I Have Lived and I Have Loved - Willow Winters Page 0,246

fucked up and you feel like you need to help him to make sure he doesn’t hurt me?”

I nod once at her analysis of the situation. My chest feels tight, and I hate how I feel restrained and like a damaged man for giving him this.

“Yes,” I tell her and scratch the back of my neck as I consider how to word my next question right, but she cuts me off.

“What do you think of me?” she asks me, and it catches me off guard.

“What do you mean?”

She chews the inside of her cheek for a moment. “You know what happened.” Her eyes dart to the door at the sound of Toby laying against it and making the door thud. “You know that I’m…” She doesn’t finish, and instead she looks me right in the eyes and asks, “Do you think I’m crazy?”

My heart thuds in my chest, and I hesitate to answer. “I don’t know everything-” I try to finish, but she cuts me off.

“Yes you do,” she says quickly in a whisper. “I’ll tell you a secret, John. No one left that house with a sound mind.”

Chapter 12

Robin

I don’t know what’s more disturbing, talking to John about what happened in the past, or staring back at the blinking red light. It’s just like the cameras that were in the ceiling. The ones that watched us in our room.

“You gave it to him?” I ask Jay, and he peeks over his shoulder as he continues to lead me up the stairs from the basement to the main floor.

“Gave him what?” he asks me. I tighten my hand on his as the wooden stairs creak. “The camera,” I reply, and the answer itself makes my heart hurt. My body tenses and I try not to close my eyes because I don’t want to see it.

‘I thought it would help,” Jay says as if it’s not fucked up.

He opens the door at the top of the stairs and warm light floods my vision for a moment.

“The room, the dog, the camera…,” I say without thinking and pull my hand from Jay’s to rub my eyes. When I pull my hand away, he’s staring at me, a look of worry on his face. “It’s not okay, Jay,” I whisper.

“It’s a second chance, little bird.”

He shifts from side to side, but his body is tense. “You don’t know what it’s been like,” he says in a tight voice, the anger coming through. “I’m trying, but some things need to be shown to him,” Jay says, and my throat constricts at the thought of John.

“Jay,” I speak softly, reaching my hand out to his, but he turns away and runs a hand through his hair. “Please listen.”

“We do it my way first,” he says, pushing the words through his teeth, his piercing eyes shining into mine and narrowed with authority.

“What if it makes it worse?” I ask him. He’s playing with fire. I can already feel the creeping heat threatening to consume us both.

He licks his lips and takes my hand in his, looking past me as he says, “We’re going to be alright, Robin.” The way he says it reminds me of when we were children, only then it was the opposite.

He’d never admit back then that there was hope. Never.

“Let me show you your room,” he says and then he blows out a low steady whistle. My muscles tighten as the large German shepherd trots into the room. With his tongue hanging out just slightly and his ears sticking straight up, he looks approachable, friendly even. But I can’t breathe.

“Jay,” I say his name like a warning.

Jay bends down, crouching on the floor and petting the dog’s head with both of his hands. “We have to face our fears, don’t we?” he says with a sad smile. I remember the scar on his leg from when he was a boy, and I take a hesitant step forward.

“Is that why you got him?” I ask him, but keep my eyes on the dog. My palms itch with a faint sweat, and my heart races. It took me years to overcome my fear of them. Even my family dog when I got home, a golden retriever named Chloe who was almost eight years old scared the shit out of me when she barked. I cried constantly, unable to stop the fear and the pounding of my heart, but knowing it wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t her fault. I loved her before, but the barking