Best I Ever Had

Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I try to temper the anger growing inside. “Fucking hell, Story.” I’ve been in fights, too many to count, sometimes picking shit just to feel something other than the void I felt at home. Sometimes, in defense of friends or even girls I knew when guys crossed lines. But for a guy to hit a woman . . . I’d fucking lose it on them.

“It was hell.” She laughs, but it’s jaded in disbelief as her eyes fill with tears. “We were only listening to music. That’s all. I swear.” Breaking as if she’s reliving it again, pain morphs her into a scared little girl with rivulets of tears running down her face and into the tub.

I wrap my hands around her calves to pull her close until I can lift her into my arms and tuck her against my chest. She’s curled into the smallest ball possible, her sobs wracking her body as her head rests against my shoulder. “It’s okay, Story. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“He once told me he wanted to make sure that I didn’t end up like my mom and date someone like him. Sometimes, I can still hear his voice in my head. He’s the nightmare I can’t escape.”

“Fucking nightmare you survived,” I say, reminding her. “But I’d kill him.” I kiss her on the head. “I’d have spent the rest of my life in jail if I’d been there.”

“You’re too good, Cooper Haywood, to ever know anyone as bad as Hank.”

I feel . . . conflicted.

She sees me now as a better man, but I’m not sure she’d feel the same if she’d known me back then. A better man in a week? Who am I kidding? Is it possible for me to transform into someone other than who I am just because I met Story?

I could tell her how I’ve been to jail a couple of times, just the overnight stuff for the fighting, a little weed back in high school, and stealing my mom’s Bentley to go joyriding with friends when I was fifteen. But that’s petty stuff. Not the same as how Hank was living his life. If she sees me as the opposite of him, I’ll take that.

I hold her tight to get her past the pain of having to relive that night alone.

When she calms again, she says, “The night she . . .” She sniffles, but her voice steadies. She may have been waiting for enough time to pass, or . . . the right person to show up, but now she’s finally opening up. “Sounds like such a cliché.” She takes a deep breath, wiping her face with the back of her hands and dipping them in the water to wash the makeup away.

Leaning back, she shifts just enough to put a little distance between our faces. “My mom was working at a bar, but Hank was drunk in the kitchen, grumbling about rich kids hot-rodding in town, and mad about a ticket he’d gotten. I showed up in those short shorts at the wrong time.” Her swallow is harsh, but she continues, “He got even madder and called me a whore . . . like my mom, and then he decided that he didn’t give a shit that I wasn’t his daughter.” She’s shaking her head. “He didn’t care. That night, he just needed to take his anger out on someone. And I was the chosen one.”

“He’s a fucker. You know that, right?”

“I know.” Her emotions waver with her voice—an ebb and flow to it. She’s had years to start processing, but I’m beginning to think that surviving meant blocking it out entirely. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but not dealing with shit eventually comes out one way or the other.

The water’s cooled from hot to warm, but my temper remains heated.

She exhales and starts fidgeting with petals, ripping them apart and letting the pieces float away. I say, “He did that to you? Ripped you apart.”

“That’s not as bad as what he did to my insides.” Through the dissipated bubbles, I notice the tips of her fingers running along the scar on her leg. Shit. My stomach drops when the pieces connect. The scar. That fucker gave her that scar.

I cover her hand as she continues to touch the jagged line. “He slapped me so hard that I fell into a lamp that had seen better days. It fell and broke . . . and then I fell and broke right on top of it.” Her eyes are set on her leg when she says, “The broken glass ripped my leg wide open, cut through the muscle, exposing the bone.”

“Fucking hell.” My thoughts blur, and when I close my eyes, all I see is red. Anger holds me hostage as a million images of her getting hurt flash through my mind. How could he do that to her?