of his tongue. I tangle my hands in his hair and feel him growing hard against me. After a few frantic, mindless minutes, he pulls away, nibbling my bottom lip before kissing the corner of my mouth. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how I felt,” he says softly. “If you knew, if I’d been brave enough to say it, maybe you would have understood how important you are to me.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you,” I say, leaning my head against his shoulder as he gathers me to him. “I trusted you with so much, but when it came down to Catherine and me, I didn’t want to know how it would end. I didn’t want—”