“I’ve got you.” He rubbed a hand down her back. “Let it out.”
She sobbed into his throat with gutting force. He’d never heard such a heartbreaking cry. It was enough to trigger tears of his own, but he blinked them back, trying to be strong for her.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, stroking a hand over her hair. “I’ve got you.” It was the only comforting thing he could think to say.
Her tears soaked his skin as she pleaded in half-spoken thoughts. “Just…hold me. Please don’t…don’t let go.”
“I won’t,” he promised, unsure if he was outside of his jurisdiction.
This was not the ball busting girl he’d grown up with. This was someone deeply tortured by things he couldn’t see.
He was out of his depth and unsure how to help someone so closed off to others.
It took nearly an hour to calm her down, and even then she occasionally let out a shiver and gasp, little aftershocks from such a hard cry. She stared up at him, her lashes spiked and damp and her face blotched with hives.
Her makeup had washed away. The bruise on her cheek was still there, but it was faded and mostly yellow now.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” she whispered as he stroked a piece of hair behind her ear. That was the second time she’d asked him that. Did she honestly think he was that much of an asshole?
“I like you.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Do we ever really know why we like certain things?”
“But I’m mean to you.”
He laughed. “Not always.”
“When have I ever been nice to you?”
“You’re being nice now. I like when you’re soft like this. It’s when you’re at your prettiest.” He kissed the tip of her red nose.
Her bloodshot eyes looked away. “I’m fucked up.”
“Erin, we’re all a little fucked up. Whatever this is, I’m sure it’s not a make or break you thing. You’re strong and you’ve been through a lot this week.”
“You have no idea.”
His eyes met hers and he stilled at the openness staring back at him.
She looked away, her brow pinching into thin lines as she toyed with the gold crucifix hanging from his neck. “Did you ever want to say something, but when you try, your words don’t make a sound?”
“Sure.”
“That’s how I’ve felt most of my life.” She pressed the crucifix to his chest and stopped fidgeting. “I know what everyone thinks of me. I know how mean I’ve been. The way they think of me… It’s my fault. I chose to be a bitch.”
“People can change.” And how well did they really know her? The woman he saw tonight was not the woman he always suspected she was.
She looked up at him. “Do you actually believe that? Do you honestly think people can change at our age?”
“Yes, I do. But I also think it’s a lot easier for us to change than it is to change other people’s opinions of us.”
Her head sank against the pillows. “They’ll never see me differently.”
“How do you know? Show people a different side and they might surprise you.”
“I can’t. I hate feeling vulnerable around others.”
He was starting to figure that out. No vulnerability. No intimacy. “Why?”
The silence stretched and he wondered if she was trying to tell him but her words refused to make a sound. He scoured his mind for possible reasons a girl might be so intimidated by intimacy.
“Did someone force you to do something you didn’t want to do?”
She shook her head.
“But someone hurt you.”
She nodded.
“Someone close to you?”
She nodded again and a tear trailed down her face.
“Your brother?”
She didn’t shake her head or nod. He’d watched Harrison that afternoon, noting the way he stood by his sister’s side and held her arm for support. Siblings argued. Sometimes words hurt, but he didn’t believe Harrison would ever purposefully harm his sister.
“Maybe Harrison disappointed you, but he’s not the one who hurt you, is he?”
She looked up at him and shook her head.
That left one other person. “Your dad?”
Her lips trembled and she sucked in a sharp breath that shook like another aftershock of a sob.
Her dad hurt her? He pictured Ward and tried to imagine him angry. He couldn’t envision it. The guy always kept to himself and he had the best crumb cake around. Erin’s crumb cake.
He looked at her cheek, really looked at it. “How did you get the bruise on your face, Erin?”
She shut her eyes and he knew at that moment it hadn’t been from the car accident.
He pulled her closer, hugging her to his chest and kissing the top of her head. “Try to get some sleep.”
She just trusted him with a huge piece of personal information and he wanted to know more, but it was not the time to pressure her. His first instinct was to protect her, but from what? A ghost?