“This is—well, from your side it seems like a completely different kidnapping. Like I feel like I have no connection with it at all, none of it triggers anything. I never saw any of that. I never saw any of the ‘torture’ that you apparently were receiving evidence of. I didn’t know they were in contact with you. It was just . . . nothing, basically. Just a whole lot of nothing. Being confused about why I was there and why they would take me. Confused about Trent being so nice and making himself so uncomfortable to make sure I was safe. And just day after day of absolutely nothing but sitting on the mattress, being given meals, and writing in my journal.
“Yours sounds terrifying . . . not that I wasn’t scared. I was always so scared. But mine sounds like nothing compared to what you were thinking I went through. I was really just kept in a room, and I was taken care of. There was never any danger . . . up until the end.”
Scooting my chair closer so I could cup the back of her neck, I licked my lips and struggled to find the words. “Rachel, you have no—you don’t understand—fuck. Seeing you yesterday. Seeing you alive, seeing you completely whole and well was the biggest relief of my life. You have no idea how damn happy I am, how happy everyone at the department is, that you weren’t tortured. But don’t downplay what you went through. No one should have to go through what you did, and I still hate that you went through a minute of it, let alone over a month. You may not have been tortured, but that’s just a blessing right now. It doesn’t change what still happened.”
She took a shuddering breath in and held it for a while before releasing it and resting her chin on her knees. Her eyes were glassy, but no tears were falling. I hated that she didn’t look happier to be home. I hated that she didn’t want to be closer to me. I just hated this whole damn thing.
“Tell me about . . . tell me about him, Rachel. I won’t ask questions like the detectives did yesterday, just tell me about your time with him.”
“I know you don’t want to hear about him,” she huffed. “You’re just going to be more pissed off hearing his name. Every time I say it I see the way your eyes harden.”
There was no point in denying that. And I really didn’t want to hear about him. But she looked so lost, the only way I knew how to help her was to get her to talk. If she didn’t, she was going to shut down and start shielding against me. I wasn’t about to go through that with her again.
Not giving her the option to pull away, I grabbed both ankles and sat back in my chair before placing her feet on my lap. She looked down at her feet, but didn’t move them and didn’t say anything.
“Tell me all of it, start from the beginning. Don’t leave anything out for my benefit, Rachel, really, I want to hear it all.”
HOURS LATER, we’d moved back into the house so I could make us lunch. Rachel never once stopped talking as I cooked, and only took brief breaks when she was chewing. A couple hours in, I started trying to remember why I’d originally hated Trent when I realized I was thankful that he had gone out of his way to make sure no one touched her. Staying in the room and bathroom with her had pissed me off at first, but I understood.
It wasn’t until a few hours after we’d finished eating that I had to use every ounce of self-control so I wouldn’t lash out for what Rachel saw one night in the bathroom, and for the two kisses they had shared. Rachel explained both kisses as: “We thought we were about to die, we didn’t know what we were about to walk out of that room and into. He’d taken care of me, killed his ‘brothers’ for me, put himself in danger for me and was about to willingly do it again.” All I could think of as she’d explained the kisses was, You were still engaged!
I couldn’t imagine kissing another woman in any situation, let alone that one. Rachel must have seen that thought repeating itself, because she looked directly into my eyes and whispered, “You weren’t there for all of it. So don’t judge me, because there is no way you could understand why it happened, or why I let it happen.”
When she was done with her story, she started picking at the bottom of her shirt and refused to look at me again; and I just didn’t know what to say.
So I didn’t say anything.
We sat there silently for another hour as she looked at everything but me, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
I wasn’t sure if I was happy I knew now, or not. At least some of the images I had been visualizing had been put to rest. If she said that was all that happened between them on a romantic or sexual level, then I believed her . . . completely. But that didn’t make what had happened any easier.
I knew that Rachel believed she didn’t have romantic feelings for Trent . . . but there was something. I could see even as she told me about her time when she was gone, the way she talked about him changed. Scared of him, to confused about him, to grateful for him, to viewing him as friend, to viewing him as something else entirely. Only problem was she didn’t even realize that final change; and I didn’t have a name for it.
From what she had said, she’d wanted to get out of there and get back to me, and Trent was going to help her. And after watching the way she continued to avoid eye contact or slowly inch away from me, I stopped wondering why she would be doing that after so long apart if she wasn’t actually in love with Trent.
Because I knew the reason now.
Just like I’d envisioned a reunion with her that was completely different from the one we’d had. She’d been dreaming of me rescuing her and taking her away from it all. And instead, I’d let my jealousy get in the way and had been a bastard to her the entire first day after the supposed bad guy had just done everything to save her.
Strike. Three.
Rachel
I COULDN’T FIGURE OUT WHAT TO SAY or what to feel when I finally finished rehashing everything I could think of from my time with Trent.
Now I was sitting here, trying to sort through all the emotions that were coursing through me. I knew the members of his gang would kill Trent the second they had the chance, and I was feeling guilty and terrified for when that time came . . . it felt like I was already grieving his loss. I’d promised him I wouldn’t let him go down for everything, and in the end, I hadn’t been able to do a thing about it. I wanted him back; I wanted him safe and away from the other members of his gang. I wished more than anything that he could have gotten a start at a new life instead of being sent to prison, where he was likely to die for what he’d done for me. But through all of that—through all of those emotions—they didn’t compare to what I was feeling for the man sitting across from me.
I was so confused. I had no idea what he was thinking or feeling for me after the conversation I’d heard yesterday afternoon. I’d always known he was quick to react on his emotions, it was one of the reasons I loved him. But everything about yesterday and today was so beyond what I thought it would be, and what was us, that I just felt like I didn’t know anything anymore.
So I was grieving, but it wasn’t just for Trent and what was to come for him, it was also for the relationship that I was afraid was now over after everything Logan and I had been through.
When more than an hour had passed since I’d finished talking, and he still hadn’t said a word, I stood up to take a shower.
“What can I do, Rachel?” he asked to my back. “Tell me what to do for you and I’ll do it. Tell me how to help you and it’ll be done.”
My lips tilted up in a forced, helpless smile even though he couldn’t see me, and I kept my back to him as I said, “If I had any idea what to do to make that month go away, or to fix us, I would. But I don’t, I don’t even know if there is anything either of us can do.”
/> Without waiting for a response, I walked to the back of the house and through the bedroom to the bathroom. Stripping down after the steam from the shower started filling up the room, I stepped in and let the hot water soothe my aching body, and hide my unrelenting tears.