His voice ripped across my skin like torn Velcro.
I had never heard him so incensed, so viciously disgusted.
I hesitated, swallowing the sour at the back of my tongue so I could focus on the conversation.
“You were so young then,” the woman said condescendingly, smiling the way a librarian might at a stubborn boy who refused to read, as if it was only a matter of time before she persuaded him otherwise. “I told you then, I’d always love you.”
“You didn’t love me,” he barked, but oh, I could hear the pain in that roughly torn sound, as if he’d yanked it straight out of his heart, still bleeding, still beating.
The woman pursed her lips together. “Really, Jonathon, you’re being juvenile. You were a boy, there was no way I was going to leave my husband for you.”
“You were pregnant with my fuckin’ kid,” Nova snarled, shaking the fence with a violent rattle.
My heart stopped.
The woman sighed. “It was barely even alive. I got it taken care of early.”
A sound worked itself loose in Nova’s chest, something animal and full of mourning like a bear separated from its cub.
Oh, my God.
I closed my eyes as the information passed through me, a metaphorical knife through my chest.
“Wasn’t just your choice to make.” His voice was stripped of anger now, almost hollow, the words falling flat to the ground between them. “Shoulda told me.”
“I did. Why do you always have to get caught up on this? We were happy together, weren’t we?” she crooned, reaching up to touch his cheek.
Nova jerked away, almost stumbling backward. “I would’ve been worthy of that kid. You gave me the chance, I would’ve fuckin’ proved it to you every goddamn day. But you robbed me,” his voice cracked from the pressure of pain rising in his gut.
Something toxic twisted on the woman’s pretty face. “You’re pathetic. It was nothing. An abortion. People have them all the time. And come on, sweetheart, you and I both know you had nothing to offer a child. A high school drop out? A man-boy with nothing to show for himself but his looks? I made the only choice I could have. You would be a horrible parent, sweetie. Even now,” she gestured to the cops on the compound, the squares of flashing blue, red, and white lights shifting like disco lights over the lot. “A criminal? I thought our sessions would’ve helped you find the right path, but I was right to think you were always hotter than you were clever. Now that I’m consulting with the EPD, I’m sure this won’t be the last time I see you involved with the police.”
Nova didn’t say anything for a long moment, but the set of his broad shoulders was rigid, overloaded with the weight of his pain like Atlas bent beneath the crush of the entire world.
I stepped forward out of the shadows and placed a gentle hand on his back.
Instantly, he tensed, a low growl in his throat like a startled beast. Then, sensing me maybe, he relaxed back against my hand and looked over his shoulder for me.
His face was scarred with old pain, dark eyes haunted, breath a careful metronome that told me he was struggling hard to keep himself under control.
“¿Estás bien?” I asked softly, because the bitch didn’t need to know what we spoke of.
Are you okay?
“Ni siquiera cerca,” he replied gruffly.
Not even close.
My chest constricted like a python around my heart as I stared up into his gorgeous, agonized face and wondered how long Nova had been carrying the weight of this trauma alone.
“Excuse me, we were having a private conversation,” the bitch interrupted cattily.
Slowly, I turned to her.
Blonde hair tucked into a ritzy chignon, jewels at her ears, wrists, and throat, a silk blouse opened just a little too deep at her breasts.
Something niggled at the back of my mind, a loose thread caught in the wind.
I tugged at it and gasped when it unraveled.
I knew this woman.
I remembered her in glimpses and snatches of childhood recall.
Dropping Nova off at his therapist’s house after one too many fights at school and the incident of Ellie’s death. Molly thought he could use help for his insomnia, his reckless decision making, and carousing.
He’d gone for years to the woman.
Dr. Meredith Canterbury.
It occurred to me, like a slap across my face, that Meredith might have been planting a garden, too, much like the one Nova had grown in my heart. Only, hers was a garden of self-hate, strewn with doubt and self-flagellation.
Had she been telling Nova for years that he wasn’t good enough?
Anger bubbled up in my gut, spitting up my throat to burn lava hot across my tongue.
Meredith took me in, eyes narrowed as they slid over my tattoos, my cropped peasant blouse and tiny, ripped shorts, I knew exactly what she thought of me.