Addicted(78)

“Jesus Christ. Chloe. Jesus Christ.” He reaches for me again and again I shrug him off. “You can’t tell me and then not let me hold you.”

“I’m okay.”

“I know you are. But I’m not. Baby, I’m not.” He looks like he’s going to try to touch me again, try to hold me, but at the last second he lifts his hand to the back of his neck and rubs at it instead. I’m not sure whether I’m grateful or devastated.

In the end, I figure it doesn’t really matter either way. I just want to finish this story. Just want to get it over with. “I was never strong enough to do it. I’d go to school every day, listen to your brother and his friends call me a whore and a slut. I’d fight them off in the stairwell when they groped my breasts or tried to shove a hand up my skirt. When they pushed me onto my knees and told me how much I wanted it. When they unzipped their pants and tried to make me—”

My voice breaks and I realize it’s because I’m crying. Again. Damn it. Why is there always more? More pain. More tears. More stupid, psychotic shit I’ve got to wade through because I was once an idiotic fifteen-year-old girl who made a lot of idiotic mistakes.

After I fell for Ethan, I thought it was over. Thought I’d moved past it, gotten over it. And now, here I am in the middle of a goddamn parking lot in f*cking Napa Valley and it’s all right here between us again. Where it always is.

Where I’m desperately afraid it always will be.

I look down at the ground now, because I can’t tell the rest of the story if I’m looking at Ethan. Not this, after everything else. Not when I still don’t know which part I’m most ashamed of. The fact that I wanted to kill myself or the fact that I was too chicken to go through with it.

“Every day for a year, I tried. I got home, went upstairs to the bathroom, got out the straight edged razor I’d bought for just that purpose. And I’d try. I’d try and try and try until my arms were covered with shallow little cuts. Hesitation wounds, the shrinks call them. That was me, always hesitating. Never able to get the job done, no matter how hard I tried.”

I brush impatiently at the last stray tears sliding down my face as I wait for Ethan to say something, anything. He hasn’t said a word since that muttered, Jesus Christ, when I first started talking. I’m not sure what his silence means but I figure it’s probably not good.





Chapter Twenty


I’m not sure how long we stand there. Long enough for people to load a cart full of groceries into the SUV next to us and pull away. Long enough for the little girl sitting on the bench in front of the store to finish her ice cream cone. More than long enough for me to feel it as those pieces that had lined up so well last night get all mixed up again.

We wait and wait and wait.

I keep expecting Ethan to say something. For him to tell me that he understands, that it’s okay—or that he doesn’t and we’ve made a gigantic mistake. At this point, I’m not sure which of those would be worse. I just know that I can’t stand the waiting much longer. Not if I have any hope of staying sane.

He won’t even look at me, hasn’t let his eyes meet mine once since I told him I’d tried to kill myself.

Finally, I can’t take the silence any longer. “Ethan.”

His eyes jump to mine. They’re blurry and out of focus and goddamnit I must be crying again. Except when I scrub a hand across my cheek, it’s dry. That’s when it hits me. I’m not crying. Ethan is.

“Oh, baby, please. Don’t. Don’t do that.” This time I reach for him and he’s the one who flinches away. It slices deep. Not just the rejection but the knowledge that once again I’ve inadvertently hurt him. Rejected him.

“If you would let me, I would give you every penny that I have and every penny that I’ll ever make.”

“Is that what you think I want? Your money?” It’s like he hasn’t heard anything that I said.

“Not even a little bit. But it’s what I think you deserve.” He wraps one big, calloused hand around my neck and pulls me gently toward him. “It doesn’t matter how many times those little bastards called you a whore. It doesn’t make you one. And it doesn’t matter how many times you told yourself you were weak. You will never be anything but the strongest woman I have ever met.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t put me on some kind of pedestal—”