Credence

“Tiernan,” Noah whispers, and I taste salt, but I’m not sure if it’s his tear or mine. “I love you. You’re so fucking ours. We love you.”

He kisses my cheek and my forehead as Kaleb works, and I try to calm my breathing as the tingles from his mouth on my skin sink in.

A bottle grazes my lips, and I take another drink as Kaleb bites off the thread, cleans the blood off my arm, and wraps me up with a bandage.

The alcohol starts to warm my insides, the pain in my arm less sharp than it was.

My cheek burns, though.

I open my eyes wide, drawing in a deep breath.

“You could’ve warned me,” I tell Kaleb, my voice thick with tears as I stare down at him. “You could’ve hit me anywhere else.”

Why the face?

He closes the kit and rises, taking the bloody gauze to the trash.

I set the bottle down and slide off the table. “Cici Diggins came out of the cave with you at the waterfall with a bloody nose that day.”

“What?” Noah hops off the table, too.

But Kaleb doesn’t acknowledge me. I stare at his back as he washes his hands at the sink. His muscles flex, and his breathing is slow and methodical. Too calm.

Doesn’t he want to defend himself? She could be telling the truth. I’ve seen him abusive. Throwing things, spitting, not taking ‘no’ for an answer…

He slapped me without any hesitation tonight.

But the dogs love him most, don’t they? They follow him, sleep with him, and make him smile when he doesn’t think we see.

He’s always ready to stand in front of me and keep me from harm. He tries to connect, like when I was sketching.

No matter what snide comment Noah makes or what his father demands from him in his harsh tone, he doesn’t say anything or start a fight. He just does whatever he has to so people will leave him alone.

I look away, shaking my head. This is what women do, though, isn’t it? Look for meaning in the tiniest details to mean more than they do.

The corners of my mouth twitch as my eyes sting. “Kaleb,” I whisper, begging.

But it’s Noah who speaks up. “Cici Diggins would say anything for attention.”

“She was bleeding,” I clarify. “She didn’t know I would see her.”

“He doesn’t hit women, Tiernan.” Noah passes me, pulling the ibuprofen out of the cabinet. “Unless they’re hysterical and keeping him from saving their lives,” he replies, dumping a couple tablets into my hand and meeting my eyes. “You told him to do it.”

I stick the pills in my mouth and swallow them dry, feeling them scratch against my throat.

Yeah, I told him to.

The second time.

I told him to hit me, partly because it dulled the pain and partly because...

I drop my eyes. Partly because I liked it. I liked the anger and the desire to hit him back, because even though it hurt, I was here. I was in it, and I never wanted it to stop. I never wanted that feeling to stop.

Pain always reminds us that we’re alive. And the fear along with it that we want to stay that way.

Kaleb is like that. If nothing else, he reminds me that I’m more than I think I am.

But when he held my face after the slap, and kissed me so softly, my heart immediately sank into my belly, and I forgot everything.