"Thank you Aunt Em."

She kisses my forehead and hugs me tight. "Any time baby girl, I'm here if you need me."

I say goodbye and take my time on the short drive back to my apartment. I feel strangely better, yet still somewhat conflicted. Suddenly, the thought of Grayson not knowing who I am completely is more terrifying than telling him the truth.

I'm about to lay the pieces of my shattered heart at Grayson's feet.

I can only hope that he'll still want me, despite the fact that I'm not whole.

Chapter 18

~ Grayson ~

Huntley walks into the apartment and the look on her face concerns me. Her face is red and her eyes are puffy. I have no idea where she’s been but something has obviously upset her. She closes the door behind her and walks over to me. Her arms snake around my waist and I can’t help the bad feeling that uncoils in the pit of my stomach. Something is very wrong.

“Where did you disappear to this morning?” I ask quietly. “I missed you.”

“I needed to sort some things out. Are Brody and Demi here?”

“Yeah, they’re in Demi’s room. Last time I checked they were asleep.”

She looks down the passage and back up at me. “Can we talk?”

I nod, watching her wearily as she takes my hand and leads me down the hallway to her room. I close the door behind me and take a seat on the bed. The bad feeling I had in stomach moments ago is now amplified. It makes me anxious.

“What’s wrong?”

“I need…I need to tell you some things and I need you to let me finish before you say anything. What you decide to do afterwards is your decision, ok?”

My heart starts racing wildly and my imagination starts conjuring up every possible worst-case-scenario. I swallow hard and nod once, pushing her to continue.

“Before I moved here, some things happened that I’m not proud of, despite the fact that they were out of my control. I was young and immature and I made some very stupid decisions,” she pauses, wiping the tears that have started falling down her face. “I dated a guy, Jake, for almost 3 years. He was the popular guy at our school, and when he started paying attention to me I got excited. My dad died when I was two, so it was just me and my mom. I wasn’t used to getting male attention and I thought the way Jake treated me was how it was supposed to be. My moms’ boyfriends treated her the same way so it was all I knew about relationships.”

I audibly grind my teeth. What did his Jake fucker do to my beautiful girl? Why was no one around to protect her?

Huntley starts sobbing next to me. I move to put my arm around her but she quickly evades my embrace and jumps off the bed. “No,” she says, “Wait until you know all of it, before you decide I’m worth touching.”

She paces the carpet in front of me and it takes all my strength not to grab her and comfort her. But I can tell that she needs time, she needs to get this off her chest in order to trust herself. And me.

“The first time I had sex with him,” she continues. My fists clench on their own accord and I brace myself for what’s coming. “It was awful. I knew it would hurt but I expected Jake to be gentle with me, to take care of me. I wanted him to appreciate the gift I was giving him, the one part of myself I can never get back. He didn’t care though, and even when I started crying he carried on. It took me almost a month to gather the courage to do it again, and even then he didn’t care about me at all.” She takes a breath between sobs and looks at me, the fear and indignity burning in her sad eyes. “Are you sure you want to hear the rest?” she asks hesitantly.

I look away but nod. I hear her sharp intake of breath and know that she has misinterpreted my need to look away. It’s not because I’m disgusted with her. I’m disgusted with the motherfucker who wasn’t man enough to treat this beautiful, fragile girl with the love and respect that she deserves.

“The third time,” she swallows hard, “He convinced me to try without a condom. He said it was more enjoyable for both of us. I was on the pill, and all I really wanted to do was make him happy so I agreed. Needless to say, it was as awful for me as the first two times. Jake was always too concerned about his own needs to worry about mine.”

By now she’s stopped pacing but her sniffles worsen the more she continues to tell me. I’m angry and frustrated. Angry because I have the urge to find this dickhead Jake and fuck him up with a sledge hammer and frustrated because Huntley won’t allow me to comfort her. I can see what this is doing to her, and the sight of her baring her soul to me awakens something else inside my own heart.

Guilt.

Because there are things about me that Huntley also deserves to know.

I watch her every move as she sits down on her faux shag carpet. She takes a few calming breaths but they do nothing to ease her cries. I don’t move from my spot on the bed.

“I found out eight weeks later that I was pregnant,” she cries. I’m sure she can see the surprise on my face but she continues anyway. “I was terrified. I had no idea what I was going to do. I decided the best thing to do was tell Jake and hope he wouldn’t be too angry with me. He started drinking more and I was sure he was on drugs so I never knew what mood I would find him in. On the night I decided to share the news, I walked in on him,” she sniffles, “having sex with my best friend Taylor.”

My mind goes blank and flashbacks from when my ex cheated on me replay in vivid Technicolor. I have no idea what to say.

My instincts kick in and I bend down to where Huntley is all but crumpled up on the carpet. Wordlessly, I wrap my arms around her and carry her to the bed. I would give anything to take away what she’s feeling right now.

“What happened next?” I whisper. I ignore every warning signal in my head telling me to leave it alone, that I won’t like what I’m about to hear.

“After I walked in on them, Jake chased me and when I told him I was pregnant he freaked. He accused me of cheating and ended up pushing me down the stairs. He then started kicking me and soon after that I blacked out. I lost the baby that night and spent three days in hospital recovering from other injuries caused by the fall.”

I rock her back and forth, hoping to calm the storm inside her heart and soul the way she calms mine. I find myself wanting to be everything I can possibly be for this girl. Despite the initial shock, all of this information explains more to me than I thought possible. The connection I feel pulsing between us has been fortified. We are two broken souls seeking solace in each other, the desire to make the other whole again.

She opens her mouth but hesitates.

“What else?” I ask. “I can see there is something else you need to say.”

I hear her swallow. Surely there can’t be something worse than what she just told me?

“The day I got out of the hospital, I found my mom’s body. I walked into the house and found her body in the kitchen. The back of her head was smashed in and according to the medical examiner there were thirty seven lacerations on her chest and stomach. When –“

“Stop. You don’t have to tell me any more.”

She moves, trying to untangle herself from me. “What are you doing?”

“This is what I prepared myself for. You know all about my past and I knew you would leave me after you realized what I mess I really am.”