“Babe, please don’t hide from me.”
She struggles to breathe through her tears, and when she begins to gasp, I tug her between my legs and her body gives in, falling limp into my arms. I hold her tight. Tighter than I have ever held anyone. She has to get this secret out of her. It’s agonizing to see how this is tormenting her. I just need her to get it out.
I rub her back while she has her head tucked into my chest. She’s no longer screaming, but the crying continues.
I don’t want her to hide from me, so I tell her, “You have to look at me. Please.” With my hands, I move her head up to face me. She opens her eyes, and I hate the fear and embarrassment I see in them.
“You okay?”
She simply nods.
“What happened?”
Lowering her head, she takes a couple deep breaths before asking, “Can you please call Jase?”
“What?” I hate this shit. That she would run to him in a heartbeat like I don’t exist. Like I’m not enough for her, but he is. “Shit, Candace, no,” I tell her, refusing to allow her to run from me. She told me she loves me, I just need her to trust me enough to be here for her.
“Please.” She begins to cry again.
“Candace, no. You can’t always run to him. Need me for a change,” I beg. “Talk to me.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” I urge. God, just talk to me. Tell me. Get this out of you so that you can start dealing with it.
“No, I can’t. Please. I just can’t,” she strains through her sobs.
“But you can with Jase?” I question in disbelief. I thought we were past this.
“I want you to need me,” I plead, tightening my hold around her. I feel desperate.
“I do.”
“You don’t,” I say. “You cling to him for everything. Look at me,” I demand and then hold her hands, pressing them hard against my chest, and beg, “Cling to me. Love me enough to need me.”
“I can’t . . . I . . .”
“Why?”
“Because . . . you’d leave me.”
“Not happening, babe.”
“Ryan, please.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I assure her. She can tell me this; I know she can, and I need her to. “Nothing you could say would make me want to leave you.”
“I’m just too f**ked up.” Her face is covered in tears that I just want to kiss away. I wanna take all of her pain away, but I resist the urge to give in to her. So I keep encouraging, knowing that I’m guiding her to a painful place.
“We’re all f**ked up,” I tell her. “I want you to let me in.”
Her body is shuddering as the sobs wrack her. I’m powerless, and it f**kin’ sucks.
“I can’t! You’ll never look at me the same. You’ll run away.”
She says this and I want to cry for her. Take her pain and shove it deep inside of me. I’d take her misery as my own in a second.
Wrapping my hand behind her head, I hold it close to my heart when I vow, “I promise you, nothing will change the way I look at you. Nothing will change what you do to me when you’re next to me. You make my heart beat in a completely different way—nothing will ever change that.”
“I’m so embarrassed,” she cries into my chest as she slips her arms around me, clinging to me like she’s about to fall—maybe she is, but I need her to.
“God, babe.” I’m fighting my own tears so hard. “Please, don’t be.”
I strengthen my hold on her, and when I do, she falters with a whimper when she releases it.
“I was raped.”
Those words. I already knew it. I even saw her body afterwards. But hearing those words. I can’t take the pain and guilt any longer. It’s like a knife to my lungs, and I can barely breathe. I take a hard breath in when the tears slip out and fall.
I’m helpless. I don’t know what to say to her, but I knew that she had to tell me. To stop hiding it away, but what have I done to her? She’s broken in my arms right now, sobbing, and I don’t know what to do to help.
We sit, clinging to one another as we both cry. Time passes and she begins to tire, now softly weeping as I continue rocking her and planting kisses on top of her head.
“I’ve been lying to you,” she mutters quietly.
“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.”
“I feel horrible.”
“Candace, don’t do this,” I tell her. “You have every right to lie.”
“I can’t go to see you at work because . . .”
“Shhh . . .” I want her to stop because she doesn’t need to apologize for shit. She shouldn’t feel bad for trying to cover this up. I get it. Understand it.
“Because it happened in your parking lot. By the dumpster,” she tells me, and I figure she simply needs to get it off her chest, so I don’t say anything. I just listen as she relieves herself of whatever guilt is weighing on her as she continues. “That’s why I freaked out. I didn’t know where I was until I saw the dumpster.”
Hearing her say this to me is hard. It’s hurts to think about her trying so hard to hide this from me and what that was doing to her. My breath catches, and when a small noise cracks, she pulls back to see my tears falling. Her face scrunches up as she begins to cry again.
“I’m so sorry,” she chokes out, and I’ve had enough of her apologizing for shit that doesn’t matter.