What Lies Beneath (Count on Me Series #7) (3 page)

“Why did you want to shut me up?”

“Because when I said I didn’t want to read it, I didn’t mean that it was wrong that you showed it to me. Wanted to share that part of yourself. I just meant that I
really
didn’t want to read it.”

Where I thought her words would offer some clarity in the confusion of the moment, it only seems to make it worse.

“Okay, I’m lost. If you don’t want to read it, then what do you want?”

“Easy.” She bounces back on the sofa, pulling the book from the arm and handing it over with a smile. “I want you to read it
to
me.”

She what?

“You said this was a story you wrote when you were a kid, right? And that it was about me. So who better to read it to me than the author? Tell me your story, Kayden.”

So after a minute of studying her, looking for any sign that she’s only doing what she thinks I might want, and finding nothing but glowing eyes, a bright smile and the overwhelming peacefulness that comes from the love we share, I do what she asks.

I open the book to the second entry and I do it.

I tell her a story.

“Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived this beautiful princess and a beast determined to slay her.”

Flinching when her elbow connects hard with my side, I swallow down the urge to drop an F-bomb, turning my attention instead to the laugh that escapes and the eye roll I’ve earned that quickly follows.

“I’m pretty sure if you’re going for accuracy here, Kay, it’s the princess that slays the beast.”

It was supposed to be a joke, starting off like this. Mainly because I already know what the second entry in the book is about and I’m sweating balls over here worried about how she’s going to react when I read it.

Before senior year, nothing about my life was fairy-tale worthy. I guess I just want to keep things light for as long as I can. Exposing myself is the easy part. Exposing my girl to the pits of hell that were the parts without her in it? Not so much.

She’s got a point though. She
is
the princess and she
did
slay the beast.

“You’re right. How insensitive of me. Let me start again.”

As I part my lips to repeat the joke, her finger coming to rest across my lip stops me.

“You’re stalling. Which means whatever comes next in this story of yours is probably something that’s going to make me cry.”

Nailed it.

“Do you read everyone else this well or do you save it all for me?”

Lifting her hand, she waves it before dropping it, flashing me the most adorable smile in the process. She’s not the only one with the ability to read people. Like now, without so much as a word, I know she means it can go both ways.

“You’re right. This story isn’t just about you. It’s about me too, and there wasn’t a whole lot of good on my end.”

“Is this about Dean or your dad?”

Even though I’ve spent the last couple of years making sporadic visits to the prison in order to see my brother, attempting the same way I did with my mom at letting him in despite everything that’s happened between us, he’s still a sore subject.

The wounds still as raw as they were when I went through them.

“Most of the memories I can pull up are Dean, but this one, I blocked it out as best I could. It’s the one memory I’ve tried my hardest to forget. It’s my dad.”

Dad isn’t a word I’d use for the man that beat my mother, Dean and me within an inch of our lives every damn chance he got. That name is reserved for a man with a stern hand but softer heart. One that wouldn’t dream of putting his hands on a woman or his children in any way other than love.

The kind of man that despite the way I was raised, I hope in the future I can be.

For Belle and our children.

Holy shit.

It’s not the first time I’ve thought about my future, but it is the first time that sitting here with her, with my past damn near burning a hole in my lap, I’ve been able to picture kids.

Mini versions of ourselves running around. The boys acting like me and creating all kinds of shit, while the girls—who in my mind look exactly like their mother, are lighting up every room they enter. The same way they do our lives.

God, I’ve got it bad.

“Tell me,” Belle prompts, brushing her hand across my cheek and pressing her lips to the side of my head when I lean into the touch. A move so simple that’s happened a thousand times before, but that never ceases to soothe me. Like a healing balm to an exposed wound. “If you can’t read it, tell me what you remember.”

“I’ll read it, but it’s one of those situations where I shouldn’t have even been there. I was in my room, flipping through this comic my mom had picked up on the way home from work and everything was fine. There was a bang, followed by a crash, and all of a sudden I’m not in my room anymore, but the living room. I’m jumping between them, taking what he was obviously about to do to her and wishing I was anywhere but.”

My throat is on fire. Acid burning its way through as my stomach revolts against me. The urge to puke getting stronger with every visual of that day I can bring up in my mind.

The day he realized I made an even better punching bag than Dean.

“Kay…” she whispers, leaning her head against mine.

“I’m sorry for this, Belle. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want this to touch you. Anyone else, whatever. Never you, though.” I say in reply, flipping the book open and turning the page to the entry. Shaking off the nausea building in my stomach and clearing my throat, readying myself for what comes next, I read.

And just like that, I’m seven all over again.

Chapter Two

May 3, 2004

He’s angry.

So mad that his entire face goes the color of my red crayons and thick lines pop out on his forehead.

I could hear her screaming, then this crash bang sound, then silence.

The end.

She says I’m supposed to stay in my room when he gets like this, but since she also thinks its okay that he throws her around, I didn’t listen.

I went out there.

Listening from my hiding place behind the sofa.

It was like someone pushed a button and stopped time.

It was so quiet.

When things are that quiet, it’s scary.

I used to think there was something wrong with my ears when it got like this, so I’d jam my finger in and try to clear the blockage so I could hear again, but since I can hear sounds from Dean’s room across the hall, I know it’s not me anymore.

It’s never been me.

That’s when I did something stupid.

