I squeezed my eyes shut, barely feeling him grip my hair as I waited for Winter to understand.
It was over. She’d hate me.
“Torrance,” she breathed out, hearing what her father had said. “Damon Torrance?”
I looked at her as he pulled my hair, making my scalp burn. “Winter,” I begged.
“What?” she said to herself, still processing.
I tried to move toward her. “Winter.” But I didn’t know what to say. Instead, I shouted at Kincaid who just stood there with his hands all over a nearly naked girl. “Get her some fucking clothes!” I told him.
Oh, Jesus. He was having me arrested.
But I didn’t care about that as much as I worried that she wasn’t responding to me. Please don’t leave me.
“Winter, listen to me,” I said. “It’s not what you think.”
“It’s Damon Torrance?” she asked the other men.
“You didn’t know?” her father asked. “You didn’t know who this was?” And then he glared at me, baring his teeth as the full measure of what had happened between us sunk in. “What did you do?”
“Winter, listen to me,” I pleaded.
But she started sobbing and covering her mouth with a hand. “Get out!” she screamed, backing up into Kincaid and as far away from me as she could. “Get him out! Get him out!”
Ashby hauled me up, blood dripping from my lip.
“Winter, please.” I begged.
“No more!” she put her hands over her ears, backing up into the wall. “Just die and leave me alone!”
She raged, and the backs of my eyes burned, but I watched as she buried herself in Kincaid’s chest, shielding herself from me like I was going to hurt her.
Like I was a monster.
Just die and leave me alone.
“I hate you!” she growled. “You’re a horror, and you had to lie, because you knew I’d never want you! No one would ever love you! Get out!”
Kincaid pulled her in, putting a blanket around her shaking body as she cried.
“Don’t let him near me again,” she pleaded. “Please, don’t let him touch me.”
I looked down at my hands as Ashby pushed me out of the room, away from her, and all the pain and loss spun like a cyclone in my brain.
I would never want you. No one would ever love you.
I’d defiled her, like I knew I would.
She would never dance like an innocent again.
She’d never have the wonder in her eyes she had when she was on that motorcycle.
I’d changed her forever. I’d bent and twisted and broken everything that made her the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me.
Winter
Five Years Ago