What He Never Knew (What He Doesn't Know, #3)(60)

I frowned. “You? Why on Earth would you be sorry, Sarah? You did nothing wrong.”

A bawdy laugh left her throat, and she shook her head, eyes still on her hand that wrapped around the glass. “I jumped off you, screaming, and then bolted out your door like a crazy person.”

My stomach twisted at the memory, guilt strangling me like actual hands around my throat. “Honestly, I don’t feel like that reaction is out of place at all after what I did.”

“Stop saying that, stop saying what you did like you punched me instead of kissed me.”

We both quieted at that, at the verbal admittance of what had occurred. It was like skirting around the word somehow kept us in a safe ring, and now we were back in the wild, back where there were no lines or rules or designated areas where we were supposed to reside — me in one, her in the other, never to cross over.

Sarah sighed, her eyes flicking to mine before they fell to her hand again. “I wanted you to kiss me, Reese.”

I closed my eyes, letting out a long, slow breath through my nose to calm the energy that sparked to life inside me at her words. I wanted to pull her into me, to kiss her again, to say to hell with what anyone thinks. But all of that was dangerous — for her, for me. And even if she’d wanted to kiss me, too, she’d been the one to say stop.

I was the older one, the teacher, the one who should have been in charge. And yet it was her who was strong enough to say no, to remind me where we stood.

I’d failed her.

“Sarah…”

“No, please, Reese.” She gripped her glass tighter, pulling it toward her like it was the water she was pleading with, or like it was me she held in her hands. “I came here to explain something…” Sarah shook her head, biting her lip against the tears welling in her eyes. “But it is so, so hard for me to even consider telling you what I’m about to. And I don’t know how this is going to come out, or what you’ll think of me when it’s all done. I just… I need you to just listen to me. Please. If you can.”

“Of course, I can,” I said, and this time I reached for her, wrapping my fingers around her forearm with a squeeze. I willed her to look at me, but she still wouldn’t. “Whatever it is, I’ll always listen to you.”

I couldn’t do anything right, couldn’t comfort her the way I desperately wanted to. She pulled away from my grip like it had burned her, eyes squeezing shut again as she tucked her hands under her thighs. She stared at the ground, at the counter — at anything but me.

And I couldn’t blame her.

I couldn’t find any fault in that innocent, wide-eyed girl who sat across from me, who had trusted me, who I’d betrayed. Now, she was here to tell me something that was so hard for her that she was visibly shaking, and I had a feeling I already knew what she needed to say.

We can’t do this, Reese.

You’re my teacher, I’m your student.

I’m sixteen years younger than you.

You work for my uncle.

I’m leaving for New York, I have my whole life ahead of me. And you… well, you’re nothing. You’re not what I need.

You’re not what would make me happy.

“I don’t know where to start,” she whispered after a long while.

I sighed, swallowing down any hopes that were still alive. “It’s okay, Sarah. You don’t have to say it. I know. I know what happened can’t happen again, and I know—”

“I was raped.”

Her hands clapped over her mouth as soon as the words were out, her eyes wide in horror as they lifted to meet my gaze. Tears welled over those golden irises so quickly she didn’t have time to try to stop them before they broke the levy of her lower lashes, falling down her cheeks to meet where her hands still covered her lips without so much as a blink.

For a moment, she stared at me like she couldn’t believe she’d said what she had, or like she was waiting for me to run, like somehow I would be tempted to bolt after what I’d just heard.

The only thing I was tempted to do was full on Hulk smash whoever the motherfucker was who put his hands on her without permission.

Everything slowed in that moment — my breathing, the strong beat of my heart in my chest, my thoughts. They almost came to me like zombies in a fog, slow and gruesome, disappearing again before I could latch onto them and digest them fully. I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but try to breathe and loosen the menacing grip my fists had wound into.

I wanted to murder him, and I didn’t even know who him was.

More than that, I wanted to pull Sarah into my arms, shelter her from the pain, from the memory, from the tears falling freely from her eyes. I’d never had an urge to protect someone more in my entire life.

But all I could do was sit there, breathing.

And even that took all my effort.

Sarah dropped her hands into her lap along with her gaze, tears still leaking out of her eyes. Every now and then, she’d sniff, reach a hand up to wipe the wetness from her cheeks — all the while staring at her lap while I stared at her.

Nothing that came to mind felt right to say in that moment. I wanted to ask her who it was, when it happened, what happened to him when she told someone — did she tell anyone? I wanted to know if that motherfucker was in jail or if I could get his address and kick his ass myself.