“I won’t, Lexi.” It’s a promise—maybe the only one I’ll ever make of such magnitude—that I know without question I can uphold.
She bites her lip, then runs the tip of her tongue over it. “How can you be so sure?”
“I just am.”
Silence grows between us, but her gaze never leaves mine. It’s as if she’s looking for something, a crack in my armor or a mistruth in my promise. I squeeze her hands and don’t back down or waver from her scrutiny.
She astonishes me when she speaks, because her voice is strong and every bit the badass woman I’ve grown to love. “He didn’t rape me. But he would have. He touched me. And after that, my father was done with me. Done with my regular visits. Done with my mom.”
She pauses only to take a long sip from her drink. “But I was glad it happened, you know? Because if his friend hadn’t tried to rape me, someone else would have. Someone else would have hurt me. I wasn’t safe there. I never was. When he decided to be done with us I was so relieved. But I hated him too, because that was the day he broke something in my mom.
She’d always put him first and that didn’t change. She yelled, but not at him. She yelled at me. She was so damn disappointed ... with me, because I fucked things up. Because I was the reason he didn’t visit or call her anymore. Because God forbid her only daughter be sexually assaulted in a house full of strangers.” She blinks, but the tears fall from her eyes anyway and roll down her cheeks. Some drop onto the table while others run over her lips. “What kind of mother does that?”
Her sadness and disappointment collide with my own as that same damn question rolls through my mind. I can’t imagine how anyone could do that to their own child. I know it happens, though. It’s clearer to me now more than ever that no one has ever looked out for Lexi. No one has taken care of her the way she should be. The way she deserves. That’s why she pushes so hard. Why she questions love. That ends with me. I will spend the rest of my life proving she can’t push hard enough to make me leave.
“You were only a kid, Lex. You didn’t deserve any of that. I’m sorry that happened to you. So damn sorry.” I stand, no longer able to tolerate the separation caused by this table between us, and she does the same, accepting my embrace when I pull her into my arms.
“Thank you,” she murmurs into my chest, and I loosen my hold enough to catch her gaze.
“For what?”
“For this. For understanding. For everything.” She leans back into me, her arms squeeze even tighter than mine do, and she feels like home. Like the one I’ve always wanted, like the one I didn’t know I needed.