I came out of hiding when he raised his fist and stepped toward her. I jumped out and before his fist could make contact, slipped between them.

He hit me.

It hurt.

All of the air came whooshing out and like a piece of paper that blows off and drifts to the ground, I dropped to the floor.

Shadows scare me.

They didn’t before. I used to play games with my shadow, but now that I’ve had his over me, I want to make sure I never go anywhere where I have to see mine again.

Hover. Slap. Growl. Curse. Hit.

He hurt me.

Scared me.

Her cries and the sound of skin on skin break up the silence.

I reach out for her but meet the cold metal leg of the bar instead.

No one can help me.

Spit flies across my face before I feel the sting of his fist in my stomach.

I curl in to try and protect myself, but it’s too late.

There’s a flood of warmth and it’s not from being picked up and taken someplace safe.

This is a different kind of warm. One I know because I’ve lived it before.

She’s done it and I laughed at her when she did.

Belle…

I get it now.

Not being able to breathe, shivering, shaking, and curling myself into the tightest ball I can. It’s because I’m afraid. Like Dean says, I’ve got the fear of God in me.

Except he’s not God.

My daddy is the Devil.

I never should have laughed at her when she had an accident.

It isn’t funny.

She did it because she’s as scared as I am.

When mommy comes back from the hospital, I’m gonna make her take me to their house.

I’m gonna tell Belle that I get it, and I’m sorry.

I’m gonna make sure neither of us feels this scared again.

I swear it.

“I can still smell the blood.” I admit shakily. “From where she fell and her head got cut open. Like melted iron or rust. I don’t know. I just know it was the sickest thing I’ve ever smelled.”

Admitting this to her, god, even admitting it to myself, turns me inside out. As much as I hate the smell of blood, let alone the sight, I sure went out of my way to make sure it happened repeatedly every day after.

Even at one point craving it like I did air to breathe.

Pull back. You’re not that kid anymore. Your air is different now.

My air now sitting beside me. 

“I never did tell you I was sorry.” I realize, turning and bringing her face level with mine. Running my thumb under her eyes, wiping away the result of her reaction to what she’s read.

I
fucking hate
making her cry. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Kay.”

We may have come a long way, her calling me on my crap more than she did in the past, but we’re not entirely there yet if she believes even for a second that what she just said is right.

I have
everything
to apologize for.

“She didn’t come home for two days and by the time she did, I’d forgotten about it.”

“You don’t have to explain.”

“But I do. I swore it and I didn’t follow through.”

Swallowing down the guilt I feel for never once telling her I understood what she was going through because I’d lived through it too, I turn my attention to the book and what I know comes next.

More darkness. More torture.

Pain.

“You were seven, Kayden. As much as you wanted to be everything to everyone back then, and I know you did; you couldn’t be. It wasn’t our time yet.”

Pulling my eyes from the book and finding hers as I let her words sink in, I lean in and press my lips to her forehead and think not about the harder parts of what come next, but the easy ones.

The ones that include her.

Us.

The light. The happy. The excitement I put on paper when I made roads with her when we were kids.

I think about Belle.

“I’m still scared.”

Jesus. That’s not what I wanted to say.

“Of your dad?”

“No.” I shake my head vehemently. “I’m over that. I think I am anyway.”

“Then what are you scared of?”

“Not being enough. That no matter how hard I try to be different and make things better for you—for us; that I’m still going to fail. Screw it up.”

“Well, I guess there’s no time like the present to say that I’m scared too.”

If I was surprised by what I said, I’m even more taken off guard by what Belle did.

She’s afraid of me screwing up too?

“W—what are you scared of?” I manage to choke out, closing my eyes and readying myself for the bomb I just know is coming.

“The future.” She admits. “Mine. Yours. Ours. I’m scared of all of it.”

“Why?” I ask, even though I’m sure I’m not going to like the answer.

“Open your eyes, Kay. Don’t hide from me.”

When I make no move to do what she’s asked, her hand runs lightly across my face, pausing when she reaches the corner of my eyes and feeling the weight of her own gaze waiting for me to respond, I give in.

I look.

But where I expected to see fear, sadness, or pity, I see nothing but the same things she’s been giving me for years now.

Love. Acceptance. Understanding.

Her.

“The future is scary. I think it’s that way for everyone. No one knows how the story of their lives is going to play out. We can guess based on the choices we make, but we can never be one hundred percent sure. What I am a hundred percent sure of though, is that as long as my story has you in it, no matter how scary things may get or seem, it’s all going to be okay.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Placing her hand delicately on top of mine, she lifts it over until its resting on top of the last line of the journal entry I’ve written. Her eyes meeting mine before lowering straight down to it, intending for mine to follow.

“Because you just swore to me that it would.”

Chapter Three

When she said that there was something she wanted to show me and raced off into my old room to find it, I gotta admit, I was curious.

After reading that last entry, despite the talk we had after it, I figured she was going to need a break.

Not that she’d want to keep going.

Add something more to it.

Pulling myself off the sofa at the sound of yet another crash emanating from the room, I make my way across the living room to the hall, calling out as I go.

“What’s taking so long?”

When no response comes, I move to the door and twisting the knob, push it open and take in the sight before me.

Belle, on a chair digging through the boxes she’d labelled and stored there, contents flying rapidly from her hands down onto the bed below. Some of it bouncing off before hitting the floor.