A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)(30)

“I didn’t.”

“I know. Even in the face of what looked so obvious, I just...knew. I knew you wouldn’t do that to me, but God, Drew, it hurt so much.” She tightens her hold on me, her body starting to tremble. When you’re pressed naked, toe to shoulder, against someone, you feel everything.

“So you had to hold two truths inside you at the same time. Two truths that couldn’t co-exist.’

She jolts, her head popping up, eyes beseeching. “Yes. Exactly. How did you know?”

“Because that’s what I hoped for four years. That some part of you trusted me enough to know that the obvious couldn’t be true.”

“It’s the same with that picture they texted me. The one with you and part of my red scarf.”

Breathe, Foster. Breathe.

Bzzz.

“Reality,” I sigh, letting out a sound of relief that I pretend is frustration as I search for my phone. Lindsay ends the sound by kissing me. The sound turns, twisting into a decidedly different groan.

“Thank you,” she says.

“No need.” I kiss her forehead. We just breathe together, so much unsaid.

We have time.

Bzzz.

Or not.

“Besides,” I add, standing grudgingly, searching for my clothes, knowing the phone’s in there somewhere. “This time, you’re not stealing my weapon.”

The laughter pours out of her like a contagion and she sits up, pulling me back to the bed. It’s hopeless. I can’t not laugh. I curl up around her, cocooning her, arms and legs tucked in.

She’s shaking in my arms, the vibration making my skin tingle.

It’s good to hear her laugh.

It’s even better to laugh together.

“I’m sorry,” she finally gasps. “I couldn’t trust you.”

I stop laughing.

Her skin is dewy and warm, a light trace of heat along the pores making her flush.

“Talk to me,” I say. “Tell me more.”

She sighs, a little sound of vulnerability. It makes my throat tighten. That’s the sound someone makes when they are about to be real.

I’ve wanted nothing more than the real Lindsay this whole time.

Thank God she’s finally here.

“Drew,” she says, her hand snuggling on my bare chest, the lines of her tendons standing out as she moves. “They broke me. Ripped me apart – literally.” Her thighs shift and my shoulders tighten.

“I know.”

“When I woke up, it was like I’d been turned inside out. I was nothing but pain. The physical pain subsided, eventually. But in some ways that was worse. Not having my body hurt.”

Oh, man. I know where she’s going with this.

Because I’ve been there.

Only she doesn’t know that.

“Because then all that was left was the pain in my mind. And that was a different kind of agony. Worse.”

I squeeze her gently. I have to. If I don’t hold on, I’ll fall off the edge of the world.

She’s giving words to my pain. My madness. Four years ago, she wasn’t the only one those *s destroyed, but she doesn’t know that.

And I can’t tell her.

My skin erupts into a furious tingle, as if my blood’s trying to escape but hits the wall of skin and can’t. That same mind that contains all the insanity of being brutalized is the one that manages to love her, too. I’m ten thousand Drews inside a single body right now.

And only one of me can listen to her.

“Nothing I thought about stopped the intrusions,” she whispers. Her breathing is even, and she’s resting against me, skin to skin. Trust. She’s trusting me. Lindsay is opening herself to me. She just gave me her body. Invited me to share it. Welcomed me into her so we could find pieces of ourselves we lost four years ago.

Now she’s inviting me into her heart. Into her mind.

Into that inner space where we protect our core.

I don’t take this lightly.

I am honored.

“Nothing.”

I make a sound of comfort. I don’t know what to say.

“They medicated me into oblivion.” She snorts. “I didn’t care. It was easier to take the little cup of pills twice a day than to argue. Easier to crawl into bed and sleep. Even though I had bad dreams.” She shivers. I absorb all her pain. I take in her memories.

It hurts.

It heals.

I don’t have a choice.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, rubbing her shoulder, staring at the moon. If I look at her, I might lose the pieces of myself I just found.

“And so,” she continues, breathless now. It’s as if she’s relieved to finally talk. I close my eyes and take in the way air passes through her throat. When she speaks, the vibration of her voice touches every cell in me.

“And so I just lived like I was hollow. Insert medication. Hope it dulled the memories. Wait.” She sits up, eyes finding mine. They’re impossibly wide, big and pleading, needing more of me. “Do you know what that’s like?”

Yes.

“No,” I lie. “I can’t imagine.”

“The hardest part was thinking you had let them hurt me. Or worse – that you were in on it.”

That snaps me out of my own reactions. “For the rest of my life, until the day I die, I’ll regret that I couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t.”