Staring down at her injured hand, I take it in mine, the scars seeming to slot together like a perfect puzzle.
“Why?” is all she can manage as her fingers gently close around my hand.
“Because I love you, and I need you. We need each other.”
Sad eyes look directly into mine. “Do you really love me?”
“I do.”
She nods, then surrenders her fight. Her head rests against my chest, tears soaking through the shirt. “I love you, too.”
Stuttering out a breath, I settle us against the wall near the fire. She glances at the flame and then at me, deciding to leave her trust in my arms. Her body wracks and shudders, and it makes me hold her tighter.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.” Her apologies aren’t needed. “I’m just hurting.”
“Don’t be sorry. You’re scared and hurt. I get that, and I am, too. But he can’t come between us. If he doesn’t, anything he does to us won’t matter. Nothing he does will destroy us. Even if he breaks us, we’ll be whole together. No one can ever come between us, Dollie.” I hold up our scarred hands. “We’re one, and no one can get in the way of that.”
Because I’m never gonna be able to have another person touch me again.
Not Mom. Not Dad. Only Dollie.
“We can be whole together,” she repeats to me.
Good, because alone, I’ll never be whole again.
CHAPTER 36
Dollie—present day
Black-painted windows greet me as I step out of the house and down the front steps. Still in my bed shorts and the Disney sweatshirt I slept in. As I walk across the land, the morning light hits my legs, and the uncut patches of grass tickle my skin as I turn to take in the damage. The house looks worse than it did last night. Blending in with the late hour perfectly helped hide the things that cause my shoulders to slump today.
God, can I go back in time to yesterday and just stay home?
Annabelle had warned me that the house had been trashed on our bumpy and uncomfortable ride home. I’d worried so much about Bubbles—just Bubbles—that we didn’t get the pizza I’d promised. We didn’t have time to stop, as it was so hard to relax. My jittery legs in the car ride put Annabelle, who is usually calm, on edge.
Her dad was the one who’d called while we were at The Funhouse, and apparently, Shane was the one to call him.
Shane had already left when we got home, but Detective Mendoza—Annabelle’s father—was still waiting at my property with half a dozen colleagues.
Led by nerves, I’d dragged Annabelle up the hill after the taxi driver refused to attempt it. I only relaxed slightly to the sound of Bubbles barking her head off. But a deep-rooted anxiety lingered inside me until it forced the words, “Is my brother okay?” out of my mouth.
Had Shane done this? Did he want to get even? I had so many questions running through my mind.
Detective Mendoza had questions of his own about Ambrose because Shane’s face was a messy canvas of purple and yellow bruises, we’d been told. But he’d confirmed that it didn’t look like anyone got inside, nor did it appear that Ambrose was home or that Shane was our artist.
The conversation stayed on them for a little while. Several cops dropped accusations over Shane’s assault, even though Shane himself never dropped a name.
I’d given nothing away when they spoke of his bruises, and feeling conscious of my own, I hid them with my long hair.
Shane texted a little while after we got into the house. Annabelle and Bubbles were asleep by then, both in the den, sharing a sofa, and both snoring.
I answered when Shane kept texting, saying how worried he was. One text led to another, and he explained that he stopped by to see me last night and ended up scaring off a group of youngsters with spray paint cans. Then the conversation drifted, and he asked again about my birthday and us celebrating it together.
A sick feeling took me from the den to the kitchen. The need to sit down and gulp a glass of water to ease my dry throat was too hard to resist.
I tried to get out of seeing him by using the truth against him, that he’d hurt me emotionally and physically.
Another text told me he booked a therapy appointment because he didn’t want anyone ever to be hurt again by his insecurities.
