The Vows We Break - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,7

that she understands me. Few people would guess I’m actually an introvert, but she picks up on that, and we can actually sit in my living room and read together without uttering a word.

I love that about her. About our friendship.

The truth is, this helping people shit?

It’s...

Tiring.

A breath of air almost gusts from my lips at just how tiring it is, and it only doesn’t because it would make her look at me and prompt her to wonder what’s wrong.

She isn’t the first person I’ve helped, no, that honor goes to ‘the boy I failed,’ but she isn’t the second either.

Along the way, since David’s death two years ago, I’ve helped a few other people, and I got the feeling that was my calling in life.

To see the real person behind the mask they choose to wear. To see what’s being hidden.

I’ve started calling myself a watcher, and it’s why I’m determined to become a writer. I love people watching, and I know I have enough stories in me to create a thousand tales.

Each person who comes across my path, I know, will someday appear in a book.

I just haven’t figured out the story yet.

Diana bites her lip. “I-I don’t think I could—”

Because she looks so miserable, I have no choice but to reach for her. Only, the movement’s abrupt. Sharp. Inadvertently unexpected. And she flinches.

She fucking flinches.

And I know. I know exactly what he does.

He hurts her.

He beats her.

She catches my eye, and like that, the truth arcs between us as if it’s lightning spearing from one end of the sky to the other. Tears appear. And they’re not all hers either.

“Oh, sweetheart,” I whisper, and I move forward, shuffling down the length of my sofa to where she’s sitting on the floor, her back to it, her salad and my Kung Pao on the coffee table in front. I shove the table out of the way, plop my butt on the ground, and curve my arm around her, not stopping until she’s in a hug that we both need.

“You don’t have to deal with his shit anymore,” I rasp, squeezing her tightly, needing her to know she isn’t alone.

Not anymore.

She shivers in my arms. “It’s not as easy as that—” Her gulp is audible. “You know who he is.”

“Yes. It is easy. We can get you out of there, and we make it so that he’s too scared to touch you ever again.” More like petrified.

Diana twists slightly, her gaze catching mine once more. “How do we do that?”

“We threaten him.”

She sucks her bottom lip between her teeth before she repeats, “How do we do that?”

“We say we’ll tell everyone what he does to you.”

“He’s a powerful man,” she whispers miserably, shame shadowing her expression as she bows her head.

Like she’s to blame.

“So? All powerful men can be toppled from their pedestals. Don’t worry about that. Whether he’s powerful or not, he won’t like the truth being revealed, will he? He wants everything under his thumb—”

“He’ll never let me leave.”

My throat tightens. “Diana?”

“Yes?”

“I know he touches you—”

Her eyes clench closed like she knows the full extent of my question. “Yeah,” she whispers huskily, “in all ways.”

I squeeze her, and hope that I imbue some of my ferocity in her. “Never again,” I vow. “Never, ever, again. You don’t have to go back there. I’ll go to your place and get your stuff.” With the fucking police if I have to.

She blinks at me, her big green eyes batting behind her overlarge specs. They’re nerd-chic, and they suit her something fierce. She looks like a sassy secretary some guy would just love to have on his payroll.

Of course, the way she hides herself away now makes sense. The bastard is jealous. Jealous where his daughter is concerned. He wants her to conceal herself. Wants her to label herself as fat and ugly so she’ll never let someone into her life who’ll expose his secret.

My jaw aches from clenching down, and though it isn’t enough just to get her to leave his house, at the moment, that’s all I know she’s capable of doing.

Maybe, in time, she’ll press charges. Maybe she’ll tell the small town of Illsboro, Michigan, that her daddy is a child molester, but that’s up to her.

First things first, we need to get her out of that house, out from under his roof.

“Is your mom safe?” I ask, my brow puckering at the thought.

“Yes.”

More misery.

Do I even want to know that story? A story I can’t fix?

I