Deep (Pagano Family #4)(67)
Her beautiful face was badly mottled with healing bruises and cuts, but the swelling was gone. Once it had been clear that she wouldn’t stay lying in bed, the doctor had fashioned a kind of a bandage sling for her breast, to ease some of the pressure on the sutured wound.
Her body was healing well. She wasn’t talking much yet, but she was trying. Her mind, though, her personality—Nick didn’t know. She was different. Duller. Darker. Of course she was. How could she not be? He didn’t know how to bring her back, how to help her come back.
Nick would have liked to have killed Chris Mills, and he might yet do it. After that * had been taken away, Nick helped Beverly back to bed. She’d been quiet and listless, refusing to discuss it or engage in anything at all. The breakthrough she’d had before Mills’ visit had been undone.
He stripped down to his boxer briefs and t-shirt and squatted next to the bed. Taking her hand gently in his, he whispered, “Bella. I’m here.” He tugged a little on her arm and she woke with a slight start. Still deep enough under the medication, she didn’t wake with fear.
“You’re safe now, bella. I swear to you. You’re safe.”
She smiled and patted the bed next to her. He went around the bed and slid in, lying on his side facing her. She took his hand and fell back to sleep.
He would find a way to bring her sun back to her.
16
Bev leaned over the sink, getting as close to the mirror as she could, and brushed mascara on. Since that night at the diner, she thought her eyesight wasn’t as good as it had been. She’d never heard of a concussion permanently changing someone’s eyesight, but maybe there’d been a blow that had knocked something loose. Dr. Kerr had said everything looked normal, but she definitely felt like things were blurrier. Or maybe it was that things were dimmer. Something.
Things were dim and blurry in general since that night. Something had been knocked loose somewhere, some wire that didn’t connect, some circuit that didn’t fire right any longer. The world just looked and felt different to her. A month and a half had passed. Her body was healed. She ran her pinky down the faint line through her lips—healed, but not restored.
She closed the mascara and stepped back, trying to take in her whole look. No one who didn’t know would know. She saw the difference, felt the difference, but even that faint scar through her lips was barely noticeable to anyone not looking. Her knees had several small but noticeable scars, but nothing that would keep her from wearing a short skirt if she wanted.
Her breast—that was another matter. That scar was still red and ugly, down the full side of her breast. But since the stitches had come out, no one but her had seen it. She hated that scar violently, but she could not seem to keep herself from looking at it, touching it. If she was alone, she’d find her hand going to it, even though she couldn’t feel it through her clothes. More crazy still, sometimes, she’d feel compelled to take her clothes off and stare at it. She’d even done that a couple of times when she wasn’t alone, spending long minutes in the bathroom with the door locked, staring at it, remembering how it had happened.
It made no sense to her at all. Why would her mind strive so often to remember the most horrible thing that had ever happened to her? Not even being raped by both of those men caused her as much distress as the big one sawing through her breast. How that had felt—God, the pain of it. But the greedy look in his eyes, the f*cking smirk on his face…
Bev stripped off her shirt and bra and turned sidewise, lifting her breast in one hand, smoothing out the scar. She ran a finger of her other hand up and down, up and down over the shiny, red skin.
She was losing her mind. That was the only possible explanation for her obsession with remembering that pain, that fear, that utter loss of hope.
“Beverly?” Nick knocked on the door. “Sky’s here, bella.”
“Okay. I’m about done.” She picked her bra off the floor and put it back on. She didn’t fill out the cups the way she used to. She didn’t fill out any of her clothes the way she used to. She either needed a new wardrobe or a new outlook.
Once she was dressed and had fluffed her hair a little, she opened the door and stepped out.
She was back in her apartment. No longer were there men stationed in the hallway. No longer was Donnie sitting in her living room, watching SyFy and asking for popcorn. Things were back to normal.
Except that Bev wasn’t back to normal. It felt odd and lonely, after a month of being guarded, to be completely alone. She thought of the feeling as similar to those days when she decided not to take a purse out with her, and then spent the rest of the day fending off little panic attacks, thinking she’d lost it somewhere. It felt like something that should be with her was missing.
Not that she was alone all that often. Nick had practically moved in with her, and he spent every free moment with her. When he wasn’t with her, Sky was. Sky had a lot of free time, because she was trying not to take another job until Sassy Sal’s reopened. Romeo was covering her bills, just like Nick was covering Bev’s.
She hated that, too. But she wasn’t sure how it would end. Nick was certainly in no hurry for her to work, and she didn’t know how to be ready to work again. She couldn’t imagine walking into Sal’s ever again. Not even as a customer, much less an employee. If, indeed, the place did reopen.