Addicted (Ethan Frost #2)(2)

I take a deep breath, try to think. Nothing comes.

There’s a part of me that wants to go back to bed, that wants to start the day all over again in an effort to wake myself from this nightmare I’ve suddenly found myself in. But reality doesn’t work like that. This isn’t a dream and I can’t wish it away, can’t run away from it, can’t hide, no matter how much I want to.

And still, even knowing that—understanding it—I’m determined to try.

Pushing past Ethan, I bolt for the stairs.

For his bedroom at the other end of the house.

For the chance to go back to how things were ten minutes ago, when life almost made sense.

As I run, there’s an urgency inside me. A voice screaming for answers, screaming for the truth, and I know it won’t be denied forever. But right now, for just this one, ice-drenched moment, I want to pretend I can’t hear it.

I want to block it out like I blocked out Brandon and the rape all those years ago.

Like I blocked my parents out.

Like I’m blocking that goddamn doorbell out even now.

But when I get to Ethan’s room, it’s not the sanctuary I want it to be. Not with the bed looking like a war zone. Not with our clothes crumpled on the floor. And definitely not with the memories—our memories—crowding in on me from every corner.

“Chloe,” Ethan says from right behind me, his voice hoarse and aching and ruined. “Chloe, I’m sorry.”

My heart—frozen, fragile, fractured—shatters in my chest, the shards of what remains slicing through me until I am bleeding and broken all over again.

“Ethan.” His name is torn from me, for all that it’s little more than a whisper.

“I can …” His voice trails off.

“What? Explain?” I force the words out of my burning throat and through my aching lips even as I struggle to breathe.

But my lungs are too tight. They hurt.

Everything hurts. Every single piece of me. Every inch. Every cell.

But I’m on the train now, the memories barreling at me like a bullet from a gun. They’re coming too fast. I can’t run, can’t duck, can’t do anything but stand here and absorb the impact.

“Please. Explain to me what the man who raped me is doing on your doorstep looking even more beat up than you do.”

Ethan looks away, thrusts a hand through his hair, doesn’t answer though I’m dying for an explanation. Something—anything—that proves to me this isn’t what it looks like.

I want to scream at him to tell me—he’s the one who followed me, who insisted on this conversation—but in the end, all I do is stand there. Waiting. Sometimes I think it’s all I’ve ever done.

“Brandon is my half-brother. My mother remarried after she and my dad divorced.”

He drops the words into the void between us and for long seconds they don’t register. When they do—when they finally sink in—the meaning behind them hits me with the force of a tsunami and it’s all I can do to stand my ground.

All I can do not to sink to the floor and wail. My knees are wobbly, my breath coming way too fast and my heart—what’s left of my heart—feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest at any second.

And yet … my body may be completely f*cked up but my brain is still working fine. Still putting the pieces together and I can’t stand the answers I’m coming up with. The realizations that are slamming through my brain and tying my stomach into ever tighter knots.

“You knew.”

“Chloe.” Again, he reaches for me and again, I shove him away.

“You knew all along and you made l—” My voice breaks. “You had sex with me anyway. You let me tell you everything that happened—do you know how hard that was—and you already knew. You already … Oh, God.”

“No, baby.” This time he evades my hands and pulls me against his chest, his strong arms cradling me even as they imprison me. “I didn’t know until a couple days ago, when I was home. There was a picture of us in a magazine—from that day at the zoo—and my mother recognized you. She told me who you were and—” His voice grows even more hoarse. “I didn’t know, Chloe. I swear I didn’t know.”
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I shove against his chest, desperate to be free. His arms tighten around me and for long seconds I’m afraid he’s not going to let me go. That I’m going to have to fight to get away.

He is Brandon’s brother after all. That shit probably runs in families.

But in the end, I don’t have to do anything but ask. “Please,” I whisper. “Let me go.”

Ethan’s arms fall away instantly and he steps back, out of reach.

It’s what I want, what I need, and still I feel bereft. Lost. I should be furious, and maybe I will be when the shock wears off, but right now all there is is grief. Overwhelming, all-encompassing, total.

I want to scream until I have no more voice, to rage until I have no more hurt. To just drown in the confusion and horror that has once more ripped through my life.

But fragments of last night are working their way around in my head, and I’m putting them together even when it’s the last thing I want to do.

Ethan, breaking up with me.

Ethan, looking like his whole world was ending.