“Tell me.”
“You know I’m technically adopted, right?”
She nods against my chest as her fingers continue to rake over my skin. She has no idea how fucking hard it is to concentrate when she does that, but I’ll be damned if I tell her to stop.
“I was supposed to meet Zoey that night at her friend’s party. I walked downstairs and heard my dad and Jewel arguing again. It had become a regular thing. She was pissed I wouldn’t have anything to do with her and blamed Dad. Dad was pissed she kept coming around but couldn’t seem to get her to stay away. That night she said something about my birth dad, who I now know is Bastian’s dad. She was telling Dad that he wanted to see me, and he told her that her rapist would never see me.”
A small gasp escapes her. My fingers involuntarily flex against her hip where I’ve been holding her. I know it’s got to be painful, but she doesn’t say anything.
The absolute horror and anger I felt that night is as real now as it was then. Knowing you’re a product of rape—of some coward forcing himself on another—it really fucks with your head.
It definitely fucked with mine. I left there without letting my presence be known. Before I even got to the party,I was already wasted. I don’t even know how I made it in one piece. Bryan met me at the door,and we went in search of Zoey.
She knew something was off. Kept asking me to tell her whathadhappened, but I couldn’t. Instead, I did my damnedest to convince her to get high with me. She didn’t want to. Not when she knew I was already so fucked up.
A while later, Bryan handed me a glass with a wink. He told me what he did, and I gave it to her anyway. I just didn’t expect her to have the reaction she did.
When she told me she wasn’t feeling well, I went with her to the bathroom. She couldn’t stop throwing up, and minutes later,she started seizing.
I fucking panicked. I don’t know why, but I did. I left her there like a damn fool. I could only be grateful I had the forethought to call Zane.
I raced home as quickly as I could. When I got there, no one was home. They probably left for Florida right after I did for a long weekend in Miami.
Or I thought no one was home. I sure as hell didn’t expect to see Chris’s girlfriend walk downstairs wearing nothing but a towel.
“Thought you were at a party,” she said as she swayed her hips in my direction.
Tasha and Chris had been going out for a while, but I didn’t trust her. For good reason, considering she appeared in my room one night sans towel a few months back. I shot that shit down fast. I wanted to tell Chris, but Tasha was a professional skank. She had Chris wrapped around her little finger, and I knew he’d never believe me.
Suddenly, I resented that fact too.
I was still reeling from Dad and Jewel’s conversation, freaking out about Zoey, worried if she would be okay, and totally, completely trashed out of my mind on everything.
I was in a death spiral of bad decisions that night and thought one more wouldn’t hurt.
So when she ran a long finger across my chest, I didn’t think twice about ripping that towel from her body, bending her over the arm of the couch, and fucking her like an animal.
With her folded in two, her hair wrapped around my fist, and my cock deep in her ass, she screamed out my name over and over. I had no idea if she was begging for more or begging me to stop, and I didn’t care.
Until I heard Chris’s voice yell out across the room.
I pushed off her, raking a condemnable hand through my hair with a curse. I started toward my brother, who looked absolutely mortified, while his girl tried to pretend she wasn’t a willing party.
Turns out, my brother had more faith in me than I thought. Or he just knew her better than I believed. Because he didn’t believe anything she said.
But he still left in a fit of rage.
The next day, I found out Zoey was okay, but I had a lot of consequences to pay. The disappointment on my dad’s face was almost more than I could take. But when he said I was leaving River City for good, the guilt turned to resentment. I couldn’t believe he was letting Jax’s brother strong-arm him into making me go.
Worse still, they wouldn’t let me see Zoey before I was forced out of town, and she wouldn’t answer my calls or return my texts.
“Finally, Bastian helped me get back into town for her graduation, and I apologized to her for everything.”
“Wow,” Quinn whispers quietly. “That was some breakup.”
I pull away from her and climb off the bed. The regret and shame ofwhatI did that night will always haunt me. I hurt two people I cared deeply for, and I can never take it back. Zoey may have forgiven me, but Chris and I haven’t said much to each other since. Of course, I’m sure the fact that I avoid him aids in that.
I don’t tell her about the part where, if not for me, Zoey would never have been raped. How it’s my fault she spiraled into addiction afterward because I gave her the first taste of drugs back when we were kids. Or if I’d just called Jax and Zane when I found her, they could’ve helped her sooner. Instead, I kept her safely hidden with me for a year because I was afraid she’d disappear.
