Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(79)

“But Lizzie was always a little different. A little wild for what this small town was used to. My sister was in her grade, and Ry and I aren’t much older, and she always had this … something about her. This—I don’t know—zest for life that many people didn’t know what to do with. Her parents included.”

“It’s a parent’s job to know what to do with their children. To love them, zest and all,” Rake said, not amused with the excuse for how Lizzie was treated.

Mary shook her head. “I agree. I’m not excusing their behavior. I’m trying to explain the reality of it. A place like this—small, idyllic town built on white picket fences and perfect families with two point five kids and church on Sundays—someone like Lizzie throws off that image.”

Mary was silent for another moment, looking at the photo. She ran her finger over an invisible smudge on the glass.

“Lizzie didn’t come to our wedding, she was traveling, but it almost seemed like Claire was relieved she wasn’t there. Like she’d thought of every possible mistake Lizzie could make and decided it ruined what she expected for her son’s wedding.

“I tried to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t think it was my business to get involved, but I eventually had to confront Ryan on it all. Why Claire talked about her daughter with such weariness. Why Ryan didn’t really try with Lizzie.”

“And?”

“And … he didn’t know. He said it’s how it’s always been.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit,” Rake said, glancing up the stairs.

“I agree,” Mary said, nodding. “And after digging into it more with Ryan, he knows it too. It was like Lizzie was more than Claire or Douglas bargained for, and they didn’t want to try. Ryan’s working on it, in his own way, and I hope they can build a stronger relationship than they have now.”

Rake opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment Ryan came clomping down the steps, his head hanging in defeat.

“Any luck?” Mary asked, her tone implying she already knew the answer.

“No,” Ryan said, scrubbing his hands over his face. “She wouldn’t come out. I said a few things through the door, but who knows if she even heard me.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Rake said, taking the stairs two at a time.





Chapter 39




LIZZIE heard the padding of feet down the hallway outside her room, the snick of the doorknob turning, and the creaking wood floors as someone moved toward her hiding place. Out of the corner of her eye, Rake’s shoes appeared.

“Lizzie?” he said after a moment, turning in a circle to look around the room.

“Down here,” she said softly, twining her fingers into the box springs above her.

After a moment, Rake’s hands and knees appeared in the crack from under Lizzie’s bed as he lowered himself to the ground, moving fluidly until his whole body came into view. He lay on his stomach, pressing his cheek into the wood to look at where she lay underneath her old bed.

Lizzie’s gaze shot up to the underside of her mattress. She didn’t want to look into his eyes and see the events of the last twenty minutes reflected in them. She didn’t want to see knowing pity, a sad understanding that she’d always been this thing no one knew how to deal with. After a few breaths, he finally spoke.

“What are you doing down here, Birdy?”

Lizzie continued to study the floral pattern of her mattress, frantically trying to plug up the dam of sadness that threatened to burst in her chest.

Slowly, Rake slid his hand across the floor, twining his fingers in her limp hand at her side. The warmth of his skin nearly tore her apart, emotions thick in her throat and pulsing just under her skin, seeming to pool at the spot where he touched her.

She swallowed a few times, squeezing her eyes shut against the sting of tears, until she felt confident that she could get words out.

“Do you remember your first time? Having sex, I mean,” she asked, pressing her palm more tightly against his.

There was a short beat before Rake answered. “Yes.”

Lizzie’s lips quirked. He was getting better at not questioning her zigzags of conversation. She rolled her head to look at him, and it felt like opening a vein. Everything was about to pour out of her, the least she could do was look at him while she did it.

“I do too. It was Chris Petrakis. It happened right here,” she said, pointing up at her mattress. Rake’s eyes flicked up then back to her, a muscle ticking in his jaw as he waited to hear her point.

“But what was kind of funny was how much later it happened than everyone guessed. Rumors started circulating that I was a slut by the time I was thirteen. I got boobs super young, so of course everyone assumed I was sleeping my way through the school, and the boys were all too happy to say I’d given them a hand job or whatever.”

She traced the curling pattern of her bedspring, the cruel words of teenage boys and girls circulating through her mind. “I flirted and stuff, but I never really did anything until I was eighteen. Chris was the town’s bad boy, and I’d been stupidly obsessed with him. He always had that undeniable cool factor, you know? Smoking, skipping class, big fuck-yous to teachers, whatever. Looking back, he was less of a bad boy and more of a privileged asshole, but any guy that wears a leather jacket and rides a motorcycle has instant appeal.”