When Willow arrived home, she was still thinking about Ethan.
There was a chill in the air and she was still without a coat, so she hurried up the front porch steps.
It seemed the height of insanity to think of it as a good day—it certainly hadn’t started out that way. As the day wore on, it only seemed to get progressively worse.
Until she was in Ethan’s arms. Then, as usual, everything felt better—her troubles far away, her heart foolishly brimming, and even if only for a few hours, she had peace.
Although, with the implosion of his family, perhaps it would end up being more than a few hours.
Just thinking about what her father had done made her stomach twist up in knots. She definitely needed to have a talk with him, to make sure he understood Ethan and his family were completely off-limits. How to successfully convey that, she wasn’t completely sure, but she would figure it out.
God, that was going to be an awkward conversation.
When she closed the door behind her, rubbing her arms in hopes the friction and the heat from the house would join teams and instantly warm her bones, she thought she heard a gasp.
Jerking her head toward the sound, she saw both of her moms heading straight for her, Lauren with her hands covering her mouth, Ashlynn looking years older than she had when she left the house earlier.
Already weary, Willow offered up a quick apology. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you; my phone died. I’m fine.”
“Did you go to him?” Lauren’s brown eyes flared angrily, then immediately turned sad again.
“What?” Willow asked, bewildered.
Ashlynn’s mouth curved down, then she pressed her lips together and stood a little taller. “Your father stopped by.”
Just like that, the world stopped moving. Time stood still. Her blood paused on its way through her veins and her heart ceased to beat.
Then a burst of hot fury coursed through her, jumpstarting her heart and triggering a weird popping sound in the vicinity of her brain.
The sorrow oozing out of Ashlynn’s expression only served to infuriate her more.
“He had no right,” Willow finally bit out.
“You weren’t going to tell us,” Lauren cried, her heightened emotionality aggravating Willow even more. “We needed to know!”
“No, you didn’t! Because it had nothing to do with you—it was my experience, my choice whether or not to tell you or anyone else.”
“Honey—you need help.”
Ashlynn put a hand on Lauren’s shoulder, obviously aware that was not the right thing to say. “What your mother means to say—”
Putting a hand up to signal stop, she said, “I don’t care. I don’t care what she means to say. I’m not going to talk about this, because I didn’t choose to talk about this. You don’t know the story and my father is a fucking psychopath, so I’m not sure why you would listen to him anyway.”
“Willow,” Ashlynn called after her, but Willow stormed upstairs.
By the time she got to her room, she could feel angry tears at the corners of her eyes, and all she wanted to do was escape.
With that thought in mind, she went to her closet and ripped her small suitcase out, throwing it on her bed and then going to her dresser drawer. Her mind was racing, reminding her of her relative helplessness; where did she think she was going to go? All of her female friends were distant memories and she didn’t want to go to a male friend.
Ethan. The simplest answer, staring right at her. He had rented a hotel for the night, surely she could stay with him while she cooled off.
Before she could grab her phone out of her purse to text him, her parents were already invading her bedroom, effectively blocking the exit with their collaborative suffering.
“I’m sorry we found out this way,” Ashlynn began. “I truly am, honey—we didn’t go searching for this information, we didn’t violate your privacy to find out.”
“Whatever.”
Lauren watched her daughter throw clothing into the suitcase and burst out, “What are you doing? You need to talk to us.”