Reese doesn’t move. He doesn’t say a thing, but I feel and hear his sharp intake of breath.
“Every day I’ve watched Momma drink herself into nothin’, and hated him for leavin’ her. For leavin’ us. I hated him, ‘cause he didn’t care enough about me to stay. I blamed myself. I thought it was somethin’ I did.” His arms tighten around me, and I continue, “He left in the middle of the night. I kept kidding myself, thinking he’d be back to get me and take me with him. Momma, too. Y’all started to look at me with pity, and that was when I realized he weren’t ever comin’ back. He’d gone, all ‘cause of what she did to him. To me. To us.”
I shudder, and he kisses the top of my forehead, letting his lips linger there. He’s waiting; just waiting for me to shatter the rest of my walls and let him in, but I’ve already pulled down every wall blocking him out. I’ve already taken away everything I was holding between us.
Because I can’t stop. It’s started, and I can’t stop. To tell someone, to tell him what happened. It’s a feral need inside me, tearing through my body in the same way a river tears through a broken dam.
“Y’all know my momma lives for that bottle. You don’t know how bad it is, how much she truly does live for it, but y’all know. Poor Kia, y’all say when you think I can’t hear you. I’ve seen things no kid should have to see. I’ve picked her up off the floor more times than I can count, cleaned her sick, taken out the bottles. I’ve been the mom when I shoulda been the kid. I tried; I tried to tell her how she made me feel, but y’know what? All she cared about was him. The guy who left us. Suddenly I didn’t matter anymore. I still don’t. Not to her.” I loosen my grip on Reese’s neck and turn my face slightly, looking through the tree house window at the setting sun. “So I left this damn town as soon as I could.”
His body tenses.
“I did what my Daddy did. I ran,” I whisper. “I ran from what scared me, what I couldn’t deal with. But unlike him, I had to come back. I had to come back to deal with his mess, and mine. He only came back ‘cause he wants a divorce. After all this time, he finally came back for it.
“I’m done with it. They argued over this big secret, and I still didn’t know it. She couldn’t even tell me. He had to tell me. It was like the world had been pulled out from under me, and not in a good way.” My jaw clenches. “And then she admitted it, just like that. ‘I had an affair’. No guilt. No remorse, just her and her vodka. She had an affair; Daddy caught her at it and left the same night. He played happy families for me, and left while I was sleepin’ the next night.”
Reese’s hand moving on my back is comfortable. So relaxing, calming. Just like he is.
“I’ve waited six years to hear from him. A letter, a call, even an email y’know? Nothing... I had nothing. And now I know why, ‘cause he told me tonight.” Hot tears flame down my cheeks as anger breaks through the sorrow and self-pity. “She stopped it. She got to every letter first. She disconnected every call and deleted every email. She said if he ain’t man enough to stay with his family he ain’t man enough to see his baby girl. Her. She stopped it all.” Deep breath. “And it wasn’t even him. She messed up; she cheated. She tore us apart, and she had the balls to say my Daddy ain’t a man?” I shake my head. “She ain’t a woman, and she ain’t a mother.”
Reese is still rocking me slowly, holding me so tightly against his body I think I’m about to mold into his skin. Silence.
This is me. I’ve bared my soul to him, the reality of my life that not even Luce knows. I’ve let him into a place no-one else has ever been, where no-one else ever will be. I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same again.
But I do know there’s no pushing him away.
Not this time.
CHAPTER 9
The silence stretches for an age between us. Reese’s arms wrapped around me so tightly feel like a protective wall between me and the house that just shattered everything I’ve believed for the last six years.
I breathe in deeply, the rich, woodsy scent of him filling my nose. It’s so familiar. He’s so familiar. Everything about Reese feels right.
His lips press against my cheek, and I turn my face without thinking. My mouth brushes his, and he pauses. He pulls his face back from me, his eyes boring into mine. I sit here, just watching him, looking at him. His mouth opens slightly, but he closes it again, dipping his head.
His lips are warm as they meet mine – properly this time. My eyes flutter shut as I grip his shirt, needing to hold onto him. He sucks lightly on my bottom lip, and he’s all I can focus on. His hand creeps under my shirt, flattening against the skin on my back, and I pull myself closer to him.
“Let me take you away,” he whispers against my mouth.
“Away?”
“From here. Even if it’s just for a day, a night, or the weekend. Let me take you away, Kia.”
“We can’t just pack up and leave,” I reply, opening my eyes to his.
“Sure we can.” He shrugs, holding the back of my head. His thumb rubs my neck tantalizingly. “We get in the truck; I start it up, and then I take you to a place where no one here can find you. No one will be able to bother you or hurt you, and I can help make it better.”
I smile sadly. “I don’t think anyone can make this better, Reese. Not even you and your magic charm.”
“But I can try,” he insists. “Let me try. I don’t ever wanna see you like this again. It’s breakin’ my damn heart to see you so broken, but this ain’t about us. It’s about you. Shit, it’s always about you, but I can’t see you hurting like this anymore. I need to see that beautiful smile on your face again.”
“Where would we go?”
“Anywhere. We’ll go wherever you wanna go. You wanna go to Vegas? We'll go. Back to New York? Say the words. Hell, baby, I'll hire a rocket to take you to the moon if that's what you really want.” He smiles a little.
“The moon is a little far-fetched,” I mutter. “Really, the beach would be enough, but we can’t just up and leave. We have to tell someone.”
“The whole point of this is so no one can find you,” he reminds me, resting his forehead against mine. I raise my hand and sink my fingers into his thick, wavy hair that isn’t spiked for once.