lap and had seen enough violence for one day. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her. I let out a deep breath and cupped her face, laying the gentlest of kisses on her bruised cheek before I said anything else.
“Jillian, I don’t know what happened, but I need to say this. It is, under no circumstances, permissible for him to lay a finger on you. There is nothing you could have said or done to deserve such an action.” I paused, letting out a deep breath while I tried to gather just the right words. “I promise you, it will be the last time. And he will regret this. He will regret harming you, disrespecting you, and not honoring your trust. I will make sure he knows—in no uncertain terms—that any such actions have consequences. Like beating the shit out of him to see how he likes it. And making sure he can’t do it again by ripping his arms out of his fuckin’ sockets—and beating him with them until he’s reduced to a bloody pulp.”
Jillian leaned up and put a hand on my arm, causing me to pause. “It’s okay, Grant. I’m okay. And I left as soon as it happened. I won’t let him ever get close enough to try again. I promise.”
I pulled her back to my chest and hugged her tight. “God, Jillian. When you called me, I never would have imagined. I honestly want to kill that fuckin’ bastard. It’ll be worth every moment I spend in jail if it means he can’t go near you ever again. Near any woman. I mean, I never would have let you go back anywhere close to him if I’d known he’d do this.”
She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand, wincing a bit when she brushed over her sore cheek. “He’s selling weed. And coke. You were right. I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to believe he was lying to me for so long. He swore to me a year ago that he was completely done with the stuff and I believed him.”
“Start from the beginning, and tell me what you need. Name it and it’s yours.”
“I was at his work, and he left to go get lunch. Some guy came and said he had a package. It seemed shady, ya know? Just the way it was delivered, and then it didn’t say anything on the box, like no name or anything. And I kept hearing your voice, your accusations. And I wanted to prove you wrong. So I opened it.
“God, Grant, I’d never been so freaked out in my life. I was holding ten thousand dollars’ worth of drugs. In that moment, all I could think of was the decades I’d spend in jail if anyone were to come in and catch me with it. So I flushed it. I flushed all of it. I didn’t want any part of it anywhere near me. Christian caught me.”
She paused, bringing her hand up to her cheek and lightly touching it. “You know, when I was sixteen and I first met him, I was so enthralled that someone so popular and so much older wanted a simple sophomore like me that I let it color how I saw him. My friends and I put him on some type of pedestal, like a movie star. I mean, he was the most popular boy in school, captain of the basketball team—and he chose me. I didn’t really know him, ya know? I knew his image, the one he pretended to be. And even after we started dating, I somehow convinced myself that the image was who he really was. I never looked too far below the surface. There were signs, and red flags, but I buried them. I didn’t want my image shattered. ‘Cause if I really confronted who he was, it meant that I had to face who I was: a shallow girl who didn’t care what he was really like because all I saw was a pretty face.”
I stoked her hair, running my fingers through the wavy strands. It helped assuage my anger, which was barely at bay just under the surface, primed and ready to come out if given the chance. My revenge would wait. Right now, I focused solely on her.
“I don’t believe that, Jillian. Everyone makes stupid mistakes in high school. We have no idea who we are at