Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“There’s no proof,” Reagan muttered mostly to herself.
So that was where those scars on her knee came from. I’d been wondering, but since I was trying very hard to keep myself detached, I didn’t want to ask any questions. Questions led to answers and answers led to forming attachments to the people who’d answered said questions.
“There’s no proof,” Janie acquiesced. “But there is suspicion and nobody was the least bit surprised—especially those of us who knew him and his habits.”
I felt something inside me clutch at those words.
“Is he dangerous?” I asked Reagan. “Did he purposefully hurt you?”
Reagan shrugged.
This girl sitting beside me in this moment was a very different girl than the one that I knew.
All her confidence and defiance was gone and she was utterly deflated. It was like he’d taken both from her with a single look.
The next thing that came out of my mouth was honestly an accident. I hadn’t intended to say what I said the way that I said it.
I intended to be kind and understanding. But instead, what came out was something akin to a taunt—which I never would’ve done had I known that it was going to set her on fire like it did.
“I thought you had more gumption than that.” I poked her.
Reagan inhaled deeply, hissing the last part of her breath through her teeth. “I do have gumption, Tyler.”
“Then why are you acting like the entire world has ended?” I pushed. “So, your ex is here?” I shrugged. “Big goddamn deal.”
“Big goddamn deal?” she asked, her voice rising with each word that she repeated. “Do you want to know what the big goddamn deal is, Tyler?”
My lips would’ve twitched, but I didn’t want her to lose this spark, even if it was anger directed at me. I wanted her to use it as fuel to fight the fuck back. She couldn’t fight back if she was a scared, lone duck.
She needed to understand that she had friends—and whatever the hell I was—at her back.
That and I really wanted to know more of what happened. I had a feeling there was a lot that I didn’t know, more than just the fact that Dusty had ruined her Olympic career.
“Him crashing his car on purpose isn’t enough?” she spat, leaning into me, her face only inches from mine.
“I didn’t say that it wasn’t a good reason to dislike him,” I pointed out. “I just said…”
“You just said that I was a coward, pretty much. But him crashing the car wasn’t the only thing he did…that was just the breaking point. The straw that broke the camel’s back…or more particularly, the crash that broke the girl’s knee, shattered every single one of her dreams and flushed them down the proverbial toilet.”
My brows rose. “Then what else is there? I can’t help if I don’t know the whole story.”
“He’s the reason she doesn’t talk,” Janie offered.
My brow went up in confusion. “You talk to me just fine. You talk to everyone.” I gestured to her friends sitting around the table watching us with unconcealed interest.
Reagan’s mouth remained tightly sealed.
“That probably has more to do with the fact that you piss her off enough that it spills over the barrier that he instilled in her,” Janie continued.
Reagan’s eyes turned to her. “Would you shut up?”
I saw Janie shrug unrepentantly. “Reagan, if he’s here now, I don’t want his presence to affect the person you’ve become. I like this new version of you. You’re taking chances and you’re living your life. You’re not scared and you’ve seemed genuinely happy. I haven’t seen that from you in a long ass time and I’ll be damned if his showing up here is going to force all that back inside of you.”
The way she’d just described her sure didn’t sound like the Reagan I knew.
I’ve never seen Reagan scared, even when I thought she should be—you know, like when she’s being confronted by the man who owned the property she was trespassing on.
“When I was dating him,” Reagan said, “I didn’t realize how much of my life he was controlling. Who I talked to, hung out with, saw on a regular basis.” She looked away from Janie. “At one point, I was only going to Dusty’s parents’ house for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter…and mine were left by the wayside. And all my friends? He was slowly whittling away at them, too. Nobody liked Dusty and he made no secret of it that he didn’t like them and didn’t want them around me. Eventually they all left—at least the ones who weren’t family—and I was all alone. The ones who didn’t leave? Well, I just stopped answering their calls.”
Janie’s gaze dropped to the table and I gathered that some of those calls that hadn’t been answered had been hers.
“I didn’t realize that he’d cut me off from everyone that could make me see reason. Not until he started to dictate how I played softball and when I played it.” She shook her head and looked at the table where her hand was resting on top of it. “It was softball and him. But when the opportunity came for me to play for the Olympic team and he found out that I’d be gone for six months to practice with them out of state and he couldn’t follow? He flipped the fuck out. That’s when I saw the damage that I’d done and the chains he’d wrapped around me to keep me where he wanted me.”