“I forgot to call them,” he said, getting more comfortable in his spot. “I couldn’t just make them leave after they’d driven out here to help me out.”
“That’s exactly what you could have done,” I said so quietly I wasn’t sure at first that he’d heard me.
“You are mad,” he replied.
“It’s fine.”
“Clearly, it’s not, or you wouldn’t be having an attitude.”
“I’m not having an attitude,” I said, my face devoid of emotion when I met his gaze.
“Is this going to happen every time you’re pissed?” he snapped. “You’re acting like a—”
He didn’t finish his sentence and I immediately sat forward in my chair.
“A what?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. “A bitch?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on, Trevor,” I wheedled. “Say what you were going to say.”
“I wasn’t going to call you a bitch,” he said softly.
“Sure you were.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“Right,” I said sarcastically. I pushed myself to my feet, ready to leave him there on the porch, but before I could take a single step he was standing as well.
“I was going to call you a child,” he said with a sigh, standing between me and the door. “I was going to say that you were acting like a child.”
“Then why didn’t you just say it?” I snapped back.
“Because,” he said, standing straighter, “I don’t use words to hurt people.”
My head jerked back in surprise. The words were so simple, but as he stood there, his gaze never leaving mine, I knew that the meaning behind them wasn’t. I had no idea how to respond.
“I’m sorry about how that all played out,” he said softly. “I know you wanted to be in control of how Etta met my family.”
“It’s not just that,” I ground out. I wanted to yell in frustration, but his previous comment had taken the wind out of my sails. “My sister,” I choked out. “We came here so she could feel safe. How do you think she felt, having to deal with strangers after the last couple of days? How do you think I felt?”
“I know.” He nodded somberly. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“I’m—” I shook my head, refusing to finish my thought as all the emotions of the past couple of days made my throat feel like it was closing up. This was why I didn’t want to discuss anything. This was why I preferred to stew on my anger until it eventually faded away. And I knew it would fade; it always did. Even if it never went away completely, it became manageable.
“What?” Trevor asked, reaching for me. “You’re what?”
“I’m angry,” I gritted out through my teeth, unable to keep the tears from filling my eyes. “I’m so angry.”
He wrapped his arms around me, but I was too busy trying to hold myself together to reciprocate the embrace. I was shaking as his hand started to rub my back soothingly, up and down in long sweeps.
“They bit her,” I said, unable to keep the disbelief from my voice. “They burned her and they bit her and then they put her in her bed like it was nothing.”
Trevor made a pained sound in his throat, but didn’t speak.
“How does someone do that to another human being? How do you leave marks on someone with no remorse?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“The doctor said she was lucky that there was no sign of a rape,” I whispered. “Lucky. Can you believe that?”
Trevor didn’t respond. He just continued to hold me while I shook with suppressed rage. It was too much. All of it was too fucking much. My sister and I had lived through so much crap when we were kids, first when we’d lived with our train wreck of a mother and later with a series of foster families, that it was time for us to have it easy. Wasn’t it? I mean, was that too much to ask?
Why in the hell did certain people have such easy lives when the rest of us had to fight for every piece of happiness we could grasp? And then, when life was ready to give us something good, why was it so hard for the have-nots just to accept it?
Why was I standing in the arms of a man I cared about, one who’d forgiven me for treating him like crap, and I couldn’t even hug him back? I couldn’t force myself to do it. I just stood there, letting him attempt to soothe me, and the entire time I berated myself and my life and every person who’d let me down.
“What do you need?” he asked, holding me tighter. “Tell me what you need from me.”
His words only made me angrier. I didn’t know what I needed. Couldn’t he see that? Couldn’t he see that I had no idea what to fucking do?
“I don’t need anything,” I said dully after a few moments of silence.