Atone (Recovered Innocence #2)(13)

I called him Mr. Everything. He was my everything. Everything I ever wanted but never got, everything I wanted to hear but never heard, everything I wanted to feel but never felt. He was my heroin, and I mainlined as much of him as I could as fast as I could. I force myself to keep reading past the memories that cloud the screen in front of me, blurring Marie’s words, which could be mine.

She actually does a photo shoot and he promises to talk to his agent friend about her. The pictures come out great, but Marie worries that her chest is too flat and that she still has too much baby fat under her chin and on her belly. He tells her she’s perfect and then takes her to a doctor for a breast augmentation consultation. During the appointment he sits in the exam room with her to make sure she’s comfortable with the doctor. She was nervous about taking her top off, but Daddy tells her how pretty and sexy she is and how she doesn’t really need the boob job, but he’ll get it for her if that’s what she wants.

He fondles her breasts when the doctor leaves. His touch is brief and clinical. She doesn’t feel like she did when her foster father touched her. He talks her out of the implants and tells her he loves her small breasts. To prove it, he starts touching them…a lot. But he doesn’t go any further. Daddy calls her his good girl. He tells her he loves her. She likes his kisses and how out of control he makes her feel.

I thought he loved me too.

Theirs is a special relationship. He shares things with her that he doesn’t share with anyone else. He keeps her secrets. He’s the only person she can trust. She can call him anytime, day or night. She tests this several times. He didn’t lie, and they talk until she falls asleep. Sometimes he sings to her. She stops going to school to spend more time with him. Her friends complain, but they don’t understand. He’s her soulmate, her one true love. She talks a lot about love.

I thought I’d die without him.

He wants her first time to be with someone she loves and laments the fact that she doesn’t love him. She tries to tell him that she does love him, more than anyone ever, but he doesn’t believe her. He draws her in deeper with his promises and their shared secrets. He makes her feel special and wanted. He’s everything. She can’t live without him.

And then the last entry…He wants her to get a tattoo…

All of the air whooshes out of me like someone just punched me in the stomach. His MO hasn’t changed since he was my everything. The flattery. The sympathetic ear. The only one I can trust. The isolation. The secrecy. The innocent touching that leads to more and more and more. The absolute control of my world. The mark I got for him that still mars my body.

I shove away from the desk, saliva pooling in my mouth. I can’t breathe. Dots fill my narrowed vision. I’m too late. Beau says something, but I can’t hear him. My ears roar with the blood pumping too hard and fast through me.

He has her. I’m too late. Too late.

Beau shakes my shoulders. His lips move, but I can’t make out what he says. The world tilts. I grip the arms of the chair to stay in it. Bile rises up the back of my throat. Beau pushes my head down between my knees. He’s saying something. He rubs my back with one hand while pulling a trash can close with the other. I still can’t get enough air, but the nausea lessens.

He has her. He has her. He’s going to brand her.

Beau eases me upright and studies my face—for what, I don’t know. He makes a motion for me to stay put. I can’t move. I still can’t pull in enough air. The more I try, the less there is. He comes back and puts a paper bag over my nose and mouth. The sides of the back suck in, then puff out with each of my breaths. I blink away the dots and focus on Beau’s worried face.

His coaching voice comes back to me. “You’re okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

I take over holding the bag, keeping my eyes on his. He kneels in front of me. His gaze roams my face like he’s looking for something or trying to find an answer to an unasked question. I can’t tell him. I can’t talk about it. I don’t have the words to express how disappointed I am in myself that He can still get to me after all this time and how fresh the memories still are. I knew this was a possibility. I should’ve been better prepared. Imagining Marie going through what I lived through brings on another wave of nausea. She’s in the honeymoon phase and she has no idea that her world is about to be ripped apart.





Chapter 7


Beau


Thank God Vera’s color is beginning to return. She watches me with haunted, wounded eyes. I brush the hair back from her face. It’s soft. She’s soft. On the outside and the inside. She’s not nearly as tough as she tries to make people think. I put my hand over hers and lower the bag. She’s open in a way I imagine she hasn’t been for a very long time, if ever. I see her agony. It strikes an answering chord within me. Her pain is an ache in my chest. She lets me look. She lets me see her. The hope shining in her eyes rips and tears at me until every feeling I’ve ever had pours out of me and pools at her feet in a big, sloppy mess.

What’s left behind is stark and cold and empty. I’m left with nothing, and it’s everything. She sees me too. I reach for her, and she comes into my arms willingly. We hold on tight. There’s nothing outside this room. There’s nothing except her and me. The feel of her is an out-of-body experience. I bury my face in the side of her neck and inhale. I was right—lemons and something soft and feminine. She’s a resting place to hide in, away from the rest of the world.